iPhone price cut, new iPod Touch introduced and Steve Jobs makes amends
The new iPod Touch and iPod Nano
I’m going to have to rename my blog soon to “Apple Man” or “Mac Daddy” or something clever… It doesn’t help that I haven’t had a chance to post in weeks due to vacation and heavy project load, but the fact of the matter is, it seems like Apple/Mac stories and reviews have dominated my posts recently.
Anyways…
Let’s start with the first issue that hits me personally: Steve Jobs announced yesterday that the price of the 8GB iPhone would be nearly cut in half to $399 while the 4GB model is discontinued altogether. The 4GB model getting axed was pretty much a no brainer… who’s not going to pay an extra $100 for twice the hard drive space? I personally don’t know anyone who even entertained the thought of buying the 4GB model.
Now the price cut of the 8GB is another story. I’m not going to lie and say that it didn’t completely annoy me when I found out initially. I stood in line for hours and paid the full $599 less than 10 weeks ago. Had it been 6 months to a year later, I’m sure I wouldn’t have cared at all.
After giving it more thought and letting the sting wear off, I put it into a marketing mindset:
Jobs and Apple also released the new iPod Touch which seems to be the iPhone minus the phone. It has some other limitations (no mail capabilities, maps, stocks or weather), but essentially it gives people the ability to have an iPhone without having to switch carriers or deal with AT&T. It also has the ability to connect to WiFi where available which gives users the ability to get on the web via Safari. The one thing it does have that I’m pretty envious of is a 16GB model.
One of my main reasons for buying the iPhone was having the ability to check mail from my phone so the iPhone to me personally would still make the most sense. Who wants an iPod and a separate phone anyways?
The new iPod Nano came out which is pretty incredible as well. It’s about as compact as you can get while still having the ability to watch video. It also has the Cover Flow capability of the iPhone and other iPod models. At $199 for the 8GB model it has a ton of value considering all its capabilities and compact size.
*I started writing this post last night, and since then Steve Jobs has issued “an open letter to iPhone owners” on the Apple website. In summary, he received an outpouring of complaints concerning the price drop and explains the reasoning. At the end, he offers every iPhone customer a $100 store credit at Apple.
Way to go Steve, you did the right thing. Nothing worse than alienating not only the loyal Macheads that have never even considered using anything else, but more importantly, the people that could potentially make the switch after buying the iPhone. A hundred bucks doesn’t go very far at an Apple store, which could also equate into converts using their credit towards making that switch with that new shiny iMac that just came out less than a month ago.