[Adfcvkdg]

I think the price drop, which was meant to be dramatic, was very poorly thought through. Offering a $100 credit (vs. the $200 price drop) is a fairly lame way of admitting, "yeah, we screwed you over, but good."

And if Apple loses the goodwill of its early adopters, future product intros will be a tougher sell.

[yurawerj]

Originally posted by Richelieu
And Iginla sucks.

[gimffnfabaykal]

Tingkai, I think the problem is, the problem is that they don't want to release it to the Euro or Asian markets just yet, because its' too late. Apple has been a traditional "Christmas" company, meaning it makes the big profits in that quarter, big on Christmas sales.

Of course with the iPod, it's been more steady, however, you wouldn't want to eat your Q4 with the release of iPhone, meaning that you could have a better Q2, Q3 before that and Q4 will be good anyway, so make a good result for the whole year. Now if you'd release it now in Europe and Asia, there's a big chance the iPhone will flop and get negative news. Better just do it in the beginning of the 2008, not risking the Christmas time plus hope for a good result so you can get the next year going on strong.

[gennick]

Maybe right before the Christmas, but not too early. For example not now. And no, they aren't bringing it to the Christmas sales either. It's going to be 2008.

[forumsfavoriteall]

Originally posted by Tingkai
The speed of Apple's response to the outrage suggests that they planned the $100 rebate in advance. I mean they must have known they would be pissing people off. Now, they can claim they're a caring company that responds to their loyal customers, yada, yada, yada. If this was planned in advance, then they should've been more pro-active in offering the coupon IMO. That would've prevented an outrage in the first place.

[Drysnyaty]

Originally posted by Tingkai
As for the price cut itself, I don't think it is a result of low sales.

Besides, what's important is profit, not number of units sold. Woh. You make profit by selling things at higher prices. Why would they drop the price if the phones were selling.
So Apple probably looked at the initial sales info and decided they could make more money by dropping the price and selling high volumes at a lower profit rate, rather than selling low volumes at a high profit rate. No. They want to maximize profit for the product not the time period. Dropping the price means when there are customer that will pay more they make less profit. They drop the price for the product after most every customer that will pay at the current price has already bought the product.

[RussellPG]

Originally posted by Zopperoni

I was expecting the PR outrage when I was sitting with a mobile client here yesterday morning. The Steve Jobs response was rather amusing, but sad at the same time: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/

I found it funny that he starts with 3.5 paragraphs of text trying to defend what's happened and then come to the point... Come to the point directly, *****... the people who sent the angry emails aren't interested in your motives! Another reason why I think that response might piss those who paid the higher price off more is that they paid the higher price to get a product that few people could really afford, and they really get ripped off here with the early price cut. Apple talking about how they are going to get a bunch more people to buy the product is only going to piss them off more. And he looks like an idiot. Well he is an idiot in a lot of ways.

[QXCharles]

Originally posted by Tingkai
So Wal-mart doesn't make a profit? Wal-mart prices are only as cheap as they need to be. They won't make more profit by dropping their prices when people are buying at the current price.
Which is better: Selling 100 phones at $300 profit for each, or selling 1,000 phones at a $100 profit for each? Both is better. First you sell the phones for $300 profit then you sell them for $100 profit after everyone has already paid the higher price. If you only sell the phones for $100 profit you make less profit.

[Stengapsept]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
Re Apple, remember this is a $100 credit -- not a rebate. So the customer has to Buy More Apple Product in order to benefit. As I understand it, there is ZERO out-of-pocket cost for Apple. Yea, they could even add $100 on to the price of the next product they release.

[Fouttysotlalf]

I think they just misjudge the price level that would generate the optimum profit, which is not surprising given this was their first venture into cellphones and they had a revolutionary product. But you have to remember the quarters. Companies don't want a single extremely profitable quarter and then three wishy washy quarters, they want steady profits over the year. Even if they might make a little more profit through one super quarter they would still prefer a steady flow, feast or famine type profit gerneration is very harmful for buisness budgeting.

In any case, markets react to quarter reports. It is much prefered to have four postive quarters than one really positive (which really won't gernate much more investor interest anyways) and three even/negative quarters.

[Blellurgews]

Originally posted by Agathon
New iPods.

Shuffle remains the same.

Redesigned iPod Nano with widescreen for video capability, and apparently running a new graphical OS with Coverflow. $150-200 depending on capacity.

Larger capacity iPod "Classic" with new UI as well. Complete metal sheathing.

iPod Touch: like an iPhone without a phone (photos, contacts, etc.). Complete multitouch interface. WiFi with WWW browser and one click access to Youtube. WiFi iTunes store (also now on iPhone).

iPhone price cut by $200. Now costs $399.

Where's your Zune now, biatch? Figure 1: Apple pwnage (below)

[chelviweeme]

I'm interested in more Agathon pwnage

[Ztcgtqvb]

Asher, Apple _appears_ to be the little guy in the competition. It appears to be different. It "dares to be different". Maybe some of that old 1984 commercial still plays in the head of the few, I don't know.

It's still Apple vs Microsoft in some way, Microsoft is big and evil, Apple is smaller, stylish and cool.

But in reality, unless you need Final Cut, you can throw your iMac away. That's about it, iPod was cool but now it's not the only player so there.

Can you come up with another brand that has more pure price in the brand itself? It's got a lot to do with the design aspect. Where "artistic" people might find the design good, we tend to look at it from different perspective, mostly functionality and usability. That's because we like the technology, not the plastic cover.

[imictiorume]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Asher's back, Iginla really does suck.
He was on pace for a 109 point season last year. If the leafs had his suckyness, maybe they'd make the playoffs.