OK, so lowering the price is really cool. No question about it. Not giving "early" (2 months?!) adopters anything? Not cool. Not cool at all. Apple continually releases new products and people feel screwed, this is nothing new... but usually they release a new product six months to a year after the previous one. They have never, ever released a brand new flagship product and then 2 months later reduced the price by 33%, without any recompense to the early adopters.
I expect reasonable business behavior from Apple. I expect that from all companies, but by and large don't get it and by and large don't vote my dollars towards those companies that behave badly. Apple is a business and it should make good business decisions. If it needs or wants to lower the iPhone price, great... more power to them. If they do it two months after the initial launch end screw the line-standing-in people for 33% of the price? They should compensate those people. Maybe not the full $200, I dunno, but more than nothing. The announcement should have been accompanied by an announcement of what they're doing for their customers who bought the thing early.
The fact that it wasn't is very bad form, IMO. The blogosphere is full of incredibly wise people who didn't buy it and are happy to shout about it, but the reality is that this isn't Right (tm), it isn't good business, and Apple should do something about it.
It doesn't have to be a check in the mail, but $100 or $150 store credit or something would be sufficient. We'll all be back to buy stuff anyway... that good will would go a long way. The lack of it will go a long way, too, in the other direction.
Most concerning to me is that, if I recall, a significant percentage of iPhone purchases were made by new Apple customers... customers who had never purchased an Apple product. Will they be pissed? I'm gonna guess so! Overall, not helping out the people who paid $200 more for the phone is astonishing. If I was a new Apple customer, this would be the end of my relationship with the company. Forget buying an iMac or something.
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