The Most Expensive iPhone Is Not The One You Think

Compared to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, the original iPhone is a useless, archaic emblem of a time before selfies, Angry Birds, and iMessage. And yet, when you go on eBay, you'll see that not only is a "new" (read: still packaged) first-generation iPhone 2G still in demand, it's the most expensive iPhone on the market. The Daily Dot reports that the original iPhone is selling for between $1,000 and $8,500. At its lowest, the original iPhone is still $231 more than the iPhone 7 Plus. If you can't remember the first-generation iPhone — or didn't have one — here's a quick refresher: The two-megapixel camera had zero low-light functionality, and could only capture blurry, discolored photos at best. (It definitely can't hold a candle to today's 12-megapixel iPhone 7 camera.) It could access the internet, but only across a 2G network (companies such as AT&T don't even support 2G networks anymore). And no operating system newer than iOS 3.1 will work on it. This means that it can't run any major apps, including Facebook, Google Maps, and Spotify, since they all require at least iOS 7 to work properly. So, why are people shelling out thousands of dollars for a phone that is not even a fraction as good as Apple's latest model? It's bizarre to think of a product that launched in 2007 as a relic, but that's what the first-generation iPhone has become. Think about it: The iPhone was the first real touchscreen smartphone. Years from now, historians will likely look at it as something that marked a cultural turning point from a time when our cell phones were useful, but not essential, to a time when they became things that rarely left our hands. Where would Instagram and Snapchat be without the iPhone? Our ways of communicating have shifted almost entirely from what they were like in a pre-smartphone world. In the future, the iPhone 2G could sell for prices rivaling those of a Monet or van Gogh. If you're regretting upgrading yours instead of hanging on to it, know that you're not alone.