You're literally describing my thought process, but I thought it was an older April 1st joke resurfacing.

Any tech focused social media site (or tech subcommunity on one) are having a fieldday poking fun and/or expressing how baffled they are.

In the tech world, this is a laughable proposition to most people even at $22.90 (though an order of magnitude more palatable at that price).

In the fast fashion world, this is pretty typical pricing for a seasonal trendy item with a "premium" brand/designer attached. Of course, that's predicated on the trend actually taking off, which isn't guaranteed. But all this social media activity around it in the tech circles is certainly boosting it's visibility to people in the fast fashion world that have iphones, which - going out on a limb here - wouldn't surprise me if it were a not-insignificant number.

Besides, at this price point vs what it is and what it costs to manufacture, even if it "flops" it's unlikely to be a big expense to write off.

Whether or not this tarnishes the Apple brand by shear ridiculousness of it remains to be seen, but Apple's general strategy in the post-Jobs era seems to be "Enshittify, just not as much/fast as everyone else and people wont want to leave even if they complain because we're still not as bas as everyone else"

At this point, you may as well get a powerpack for a mini and put it in one of these slings, you could have a crazy powerful machine in your "sock-et" sling thing here...

When the iPhone Air was just another huge phone...but thinner...smh. Apple should put up some page to check interest level in a smaller phone, and with enough interest, go manufacture it. If it is more expensive because economies of scale don't work out, but they create one that is small yet powerful, that's what I would buy at premium, because apparently compactness is a luxury.