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iPhone price cut: Official response from Steve Jobs

saving face?

roland.g said:
Saving face. Nice move. ...
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I don't see this about "saving face" at all. Apple did nothing wrong or unusual here in the first place. All they did was try to give people a break and they got caught in an avalanche of crap from a few thousand whiney babies. 😱

This is more about stuffing a big lolipop into the babies' mouth just to shut it up.
 
This is a brilliant move by Steve Jobs. Let the babies have their bottle.

Not only does he appease a lot of the whiners and complainers through this act, but he has effectively tricked them into spending even more money on Apple products! Yes, they have a $100 credit now, but how many people are going to use their Apple Store credit for a purchase equaling exactly $100? I’m betting many customers will put it towards a larger purchase, meaning they are still shelling out even more of their own cash as a result.

They paid an extra $200 for their iPhones, now they'll spend some extra cash in the Apple Store too! Makes sense though – they complain about a price drop, so logically they should be happy about the prospect of spending more money with Apple, the company they were cursing yesterday. 😛 😎
 
Virgil-TB2 said:
This makes no sense at all.

If a baby whines, and then eventually the parent gives in and gives them the toy, that doesn't mean that they didn't whine in the first place.

In fact, it is *proof* that they *are* a whiney baby.
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I agree, i am not at all going to complain about what Apple is doing, but i think its totally uncessary. I am happy about it, but they really shouldnt have had to do it. This is unprecedented as far as i know.
 
I'm following the discussion for quite some time now and I never really post on discussions like these, but now I feel I'll have to underline "something" a bit, maybe some of you start

THINKing DIFFERENT

Don't act like "the"/"a" predictable majority does, or you are just another little fish in the wide ocean...get out of the water...

I applaud :apple: , but for something else 🙂

'nuff said 😉
 
thanks apple... i knew i couldnt stay mad at you forever 🙂

thanks for taking care of us...

how much a difference that makes is amazing..

either apple has great PR stuff for free PRESS or they have great customer service...

now i am happy and will continue pushing apple as a great company and still recomend their products to everyone i know like i have been doing for the past 10 years...

:apple:
 
ibwb said:
Heh. Pay close attention to how Apple builds hype.

Start at $600 -- get the early adopters in, build a reputation as a premium product.
Cut to $400 -- early adopters go nuts, which is exactly as intended -- everyone and his mother finds out about the price drop.
Once the "price drop furor" story hits CNN, Fox News, and absolutely everywhere else, throw the early adopters $100 in store credit. Which costs about nothing, since they're most likely to buy accessories with that kind of amount, and accessories are all profit.

End result: everyone hears about the price drop without a dime in ad spending, and everybody loves Apple. What a clever script.
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I was thinking the same thing last night - all the local LA news stations were picking up the story about the $200 iPhone price cut. While it would have been smart to do a $100 cut now and another $100 cut in a month or two, so as to not piss people off, the drastic $200 cut was sure to generate a ton of buzz and motivate the second wave of iPhone buyers.

$100 store credit at Apple is brilliant - its just enough of a push needed for a lot of people to buy a new $1k+ iMac or MacBook.
 
Legend. Absolute legend. Now I feel obliged to buy an iPod Touch even though I don't need one. This is marketing at it's best.
 
nickane said:
...$100 store credit doesn't cost apple $100, but don't think they're giving it to ppl cos they deserve it, they're giving it to their customers because they need them and they knew too many were annoyed for Apple to get away with it (like they did when the ipod photo suddenly became £20 more expensive than a monochrome 4G having been hundreds of dollars more beforehand).
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Although the $100 is for Apple product, so isn't the same as sending out a $100 rebate check, Apple still needs to "expense" this action. The total - which I don't think is going to be $100,000,000, since I don't think a million phones have been sold, more likely $20 million - anyway, whatever the total is then has to be subtracted from profits on the next quarterly report and will therefore reflect stock value at that time.

So this is still a big deal for Jobs to decide to do.
 
kellen said:
I think they expected it, but were gambling it wouldn't cause such a hastle. When it did, they just put their plan b on to release the credit.

Just droppin the price and infuriating customers would cause alot more publicity then announcing a refund for current customers.

Just wonder what stipulations are going to be tied to the gift card. Does the total have to be over a certain amount?

Just have to wait and see.
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I guess according to you, Apple and Steve spent countless nights in the back room and planned all of this? Guess they had more time on their collective hands than I even thought!!

Funny with all the pissed off people yesterday, there were what? 59 pages of whiners? And today there are only 8 pages saying thank you!

We love to bitch about Apple and deflame Mr. Steve Jobs, but the same people as so ungrateful they can not say thank you!
 
ariza910 said:
I was thinking the same thing last night - all the local LA news stations were picking up the story about the $200 iPhone price cut. While it would have been smart to do a $100 cut now and another $100 cut in a month or two, so as to not piss people off, the drastic $200 cut was sure to generate a ton of buzz and motivate the second wave of iPhone buyers.

$100 store credit at Apple is brilliant - its just enough of a push needed for a lot of people to buy a new $1k+ iMac or MacBook.
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And there is even more to it....
 
Damn it, now I can gloat only half as much at getting it for $399. Apple always screws us.

I'm only joking, of course. Glad to see this.
 
Now I need to decide wherher to put this toward Leopard or a new nano. I was not one of the people complaining about the price drop, but I'm still really pleased and impressed that Apple is doing this. Thanks for listening to your customers Steve!

P.S. Anyone know why the iPhone keyboard auto correct doesn't work reliably in these forum reply fields? It didn't work the whole time I was typing this message until I got about halfway through this P.S. then it suddenly started working again. Slows me way down when it doesn't work!
 
Thank you Apple....Thank you.

Now get my Direct Push and you will have 30 phones sold right off the bat!!! o and open it to business customers!!!
 
Good work, fellow iPhone early adopters.

We spoke loudly and ignored those trying to silence us as "whiners." I don't think Apple caved in- rather I think they realized it was the right thing to do. I'm not sure why it bothered other people that we were trying to gather some momentum, but this proves that it was worth it.

Further, this was a shot across the bow in a couple of ways to Apple. First, I think the market let them know that the iPhone price point was too high- so they reduced the prices. Second, we let them know that even as their most loyal fans and early adopters, we're not completely brainwashed fan boys. We know where the line is.
 
suneohair said:
Besides, with Apples already high margins, I doubt they will be losing much.

Kudos to Apple. But I would have let you all whine til you turned blue. Then dropped the price $100 more.
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I would take people more seriously if they didn't think Apple has high margins.

Compared to manufacturing companies, they don't. Compared to most software developers, they're low. It's only to computer manufacturers they MIGHT be considered high...except to survive, they pretty much have to pitch their margins higher.
 
Perfectly Acceptable

I think this is a perfectly acceptable response. I really didn't expect anything, but it is good to know that their are companies that actually care about their reputation. iPhone users don't make up a large percentage of Apple's customer base, but I would venture to guess that most of us are Apple lifer's. Apple is a great company and responses like this prove it.

Yes, we may have whined about this, but Apple would of never conceded unless they thought we had a point. So, I think the case is closed on this part of Apple's history.
 
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