Every iPhone You Bought, or the Apple You Didn't — To Scale

Sixteen flagship iPhones over eighteen years cost about $14,800. The same dollars, put into Apple stock on each launch day, would be worth more than $135,000 today — about 9x. The gap between the two lines is the cost of the upgrade habit, priced in the company that sold you the habit. Split-adjusted (not dividend-adjusted) Apple close; conservative (skips the un-priceable 2008-2010 phones, which were the cheapest entry points).