Journalist seeks reaction to iPhone price drop

[watha2020]

We'd like reactions to the price drop. Does it make you more likely to buy an iPhone? If you already paid the higher price for the iPhone, do you feel cheated? I'd like to include your name, age, occupation and the community where you live.

Interested? Please contact me ASAP. Thanks.

Hiawatha Bray
Technology Reporter
Boston Globe
135 Morrissey Blvd.
P.O. Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819 USA
617-929-3119 voice
617-929-3183 fax
bray@globe.com
Recent writings: www.boston.com/business/technology/bray

[gcvt]

I bought my phone on iDay for $600. I don't care that the price dropped....happens all the time with consumer electronics. I'm still enjoying my iPhone just as much as I was yesterday.

As you can see in my info to the left and in my sig, I'm in San Francisco and my name is Greg. Im 38.

[becomingwater]

I know the price drop sucks for a lot of consumers, but it will bring more iPhones to customers! Faster updates and a better community for iPhone users. I have the 4G iPhone and will soon get the 8G version.
Chris
Destin, FL
34

USAF

[Romanesq]

Since I've enjoyed the iPhone from the weekend of its launch, I have no issue with Apple's cut. It will add to the support and software updates through its life and that means a lot more to me.

It's up to Apple to price its products according to consumer demand, not me.

I'm sure they know what their doing in that regard.

[skinsgamer]

I bought my iPhone from apple.com about 3 weeks ago, the product is amazing. I understand that price drops are part of the business but I am shocked. A price drop this large in this short amount of time is unprecedented.

[jbaraga]

I don't have anything to contribute re: the price drop (OK...I think it's too much, too soon), but I gotta say, Hiawatha Bray is definitely one of the coolest names I've heard in a long time.

[Velodog2]

Well, I wouldn't mind that I paid 600 for this amazing piece of technology 6 weeks ago, IF it did the things it said it would do without significant bugs/performance issues/crashes, OR if Apple had actually made fixing those things a priority, OR if they had made an attempt to add features that were glaringly missing instead of adding features that only made them more money.

Instead of making a phone that cost 600 worth 600 by fixing it's problems, they've simply marked it down to closer to its actual value. Not an optimum, world-class solution IMO.

[rittchard]

I find the whole thing rather distasteful and a slap in the face to the dedicated fanbase that helped make the iPhone a big success story only 2 months ago. Not to mention putting up with all the bugs and missing features and still spinning it positively to naysayers. I particularly found it completely lacking any class for Steve Jobs to talk about how much buyers loved their iPhones and the incredible positive feedback we've provided - and then turn right around and tell all those people that they had overpaid by $200 (a third of the price!). As a 38 year old heavy consumer of electronics, I have never felt this kind of disrespect or seen any consumer device price cut play out this way. Frankly it's disgusting.

Do I expect price drops on new tech as an early adopter? Of course I do. Has it ever happened by this much and this quickly (yet slow enough that I couldn't get a refund)? Hell no. At the bare minimum, Apple could have extended some sort of good faith gesture to current iPhone owners, such as a $50 iTunes gift card. At this point I'd even settle for an apology or acknowledgment to restore some good will.

[slingshot110]

Originally Posted by rittchard

I find the whole thing rather distasteful and a slap in the face to the dedicated fanbase that helped make the iPhone a big success story only 2 months ago. Not to mention putting up with all the bugs and missing features and still spinning it positively to naysayers. I particularly found it completely lacking any class for Steve Jobs to talk about how much buyers loved their iPhones and the incredible positive feedback we've provided - and then turn right around and tell all those people that they had overpaid by $200 (a third of the price!). As a 38 year old heavy consumer of electronics, I have never felt this kind of disrespect or seen any consumer device price cut play out this way. Frankly it's disgusting.

Do I expect price drops on new tech as an early adopter? Of course I do. Has it ever happened by this much and this quickly (yet slow enough that I couldn't get a refund)? Hell no. At the bare minimum, Apple could have extended some sort of good faith gesture to current iPhone owners, such as a $50 iTunes gift card. At this point I'd even settle for an apology or acknowledgment to restore some good will.

I could not have said it better myself - that is why I'm quoting rittchard

[WickedZ]

Here is my take on the iphone price drop…

It is perfectly normal in a product lifecycle to drop the price as the sales volume, and demand lower. This is especially true with cell phones. I feel that this price drop is not among that normal lifecycle. By dropping the price so early in the product lifecycle, it’s just showing consumers how overpriced the phone was to begin with. As an early adopter I feel punished for being first out the gate on the product, and feel cheated for giving apple my feedback on features I enjoyed, and missed. In good faith apple should give credit to those who purchased prior to the drop. The credit can be in cash, or maybe even 200$ of credit in the itunes store (where they will at least recoup some of the credit in profit).

If apple can afford to drop the price 33% within the first few months of the product release, it means that they gouged the consumer. To me this is illegal, but if not illegal, at the very least unethical. Why will I ever trust to purchase an apple product again? I bent over backwards to support their iphone, because I thought it was innovative and had a lot of potential. I talked my company into switching my plan from Verizon where we had a corporate discount, to AT&T where there was no business plan available for the phone. I lived through the headaches of the first month of bug fixes where the phone continually crashed, had battery issues, and was almost a beta product. The thanks I get is Apple sticking up their middle finger and yelling “Sucker…”. They should really make it right with those that were early adopters of what was already guaranteed to be a “test phase” of a release.

Apple has touted itself as a company that makes products “for the people”… I’ve always been reluctant to switch to apple products, I have always refused to buy into their PC market, and I stayed away from the ipod products for the first few years. I felt they had finally got to a point where they were offering innovative, useful, and completely new products to the market, I switched from iriver products to the ipod early last year. The iphone was a natural progression, ditching my Motorola Q (windows mobile) phone, and my Verizon service (superior data btw). I was perfectly content with the iphone, happy to have it, anxious to use it everyday, and glad to hear about how easily updates would be rolled out. Today’s news made me want to take it back, go back to my trusty Q where there were no “surprises” or misinformation. Unfortunately now I’m stuck in a 2 year contract with AT&T, and with 600$... excuse me 399$ worth of hardware that I paid 600$ for.

Nicolas Young, IT/IS Director
Los Angeles, CA
Age: 26