What metrics would you use to determine if an iPhone is better quality than older models?

Quality sounds rather subjective and they did not always calculate CPI with taking that into account. Seems like they don't share the criteria they use to determine 'quality'.

They added the quality weight to make the overall numbers look lower. I have zero idea if that distorts it, or makes it more correct.

For something like an iPhone you can just use the price that consumers are willing to pay to determine if it's better than older models. When a new model is introduced the retailers still have the old model in stock and continue selling it. If consumers are willing to pay more for the new model then it has higher value to them.

Here's a detailed example (with math!) of the CPI Hedonic Quality Adjustment for TVs.

I found it by googling "CPI quality adjustment".

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/quality-adjustment/questions-and-ans...

"Hedonic regression model" sounds fancy and all, but look at their charts just filled with arbitrary numbers accessing various features. Funny to see how they weighted various, now failed, technologies/features.

They share the information and document it. Please don't succumb to some conspiratory thinking.

They can't take everything into account and hedonic adjustments is used for only small percentage of products. That's one reason why it overestimates inflation.

I don't think the folks that make the CPI are part of some vast conspiracy. I just question their methods. Like all numbers from the government, politics are involved.

You can believe they are (slightly) wrong and not be a "conspiracy theorist/thinker" at the same time.

>Like all numbers from the government, politics are involved.

Not really. Details of how CPI is calculated has never been political issue.