[dingaling]

Inflation calculation doesn't quite work like that. Mobile phones are part of the basket of consumer goods prices that are tracked ( with weightings applied to compensate for increasing complexity and capability ). So they help to define inflation, rather than being the outcome of it.

You'd really need to compare to average salary or purchasing power instead.

[ceejayoz]

It's a perfectly useful way of looking at it, but if you prefer:

Average salary 2007: $40,405.48; 2023: $66,621.80.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/awidevelop.html

[shuckles]

This logic doesn't make sense. The opportunity cost (i.e. the basket of goods you forego buying) of buying an iPhone is exactly the same as it was when the device first launched. No single good in the basket is such a large component of overall measure that you can't use inflated prices to understand, in relative terms, the cost of a good.