India, Aug. 24 -- Apple may be heading toward a pricing decision that will say as much about the smartphone market as it does about the next iPhone. Component costs are moving in the wrong direction, rivals have already adjusted their prices, and Apple now has to decide how much of that pressure it wants customers to feel. That makes the next Pro model worth watching closely. The headline number matters, but the bigger story is what it could tell us about where premium smartphone pricing is going next.

According to a report citing Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is dealing with higher memory and chip costs. Those pressures are already showing up elsewhere in the company's hardware business. Apple recently increased prices across several M...