iPhone iPricing iPalaver prompts iRebate

September 6, 2007

Just yesterday, when asked about reducing the price of the iPhone barely 10 weeks after release, Steve Job’s response was “..that’s technology“.

Today, after the early adopters, who were prepared to pay a stupid amount of money for the kudos of owning a locked-down, locked-in cellphone-cum-music-player, voiced their unhappiness, the thought of all those torch and, presumably, iPhone-wielding villagers descending on Cupertino was sufficiently scary to prompt Steve Jobs to do an about turn and offer them a $100 olive branch.

While everyone accepts that the price of any consumer electronic device will fall, no-one – especially not the crucial early-adopters who are prepared to pay a premium for, essentially, beta-testing the thing – expects to see it fall by that much, that soon.

In the end, this will cost Apple a few tens of millions to put right, but with the huge margins on the iPhone, it won’t really hurt them financially. The fact that Steve Jobs has acted so quickly speaks volumes about how good Apple are at responding to the mood of their customers, so unless they decide to rebate only those people activated their phones with AT&T, their reputation won’t be damaged by this either.

Posted in Apple, gadgets