How Apple's iPhone Ate the New iPods

[MacBytes]

http://www.macbytes.com/images/bytessig.gif (http://www.macbytes.com)

Category: Opinion/Interviews
Link: How Apple's iPhone Ate the New iPods (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20070909214637)
Description:: none

Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)
Approved by Mudbug

[VanNess]

The iPhone price reduction and subsequent early adopter rebate is nothing more than the usual tempest in a teapot subject for idiot technology writers with nothing better to do.

Here's the real deal - come October (if not earlier), the iPhone price cut will be all but forgotten and the focus will be squarely on the products/features Apple is offering consumers, including the iPhone.

And the iPhone's current price sits right in line where it should with the rest of Apple's iPods as the premium, king of the beasts integrated solution with a price point that doesn't greatly exceed the current runner up for the title - the iPod Touch

[Trent0341]

The iPhone price reduction and subsequent early adopter rebate is nothing more than the usual tempest in a teapot subject for idiot technology writers with nothing better to do.

Here's the real deal - come October (if not earlier), the iPhone price cut will be all but forgotten and the focus will be squarely on the products/features Apple is offering consumers, including the iPhone.

And the iPhone's current price sits right in line where it should with the rest of Apple's iPods as the premium, king of the beasts integrated solution with a price point that doesn't greatly exceed the current runner up for the title - the iPod Touch

Hopefully it's sooner than October but either way I agree completely with this statement.

[numediaman]

I have no problem with the price cut (of course, I don't own an iPhone, and won't until AT&T improves its service), but Jobs did make an incredible blunder.

When rolling out new products, there is only one reason to announce a price cut: your new products suck. In this case, they don't.

By announcing the price cut at the same time as the product roll out, Jobs violated a simple rule -- never take the focus off the products.

What Apple should have done was to make the price cut announcement two weeks after the new product roll out. Give the new iPods two weeks of spotlight, then make the price cut announcement. I'm sure iPhone buyers would have been just as upset, but at least the new iPods would have gotten some traction.

It was a silly, stupid mistake. One that I bet Jobs does not repeat.