The writer is obviously anti-apple. I dont see them complaining when Intel/AMD or other computer parts discount prices at 30-50%... Any of of those gives their customer a rebate?

There hasnt been much article here that favours apple. And thats fact.

Oh why wont this thread go to three digits, I just cant stand IT!

Whine whine whine, Geoff...I smell Apple envy.

Early adopters did get something for their extra cash - the use of the phone before it hit reasonable price levels.

I feel your pain. Yesterday I bought milk and now I see there will be a sale tomorrow, half price. W0000000T!!!!!! That’s a 50% reduction in three days. I am writing an angry letter to the UN right now!

iPhone hype - I had to test if it really was so wonderful to pound your fingers into solid plastic. First I tested it on my daughters Fisher Price toys, didn’t do anything for me though, but maybe it was because it wasn’t expensive enough, so I tried it on the HTC Touch and boy do it suck. Wonder why this hasn’t been done before? Because it sucks! It is lame, lame and lame. Bought a N95, got it for free, W0000t?!, it has everything, GPS, two cameras, can record video, up to 8 gb storage and TV porn channels (I kid you not). So there...

:)

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/

One thing about this new format is that stories that are arguably obsolete stay on the front page longer than is useful... Since Apple announced that $100 credit that headline makes me cringe every time I read it, it kind of makes TR look out of the loop...

Edit: BTW, "Apple jacks" = teh funny... I didn't see another comment on it but I loved the humor... :)

I can't really understand why you would want one in the first place:

http://duggmirror.com/apple/The_iPhone_is_a_piece_of_shit_and_so_is...

Oh the humanity! the price fell faster than expected!

Geez, we have it rough in the west. We whine when toy luxury items known to have large markups fall in price at a faster than expected rate.

Everyone knew it was highly marked up, everyone knew the price would fall. It just happened a little faster than usual.

If you are whining about this, you really need to man up.

That $200 was the cost of using the phone at any time during the last three months. It's no different than the price premium on any new technology. You didn't complain when the Q6600 dropped in price by 50% in just three months.

Suppose they'd dropped the price by a third in just a week? Or a day? So what? If that's their business model, more power to 'em. If they can get suckers to pay twice as much to be the first kid on the block or keep up with the Jones for a single day, that's on those idiots, not Apple. I've yet to see a single iPhone ad that promised Apple wouldn't sell the thing for a penny tomorrow, and I've seen a gawd awful ton of iPhone ads.

Since when did you turn into such a techno-nanny, Geoff? Let people stand on their own two feet.

When the RAZRs first came out, they were premium priced at around $500. Within the year, they were down to $300. Now you get a free one just for signing a two year contract. Granted, the drop was more gradual, but it was still precipitous. No one got a hundred dollar store credit for a RAZR.

The cellphone market is fundamentally different than the rest of the CE business. Consumers are much more price conscious because they can usually get a free, fairly well featured phone for signing a contract.

Several things have happened. Apple has had a chance to gauge the public response. At some point, they must have found, just as most experts said prior to the iPhone's release, that the $599 and $499 price points were just too high to sustain a market. Early adopters and tech junkies may pay that kind of money, but the mass market would not.

Additionally, the mark up on these phones was astronomical. iSuppli figured that the cost to manufacture was around 50% of the price of the units. That's a lot of profit to work with if you are trying to spur sales.

I would also imagine that costs have declined over time. Apple is notorious for being tight with it's vendors. Flash memory is probably one of the biggest expenses and I imagine Apple has been able to negotiate better prices than the rest of the industry. I suspect that they are passing along some of that savings

Lastly, the iPod Touch is a huge factor. An 8MB iPod touch is priced at $299, which seems about right given the capabilities and the storage capacity. If they had held the line on the pricing, it would have meant that the addition of the phone part of the device would cost the consumer an additional $300. I don't think anyone would agree that this would be a good value. They were in a position where they either raised the price of the iPod Touch or they reduced the price of the 8MB iPhone.

So, they have reduced costs of manufacturing, the drying up of the early adopter market, the lack of a mainstream market because of price, and downward pressure on price as a result of other products they sell.

Dropping the cost was the most rational response. The fact that they were willing to throw the early adopters a bone in the form of a $100 gift certificate seems pretty classy to me, when there was no obligation (or expectation) for them to do so.

I don't think Apple jacked its users. It sold a premium product at a premium price.

A lot of people thought the price was too high. Sales fell. Apple's next new product was priced with that in mind, but one could not maintain the price of the iphone after tne ipod touch came out at price points reflecting what Apple had seen.

Now, Steve Jobs has offered a one-hundred dollar certificate for use at Apple stores to persons who bought the iphone at its earlier high prices.

This sounds like a good company to me, just one that got caught by surprise about its price points.

Geoff, your opinion piece is painfully biased. No-one held a gun to the heads of the iFanatics and forced them to pay $600 for an iPhone. They did the deed of their own free will, and they need to be accountable for their own actions.

I am sick to death of people blaming some big corporation for their own mistakes. If you thought that a $600 iPhone was a must-have item, and you bought it, be happy with the result. It's no less capable today than it was when you bought it two months ago.

If you thought that a $600 iPhone was a ridiculous expenditure, then pat yourself on the back for waiting until after the big price cut to consider purchasing one.

In neither case can you blame Apple for the result.

Let me get this straight. A company discounts a cool product and we're pissed?

So do we rejoice then when prices go up then? *scratches head*

EDIT: Also it's not difficult to see why they cut down the price. Have you seen the new iPods? For 399 you can have an iPod with more than double the capacity of the highest iPhone and opperates and looks almost identical to the iPhone (just no phone).

