Apple's iPhone, the New International Currency
I’ve been paying my bills with iPhones. Not with apps or on bank sites—I’ve been using the Apple ( AAPL)
hardware as currency.
It started by accident in December, during a business trip to New York. I live in Rome, where domestic work
comes cheap and technology is expensive. An unlocked, gold, 32-gigabyte iPhone 5s that costs about $815
with tax in the U.S. goes for €839 (about $1,130) in Italy, roughly a month’s wages for workers who do laundry,
pick up kids from school, or provide care for the elderly. When one worker heard I was visiting the States, she
asked me to pick her up an iPhone in lieu of the equivalent cash for work she’d done. Lining up inside the
Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, I was surrounded by shoppers speaking languages from around the world.
The salesman looked stunned when I said I wanted an unlocked iPhone. Just one?
More at: businessweek.com
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