As an early iPhone adopter, am I upset that they dropped the price to $399?
6 September 2007My answer: Not really.
I think people are making a big fuss out of this because it was a big announcement and people who already owned iPhones are taking it as an ‘in your face’ move from Apple.
I spent over $1,200 purchasing my wife and I iPhones when they were released back on June 29th (roughly 2.5 months ago). I thought at the time that this was quite a bit for the device, but my wife and I were both excited to get our hands on one.
Yesterday Steve Jobs announced that the 8GB iPhone is now only $399, which means I could have purchased a THIRD ONE for free. I think this is how many people who already own an iPhone took this announcement, but I think you have to put this in perspective:
The iPhone is an electronic device no different from video cards, processors or memory. It’s already been accepted in IT that what you pay for your computer today will be TWICE as much as you would pay six months from now. I think this is a fact that a lot of consumers have come to terms with.
The Intel Q6600 processor is a perfect example of this in action. People who purchased this processor back in January of 07 paid almost $1,000 for it. Three months later in March? $875. How about after Intel “cut prices” around June? $550!
So no more after six months after release the Q6600 CPU had dropped to almost half it’s initial price and today, only nine months later, it can be had for a paltry $265.
So as an early adopter of a technology, personally, I’m happy to see that Apple has dropped the cost of the iPhone because this will mean more market share for the phone I’m currently using. More market share means more support and more pressure on Apple to keep it up to date with the latest and greatest features.
But, as a person who spent $1,200 over two moths ago and would have only spent $800 today? Damn.
You know how it goes though, early adopters pay through the nose for the latest and greatest technology. 
UPDATE: Apple is doing something I’ve never, ever seen done by a company after announcing price cuts. They’re going to be refunding people who have already purchased iPhones $100 of Apple Store credit which can be used at an Apple Store or online. I have never seen this before and I have to applaud Apple for their decision. They really try to take care of their user base.
One more thing to note is that Apple is giving users refunds in a means which will allow them to buy tangible Apple products. Apple didn’t just cop out and give out $100 in iTunes credit, which really only costs Apple bandwidth and royalties. This allows someone like me to go get a ‘free’ Gigabit Airport Extreme.
Pretty swank!
One Response to “As an early iPhone adopter, am I upset that they dropped the price to $399?”
September 7th, 2007 at 7:37 am
IAWTP
September 12th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Yes, they gave you $100 Apple credit. So you can buy more Apple stuff. You didn’t get a real cash refund
And the problem with the iPhone’s price drop is that they did it too quickly (within 2.5 months), dropping 33% of it’s value. It’s great for people who want one now (and rumor has it their sales are up 200%) but not so great for the early adopters. The Apple credit/”refund”, like I said, is just to get you to buy more of their stuff.
It doesn’t affect me, so I don’t really care. It’s kind of a lame/smart move by Apple, though, depending on how you look at it. It still isn’t enough to get me to want one. I hate AT&T as well as GSM, and a lack of certain features on the phone, namely proper Outlook/Office integration. I’m suck with my Q for now.
September 13th, 2007 at 5:36 am
I think what I don’t mind personally about the rebate is that I was planning on getting another Airport Extreme base station anyways
So it works out in my favor.
I think the argument could now be, how soon is too soon for a price drop?
The argument that I was making is that it’s an accepted fact that early adopters pay the high price, and that I support a price drop because as a consumer who owns the device it increases its market share.
I can’t speak to the Outlook/Office integration though. I’m still able to open Word Document attachments on the iPhone and have access to all my e-Mail via IMAP.