As many others have already noted, it is pretty painful to see Apple drop the price of a flagship device like this so quickly. Most consumers know that price drops like this are common with tech gadgets, etc. but dropping the price by this much in this short a time is a little tough to swallow.
Almost a million customers supported Apple and jumped on board to support this product at launch. I'm thrilled by the product and feel I'm getting my money's worth out of it. It offers all of the functionality that I've longed for over the past few years as a very unhappy Verizon Wireless customer. But the message being sent to Apple's loyal, early adopter fans is very unclear here. It's a kick in the groin and makes us feel like we paid an additional $200 to beta test the iPhone for two months.
Apple doesn't owe me any money back as a customer though. They offered a product for a price, I thought it was worth that price, so I bought it. But if they want those one million iPhone customers to remain Apple customers, a simple comment by Steve Jobs saying "that's technology" isn't really enough.
I'd love to see Apple make it up to its fans in some way, similar to the way it responded to unhappy Aperture users after a price drop or to iMovie fans after iMovie '08 was released. As Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz noted during the keynote this week, truly great companies grow and sustain themselves by ignoring the status quo and constantly re-inventing themselves. This is a chance for Apple to re-invent themselves to their fans. This is Apple's chance to show its customers the same loyalty it receives every day.
UPDATE:
Wow, that was quick. Bravo, Apple. You did a good thing here.
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