Apple offers $100 credit to early iPhone suckers buyers

Apple's announcement yesterday that it would slash the price of iPhones from $599 to $399 less than ten weeks after the gadget's much-hyped debut stirred angry cries of protest from early adopters who shelled out the extra $200 to buy the "Jesus phone" when it first hit store shelves in July. Many of them felt used, disrespected and ripped off. That's not a surprise. This is:

[W]e have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store.

Kudos to Apple for doing right by its most loyal customers. It's certainly true, as Steve Jobs says, that "there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever" (having bought my current PowerBook just before the MacBook Pro's debut, I know all about that), but this was a rather extreme case of that phenomenon, and a case in which there were an awful lot of "someones," many of them fanatical Apple fans... precisely the people the company doesn't want to piss off too badly. I think this offer of $100 -- even though it's only half the price difference, and even though it's store credit, not a cash rebate -- will go a long way toward softening the blow. If the comments on Macworld are any indication, it looks like most people are pretty happy.

Comments

[David K.]

I hate that term "Jesus" phone. Not for religous reasons, but because Apple isn't trying to make it the best phone for EVERY single thing in the world like it implies, but that they are trying to make it the best phone for what it DOES do.

[David K.]

Oh yeah, and only Apple can get slammed for giving a price cut on a product...

[Bonnie]

We were in the WestFarms Apple Store last night picking up our new iMac and there were several iPhones with happy new owners. People seemed as if they had been waiting for the drop and were quickly ready to move.
The iMac took 5 minutes to setup and is working beautifully!

[Angrier and Angrier]

Brilliant move. Overprice your over-hyped phone so that you don't meet your numbers. Then, piss-off the people who did buy your phone by slashing the price only a couple of months after it hits the market. Oh, and let's not forget that whole AT&T as the exclusive carrier bullshit.

Steve Jobs may be a brilliant marketer, but in this instance he really has snapped defeat from the jaws of victory.

[David K.]

AA, your a moron.

1) The iPhone outsold every other smartphone in August
2) The iPhone has allready sold over a million iPhones
3) An exclusive carrier was the only way to get some of the features that make the iPhone as succesful as it is, AND its part of the current market structure. Apple can only do so much to change things.

Yeah, that sure sounds like defeat to me...

Playin' with Apple is like playin' with David's emotions.

[Angrier and Angrier]

"AA, your a moron."

It should be "AA, you're a moron."

I guess it takes one to know one.

[David K.]

Yes, clearly using the wrong "your" is on par with being utterly and completely wrong about something and spouting off about it. Thank you for proving my point.

[Angrier and Angrier]

"Yes, clearly using the wrong "your" is on par with being utterly and completely wrong about something and spouting off about it. Thank you for proving my point."

Utterly wrong? Did Apple not cut the price of the iPhone because they weren't meeting their sales goals? Are people who initially bought the phone at the higher price not bitching now about the price cut? Haven't people made a concerted effort to make the iPhone workable with other providers to the chagrin of Apple and AT&T? Hasn't the news media covered these developments relentlessly for months?

No, I'm not the moron here.

[David K.]

Yes AA you ARE the moron.

Reducing the cost to meet sales goals is an ASSUMPTION you are making, not a fact.

People bitching about the high price, are in my opinion, a vocal minority of whiners, and while Apple is doing some good will in giving them a $100 gift, this is not something that is unprecdented, or even unexpected in the tech industry. If it weren't Apple doing it it wouldn't have been criticized by the media it would have been praised.

ATT is pissed about unloking the iPhone, Apple could probably care less. If it sells more iPhones they make more money. And welcome to te 21st century dumbass, there are groups who try and unlock/hack just about any gadget out there. PSP's, DS's, xbox 360's, the Apple TV, the iPhone, etc. If its out there they will hack it.

Of course your ORIGINAL point was that Apple wasn't selling to their goals (they said a million, an GASP they sold a million) and that its overhyped, which the market has certainly decided its not by having the iPhone outsell EVERY SINGLE OTHER SMARTPHONE.

You claim Steve Jobs pulled defeat from the jaws of victory. If our definition of defeat is beating out all competitors and having a product that attracts so much attention that people are willing ot risk BREAKING THEIR MULTI-HUNDRED DOLLAR PHONE so they can use it on other carriers and in other countries, then DAMN, i wish i could fail that well.

If you want to know what defeat is, look at the Appy State/Michigan game. If you want to know what success is, look at what Apple is doing.

[gahrie]

A & A:

Uh Oh..watch out..they will be declaring a fatwa on you next.

You can't criticize Apple or Jobs.

You only chance is to convert...repeat after me...

