Ditch AI and overengineering
I, personally, like iPhone phones. Good build quality. Good ecosystem. Good hardware. But, please, cut the software engineering. You are doing it too much. Majority of people gonna buy iPhone phones cause its iPhone. And they will still just gonna play music and watch videos. Time to time call. Text a lot. Majority wont even use that much of offered software options. I believe that at least 30%-40% of costs can be reduced if you truly made a phone which actually is simple.
Good build quality and hardware is good, but I aint paying for stuff, which I wont even be using. Why you cant make a simple media, entertainment phone? Same old good display, frame, internals, cameras. You understand?
And paying for AI. Please, stop. Most of people dont even know why they are buying new iPhone. They just buy it cause its new. I dont need AI, personally, on my phone. Ok, let this AI optimize the work of hardware, yes. But please, nothing more.