Featured Image Credit: Credit: South China Morning Post / Contributor TONY AVELAR / Stringer / Getty
It was over 16 years ago when the first generation of Apple’s smartphone, the iPhone, hit the shelves of stores and changed the world of tech forever.
Anyone who remembers that day probably feels really old now, so sorry about that. And to add insult to injury, what we’re about to tell you will make you regret your choices back then, too.
That’s because a first-generation iPhone has sold at auction for a whopping $190,373 (£146,021), roughly 380 times its original price of $499 (£382.75).
Advert
LCG Auctions, which hosted the sale, said the 4GB iPhone model was 20 times rarer than the 8GB model, which was released at the same time for $599 (£459.44).
That is largely because the 4GB model was discontinued two months after launch given customer preference for the larger memory size.
“A new bar was set Sunday night,” said the founder of LCG Auctions, Mark Montero. “We are thrilled to be a part of this fantastic record-breaking sale.”
It is the third original iPhone to sell for record prices at auction in just over a year.
An 8GB model sold for $63,356 (£48,593) in February and another 8GB model fetched $39,340 (£30,173) in October last year.
The catch? You can't just sell any old used iPhone - all the models at auction have been factory-sealed in their original packaging.
Plenty of time has passed since the first iPhone came to market - we're now on the 15th model, and its success has helped make Apple the first publicly held company with a $3 trillion market value
However, owning an Apple product doesn’t always prove to be so lucrative - and can often be used in scams.
Take Anyon Rettinger, for instance, who was trying to be a Good Samaritan when he fell for an Apple Pay trick that ended up costing him $5,000 (£4,000).
Now, the 27-year-old is warning others to not fall foul of the same scam.
Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Anyon was approached by a young boy - no older than 12 years old, he said - while working on his car in his driveway.
Anyon told WISN the kid rode up on a Lime Electric Scooter, and asked if he could use his phone to contact a parent.
"He was scootering and his funds were running out and he'd gone too far," Anyon recounted.
You don't really have much reason to mistrust a kid in distress, so Anyon did what most of us would probably do in that situation - he unlocked his phone and handed it over.
And what the boy did with his phone in the blink of an eye will blow your mind.
Afterwards, Anyon realised the kid hadn't actually called his parents - but had, within seconds, opened Apple Pay and transferred the $5,000 to another account.
He couldn't get the transaction cancelled - it was deemed a 'valid charge' - and adding insult to injury, he was even charged an overdraft fee.