"There is no god but Jobs, and Apple is his product..."

Next you have to pledge to run out and buy the next five products released by Apple as soon as they are released, and then fill the internet with praise for them.

Lastly you must make a ritual pilgrimage to Cupertino and sacrifice a PC on Apple's corporate lawn.

[David K.]

gahrie, there's nothing wrong with being critical, but when the facts refute everything he is saying? Sorry but i didn't realize having an opinion about something meant criticize of it wasn't allowed. And i didn't realize being critical of someone elses comments meant you were a zealot.

[gahrie]

David K.

Are you saying that if this had been Dell or Motorola and not Apple, you would have rushed to their defense?

Methinks not.

Anyway..my post was meant to be funny, sorry if it struck a little too close to home......

[David K.]

Rushed to their defense? Probably not, because I don't have an interest in them, but if someone else did, well calling them a zealot would still be wrong. You may have been meaning to be humorous, but the sad thing is reasonable fans of Apple get called zealots all the time, and yes its annoying, especially when the attacks are baseless. I hate to say it but alot of your humor comes across as being an insult, as was the case of your previous post about the Michigan game. You may not mean it that way, but thats the way it comes across.

[gahrie]

Wait...this is priceless...David K is accusing ME of being insulting?

[David K.]

I said your last couple joking comments came across that way, I was trying to have a civil discussion. I guess you aren't interested in that though.

[gahrie]

You begin this thread with a fairly passionate defense of Apple, spend the middle of the thread calling some one a moron for criticizing Apple, and then spend the last part of the thread being offended at me for making a joke about people who seem to worship Steve Jobs. I think someone could be forgiven for mistaking you for a zealot.

I guess I would be more willing to believe you about wanting to be civil if you had any track record of actually being civil.

My joke on the Michigan thread was a slam on Carr... he forgot everything he knows about football, get it? The only reason your name was used was because you made a previous comment about him.....

My joke on this thread was about Apple worshippers in general.

Frankly, I think both jokes were pretty good.

Light'en up Francis.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

David K calling someone a moron is like Hitler condemning someone for being a Nazi.

True that.

[David K.]

Ah i see, since you can't rebut my argument, you instead devolve to the personal attacks Max. Sad, quite sad.

[David K.]

gahrie, yes I defended them, and yes I called AA an idiot, but NOT for attacking Apple, but for saying things that were demonstrably false. If he had criticized Apple with facts or arguments that were actually true that would be something else entirely, there are plenty of criticisms he could have made, but he called the iPhone a failure despite the obvious success its having. Sorry but when you make an argument thats not backed up by any facts, and is in fact contradicted by them, especially if you are AA, that makes you a moron.

Second, the joke you made about Carr, well when you say "person x has forgotten more about subject y than you will ever know" it generally is seen as an insult not to person x, but to the person who supposedly doesn't know as much. And yes being called a zealot is also insulting, when again, my point was valid and backed up by facts. I suppose defending something makes one a zealot in your mind and if so i can't help that.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

David K-

There's no point in trying to rebut arguments that rebut themselves.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

I don't see where A&A called the iPhone a failure. I think he said it was overhyped and that Jobs is making the situation worse with some of his recent actions. Saying that Jobs snatched "defeat from the jaws of victory" isn't the same as calling a product a failure. If anything, it means the iPhone deserves better - such as being priced appropriately in the first place.

[gahrie]

1) It really is tiresome to explain your jokes....

2) Second, the joke you made about Carr, well when you say "person x has forgotten more about subject y than you will ever know" it generally is seen as an insult not to person x, but to the person who supposedly doesn't know as much.

True..and actually that was part of the joke.....and was why I didn't finish that quotation. You see when you read it, imagine me as a Michigan supporter trying to defend Carr, who realizes halfway through his defense, that he is actually saying that Carr has forgotten all he knows about football, which might explain why he is such a crappy coach, and that Michigan has been playing so crappy lately.....get it? I'm cracking on Carr. Michigan supporters, and that stupid maxim that actually is self defeating all at the same time.

I know ...too subtle. All I can say is that it killed in the staff room....

[gahrie]

I suppose defending something makes one a zealot in your mind and if so i can't help that.

That's the second time you have said this. Again it's not that you defended Jobs and Apple, it's how you (and many, many others) defend Jobs and Apple.

[David K.]

Ok fine, HOW did I do it? By pointing out factually based arguments that showed AA was wrong. HOW does that make one a zealot?

[Mad Max, Esquire]

gahrie-

You have to excuse David K. He can't comprehend that his defense of Steve Jobs as infallible is irrational. You can't rationalize with someone who is irrational.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

How was AA wrong? Everything he pointed out actually happened!