Apple turns 50 this year. The company and its partners are doing all sorts of things, but Caviar’s new Jobs Edition version of the Apple iPhone 17 Pro is taking it a little far. There’s a very limited number of these customised phones available, and they come with something special: a bit of Steve himself.
Allegedly, anyway. And not actual human DNA, either. Apparently, the limited-run iPhone will include “a titanium Apple logo encasing a fragment of Steve Jobs’ original black turtleneck.” Said fragment will have its “authenticity confirmed by certificate.”
iPhone: Jobs Edition
Which means purchasers won’t be able to directly touch, lick, or extract enough data from the fragment to clone Mister Jobs. But it’ll be there. Promise. But to access one, you’ll have to nab, specifically, one of the nine Jobs Edition 50th anniversary phones. You… really don’t want to know what they cost.
The (non-Jobs) custom black-and-titanium version of the iPhone 17 Pro (or Pro Max) should prove more attainable. Those start at R116,000 and run all the way up to R150,000 for the 2TB iPhone 17 Pro Max version. Should you want your Apple logo in 18-karat gold, you can expect to pay at least R141,000. For 2TB of storage in the Pro Max, costs rise to R174,000.
The ‘base model’ Jobs Edition iPhone 17 Pro — which is functionally identical to a regular 17 Pro — starts at R165,000 ($9,630). Pro Max that 17 and max out the storage, and you’ll pay R186,000. It’s almost a bargain, really.
Caviar justifies its pricing via the materials upgrade — the titanium housing features a carbon rear panel, plus the customised logos — and the limited number of phones being produced. But for Apple fanboys, nothing will beat the bragging rights gained by slipping a sliver of Steve’s sweater into their slacks. Even if you can’t actually prove it.