Finally, I have a number of friends/co-workers who were able to get partial to full refunds of the difference.

Purchased two 8 gig iPhones on August 5th. The $200 price cut was announced yesterday, September 5th, one month later.

Went by today to the local B&M Apple store where I purchased the two phones. Showed them the receipt, told them that it was still within the 30 days. They said Apple return and exchange policy is 14 days. I told them I am loyal Apple customer, showed them the receipts for stuff I have purchased from Apple over the last couple of years, and asked what they can do for a loyal customer. Got $400+tax refunded to my credit card, no further hassles.

Ask nicely, be patient and polite, don't throw hissy fits or temper tantrums, and Apple will take care of you.

Edit: Geoff - I know this is a blog post, but your anti-Apple bias is coming through. Just wanted to point that out for the record.

The teaser stopped at ...droves of Apple loyalists willing to line... I thought it would say ... the pockets of Steve Jobs. Is there any piece of electronic equipment that is worth what you paid for it the day after you buy it?

I have no sympathy for the early adopters. These are the same people gloating about how they love their phones and anxiously await the $2000 bill over two years.

Especially when it's for a marketing behemoth such as Apple. Most people who bought the product did so because it seemed cool, not to actually get work done or fill a functional void in their lives, which to me seems the only valid excuse for early adoption...

"Price cuts may be common in this business, but not that deep or soon after a product's initial launch"

Aren't CPU's cut around as much in a single price drop? Admittingly not 2 months after introduction, but 33% cuts aren't that rare in tech.

Overall though, I understand why they had to: they had to have the iPhone and iTouch sit on the same couch without causing a murder-suicide scenario between the two, and flash prices weren't favorable (ie: they probably couldn't cut a decent deal) for a 32GB iTouch sitting higher up on price ladder.

However it does give the feeling that Marketing and R&D missed a reunion in planning 2 steps ahead.

Oh, and about this whole argument, I think it's fair game: if I was a company and launched a product that the media/crowd sees as a Jesus-product, I'd rather sell it @ 600$ than sell it at 400$ and have my buyers sell it on Ebay for 600$.

So voicing my opinion once about a product I didn't buy is whining? Riiiight. You are right about me being lucky though. I work hard, have a great wife, and don't waste my money on $600 phones.

There are a lot of other products where buyers get stung like this... maybe not $200 in 2 months but some things halve in price... just look at the LCD/HDTV/Plasma market.... there has been massive price reductions over the last few years... imagine forking out a few grand to find in 6mnths the same panel is half the price, or you could get a much bigger or better quality screen... it's just progress

Personally I think that for an item like the iPhone you should expect to pay a premium to be one of the early adopters, I don't know of any other high end cell phones where that hasn't been the case. High end phones are targeted towards the segment of the market with an elitist mindset where people are willing to pay top dollar to get the latest and greatest. The iPhone itself was extremely hyped and had huge demand upon release, I thought I heard they sold out on the first day. How can you not expect to pay extra for a product like that?

It seems counter intuitive to complain that they cut the price too soon, cutting the price is a good thing. The sooner the better. If you didn't think the phone was worth ~$600 at release then why pay for it? To have forked over the cash at the time a person must have thought it was worthwhile, you always have the option to wait for technology to hit the mainstream and drop in price. 12 months from the release they may even have a newer much greater product for the same price.... everything moves on

apparently Jobs changed his tune:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070906/apple_iphone_apology.html?.v=14

pretty ballsy move.

All the Apple fanboys need to shut up about the price drop. If the phone was worth $600 to you when you bought it, it should still be worth $600 to you now. The fact that you can get it for $400 is irrelevant. You got what you paid for.

Just goes to show you that the good ol' RDF is working fine.

Apple just announced $100 store credit for existing iphone owners. the ire has forced them to appease their customers

Nobody forced the fanboys to pay $599. If they'd felt like they were being ripped off they wouldn't have purchased it in the first place.

You could think of it this way also. Apple only could sell x units initially but x+y people wanted to have one. So if you wanted to have one from the start you HAD to pay more then the y people were willing to spend. This is simple economics people. It's not some sensational rip off scam. You can just as easily think of it as a $200 discount for those that were willing to wait.

Apple made a mistake and some early adopters are angry, but the price drop will likely be beneficial to more people than it hurt.

There's no point whining about it, people know full well what they are getting into when they want a hot new product when it first comes out. If being an early adopter and paying full price bugs you, then wait next time. Going without the "latest and greatest" gadget for a few months won't kill you. People make the decision to be the first to buy something, it's not forced upon them.

I always thought falling prices are beneficial to consumers.
Not sure why do you complain... :-|

Pretty obvious. It's Apple. This is pretty standard as their business model goes.

For example. "Base" MacBook. Doesn't come with a DVD burner, just a combo drive (That's a CD burner and a DVD reader, for those who don't know). There is no option to upgrade to a DVD burner. However, the 2nd tier "mid level" has a DVD burner. And a couple of extra non-optional upgrades as well! Only another $200.

Or better yet. An order went out for an iMac the DAY BEFORE Apple refreshed their iMac line. They sent him the old one. He was pretty pissed.

How is this any different than when Apple keeps their product development secret so that someone who bought an iMac the day before a model refresh basically gets shafted with an immediately obsolete unit without any notice? And they keep on doing it because Macolytes are so damn blinded by the RDF that they think it's a strength of the company rather than the disservice that it is.

RDF is SOP for Apple.