Apple's COO Jeff Williams says he is 'aware' of concerns over iPhone, Mac prices

Apple is ‘aware of’ concerns over iPhone and Mac prices. In a brief speech at Elon University, Apple’s COO Jeff Williams discussed a variety of topics and spoke of his history in joining Apple in 1998. [caption id=“attachment_6150301” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] Apple’s COO Jeff Williams explains the reason for increasing cost that goes into development of Apple products. Image: Reuters[/caption] In the short speech that took place last Friday, Williams talked about **Apple’s** ‘incredible growth’ since he joined the Cupertino tech company. The COO took questions from students in the audience and during the Q&A session, a student raised a question regarding Apple plans to reduce product prices. The student further cited a report that claimed that the manufacturing of an **iPhone** only costs $350. Williams, however, dismissing those reports suggested that the actual cost of development isn’t considered in these analyst reports. “The stories that come out about the cost of our products [have been] the bane of my existence from the beginning of time, including our early days,” Williams was quoted as saying in The Times News report, the Burlington tabloid who covered Williams’ speech. “Analysts don’t really understand the cost of what we do and how much care we put into making our products,” he mentioned. The Times News in its report described the length Apple has gone to for its product development. Williams taking Apple Watch as an example explained the reason for the increasing cost that goes into developing a product. The COO mentioned that to build the **Apple Watch** activity tracker, the company built a physiology lab with 40 nurses and enlisted 10,000 participants to study how calories are burned in fitness exercises. William did concede the concern of Apple products rising price point and said that Apple doesn’t want to be an elitist company. “It’s something we’re very aware of,” he said. “We do not want to be an elitist company. That’s not what we want. We want to be an egalitarian company, and we’ve got a lot of work going on in developing markets.” Apple premium iPhones pricing has been cited as one of the critical factors in slow iPhones sales in the last quarter by analysts and tabloids. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook earlier said that there are several factors affecting iPhone sales, mostly in emerging markets. But one cannot undermine the fact that Apple iPhones prices have unduly increased since the past few years with the latest **iPhone XS Max** touching the highest price record in iPhone lineup— $1099. However, Apple now seems to be paying due attention in this area, as the company has begun reducing the price of the iPhone for third-party distributors in China. As per reports, the company might make a similar move in other emerging markets including in India.