Apple, one of the most popular tech companies in the world and the richest American company in 2018, has an ever growing reputation of selling rather high-priced products. Yet one must ask themselves, are these prices really worth it? Is the Apple Watch really worth up to $400? Is an iPhone really worth almost $500 or more? And are Airpods, the most debated trend since they were first released at the end of 2016, really worth their $160 price? My answer to this is that, in most cases, the answer is simply no, these products are not worth their rather high price markers.

While Apple products are no doubt nice, I really don’t think that they are worth the money that the company asks for them. Let us start by taking a look at the Apple Watch. It is no secret that the Apple Watch does indeed have a lot of features that can be used for a variety of situations. With a heart rate sensor, the ability to stream music, a workout tracker that tracks calories burnt and time exercised, sport-specific features, a radio feature, and the ability to talk to Siri, plus more, this watch truly does have it all. The thing is that while all of these features are centrally located in the watch, actually getting to them can be tedious, and the simple fact is that unless you are a serious athlete or are just too lazy to pull your phone out of your pocket to do stuff, you won’t actually use half of the features on the watch to begin with. It would be cheaper and more affordable to simply buy something like a Fitbit, which can perform the functions of heart-rate monitoring and tracking calories burnt, and if you needed extra apps for specific sports there are apps out there that can be installed on a phone, Fitbit, or other device that are extremely cheap, much cheaper than the Apple Watch’s $400 price tag.

Moving on, a more controversial Apple product: Airpods. These things are, indeed, quite nice. They have the ability to talk to Siri, are completely wireless, can detect when they’re in and out of your ears and pause and play accordingly, and have around a five-hour battery life if you’re constantly streaming music. While these are nice, they are by no means worth $160. I mean, that’s the same price as a decent phone. If wires really bug you, you don’t need something so expensive. It’s just not worth the price. A pair of wireless headphones can cost only around $60-$80 for a nice pair. Don’t want to carry around the headphones? Jbuds are only $50 and they’re basically the same thing, just without Siri. Go get a pair; they’re far more affordable and still sound nice. Are the ‘auto-detect’ and Siri features of the AirPods really worth the extra $100? I hardly thinks so.

If there’s one thing that Apple gets right, it’s that they add way too many buttons and dials than necessary. There’s only one product where I would hesitate that saying the price is too much, and that would be the iPhone. Like all other Apple products, it has a ton of different features, yet the iPhone also has a rather high quality to it. It has an amazing camera that could be used even for, arguably, professional photography, a rather advanced display, a high amount of processing power and things like face-password detection and fingerprint locks. It also comes with special features like in-text games to play with others, a special custom animated emoji feature, and the ability to airdrop. Unlike the other Apple products I’ve talked about, you are likely to actually use most of the features on the iPhone, which is probably the only reason I wouldn’t easily dismiss it as overpriced. While it certainly isn’t affordable, seeing as it costs almost twice the price of the average phone, it does have actual features that could be used, debatably, by many on an everyday basis. 

To put in a final simple statement, Apple products are really just not worth it. They may have many features, but the chances that you’ll use even half of them are low, and there are more affordable options out there that can do almost the exact same thing with features that you will actually use.