8GB iPhone- now just $399
It’s always mass hysteria when the faithful gather for a confab with his Jobsness and Kevin’s already got all the details over all the wonderfully cool things he announced today. I will say this, Jobsy has something to say to all of you who picked up the iPhone when it first came out. You know, all of you who stood in lines for hours or days so you’d get your phone from the very first batch of iPhones. Yep, his Jobsness had this to say to you the faithful- the 8 GB iPhones will now cost just $399, a whopping $200 drop from the $600 you paid. Take that and like it! Don’t you feel so used?
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
Looks like we were thinking the same thing at the same time; see my post a minute before. Let me state this: I have NO PROBLEM paying what will eventually be a premium for me to have a device early in the lifecycle. However, this much of a premium (33%) just a tad over two-months in the lifecycle is not acceptable. I’m hoping that Apple will do something for the early adopters; if not for me who has had the iPhone for about 45 days, at least they should do something for the folks that bought one yesterday. I don’t regret the device purchase, but I’ll be disappointed if Apple doesn’t do something for folks that bought in the last 2 to 4 weeks.
Yikes! I was catching up on the transcript of Jobs’ presentation on another site and I had to read it twice to make sure I read it right. They’re discontinuing the 4 GB iPhone already, and a $200(!!!) price drop on the 8 GB iPhone.
Wow! That’s a consumer’s worst nightmare — a significant price cut soon after your purchase, but too late to benefit you. There are going to be some angry customers out there.
WOW! Just about exactly what I have been looking for. I Just wanted a bit larger screen and storage but I can live with it.. This is what the Palm Life Drive should have been!
Is this going to be considered a UMPC? It looks to provide the FIE. I want one !
Yeah thanks for the middle finger gesture Steve. Like Kevin, I expect to pay a premium to be an early adopter, but 33% is ridiculous and unprecedented! Apple should at least give us all a $50 iTunes gift card to ease some of the pain. It really sucks for those who just passed the 14-day return period and now don’t even have the option of gaining back at least $140.
No, I don’t feel used.
I bought the iPhone because I was pretty sure I’d learn a lot from it, and I have. I’d pay the $200 to have that experience a few months earlier.
And if you begrudge Steve a lousy $200, what are you doing buying Apple products in the first place? That’a a mere pittance. Where’s your faith man!
On the other hand if he wanted to give each of us a free Airport Extreme, I wouldn’t complain, and I’d deploy it right away. :-)
Well.. sucks for me. What else is there to say?
Funny thing, first thing someone asks when I pull out my iPhone is ‘How much did you pay?’.
Now I can tell them I paid $600, but you can pay $400. Sucks for me, good for you.
Dave, it would be just my luck if we all got a free AirPort Extreme. I ordered (and blogged it) one of those just yesterday. Oy! :)
Obviously Apple has the right to price its products however they choose and to change those prices whenever they want.
But why go looking to upset people unnecessarily? What would it have taken to make the price cut without creating the amount of bad-blood they are…an iTunes card or a discount on an accessory fpr the phone? It would have gone a long way to people not feeling as upset as they are. Dumb Dumb Dumb
It’s the cell phone market. It’s a whole different pricing war.
BTW – My truck is being offered with a 1000 cash back 2 months after I bought it. Does it make me feel used? Nah, it’s just the way life goes.
If it gets you upset over this stuff just don’t buy stuff when it first hits the market.
Sure glad Kevin is here to help balance the Apple hate :-)
I think the problem here is that when the price drops that quickly, it suggests that the real value of the device we purchased is $399 (less if you bought a 4GB device like me) and that they lied to us when they sold it to us for more. It wasn’t a matter of demand, because you could (and can) walk into any Cingular store and get one after the first two days. It clearly isn’t a matter of cost since clearly they can sell it for a lot less.
Rather, it was just a grab for as much cash as they could get, and while I don’t begrudge a company the right to make a profit, I do begrudge a company that tricks their most loyal customers into paying more than they know they plan to sell it for in 60 days.
I still like my iPhone, but I won’t be telling other people that they “have to get one of these” now. I simply can’t trust Apple at the moment.