Are you steamed that you paid $599.00 USD for an Apple iPhone? Steve Jobs has one thing to say to you: “That’s technology.”
Uh… What kind of answer is that?
As everyone probably knows by now, Apple had a big old press conference yesterday and dropped some revised iPods into its mix of products.
Among the day’s news was that the price of the 8GB iPhone was being cut by $200 to $399 just 66 days after the release of the multimedia device.
Whether you were one of the many who camped out on June 29th to get the iPhone on opening day, or just decided to pick one up yesterday morning, you paid a $200 premium to be an early adopter. Ouch.
After the event, USA Today had the chance to speak to Steve Jobs briefly. It reported:
Q: What do you say to customers who just bought a new iPhone for $599? Sorry?
A: That’s technology. If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that’s what happens in technology.
Mr. Jobs, it may be true that the price of technology comes down over time, and early adopters always pay a price to have the latest and greatest gadgets ahead of everyone else, but c’mon!
Prices don’t drop by 33% in just two months. That’s just crazy.
Motorola held the price point of the original RAZR (which sold over 50 million units) at a then-steep $499.00 USD for a lot more than two months and when the price did drop, it did so slowly.
And what about your Macs? Even your own computers don’t depreciate that rapidly. In fact, they don’t really depreciate at all.
Prices of entry-level MacBooks have remained in the $1,100 - $1,500 USD range forever. If the price of a MacBook dropped 33% two months after being released, I think you’d have a run on your stores.
If you’re going to start lowering prices to entice sales, why not spread the love around to your core business?
Apple no doubt spent gobs of money developing, manufacturing and marketing the iPhone. We know that the components of the iPhone cost about $225-$250, giving the iPhone a healthy profit margin.
That $200 USD price premium for the last two months likely went a long way to helping Apple recoup a portion of its investment in bringing the iPhone to market.
Now that it is entering what Jobs called the “high-volume manufacturing” phase, you can bet that the Apple iPhone has settled to its intended long-term price point.
- Steve Jobs Offers Early iPhone Adopters $100 Credit | September 6, 2007
- Cutting iPhone Price By 33% Equals 300% Jump In Sales | September 11, 2007
- Apple iPhone Early Adopter Discount Fallout | September 7, 2007
- Apple iPhone Sells Out Across U.S. | July 5, 2007
- Apple And AT&T Finally Announce iPhone Rate Plans | June 26, 2007
Early adopters always have to deal with stuff like this.
You can get a perfectly fine PC in the second hand market that with a few tweaks runs every game released more than 2 months ago in full res with all grahic options open… for less than 400.
Fact of life, early adopting is not a good thing.