The recent $200 price drop for the iPhone has triggered a lot of anger from early adopters. It's a nuanced issue, and there are several ways of looking at it.
Two hundred dollars in ten weeks - what a slap in the face to Apple's core customers, some of whom waited hours in line for the device and were notoriously broadcast doing so in the news. Tech products do tend to rapidly fall in price (as Apple noted in its open letter to iPhone owners after the price cut was announced), but this seems particularly steep. In the beforementioned letter, Apple sites ramping up sales for the coming holiday season as one of the reasons for the price drop. Holiday season? but it's September? Looks like Apple is getting caught up in the Christmas creep too. [more]
To sweeten the deal, a $100 Apple Store credit (not applicable to iTunes purchases, however) for iPhone owners was announced the day after the price drop (presumably after negative customer feedback). Nice gesture, certainly, but not announcing this at the same time that new iPods and a new iPhone price was announced seems to be a mistake (one of several, perhaps). Such a mistake, that Apple stock fell after the announcements at a time when the stock should have risen on the news of re-designed iPods (the iPod Touch and the new "fat" video Nano). Not only did the price drop anger me personally, but peaved Jamilya a little, as I had excitedly told her to buy Apple stock the night before for her mock stock trading exercise in her finance class (I really should just stick to programming).
And what do I hear this morning while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, MacBreak Weekly, in an episode entitled "Repeal the Nerd Tax" (taken after a Bill Maher segment)? Apparently, $200 is not a big deal and was worth it to have the iPhone for an extra two months of nerd bragging rights over people getting it for cheaper. Well then, maybe I'm just a sour puss. But wait... let me think for a minute about the web celebrities I'm listening to:
There's host Leo LaPorte, who talks about getting sent a free iPhone from a fan so he could try various hacks on it while not risking any down time with his main iPhone. Then there's famous GTDer Merlin Mann, who held out for several weeks after the iPhone was released in seeming defiance of the mainstream only to be given an iPhone by someone just for, ya know, simply being Merlin Mann. Lastly, there's Scott Bourne, who produces the Apple Phone Show podcast, brags about giving an iPhone to each member of his staff, and personally owns so many iPhones that he has his own Chuck Norris-like facts page. Maybe there's a little bias here.
Even still, I still very much love my iPhone. It's the best smartphone I've seen, and I use it so much that I've come to think of it as an integrated augmentation to my brain (and I'm only half joking). I also really enjoy MacBreak Weekly as well as several other This Week in Tech podcasts, and I'm very grateful for the free content they deliver.
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