you whiny bitches... Apple is doing the same thing it always does. It's just now they are in a market where cycles are a lot closer.
How very estute
Quote:
The fact remains that if you wanna play, you gotta pay. And you did, and you've been enjoying your iPhone and rubbing it everyone else's faces for two months now. You were king of the world for a while, you got what you paid for.
Yes to the first, Yes to the second, No to the third, No to the fourth, Yes to the fifth.
Quote:
Now shut up.
Uh, ok
Quote:
No one forced you run right out and buy one. That's the problem with a large influx of switchers, newbies, whatever the hell you're called, you just don't get it. This is Apple. It's all about keeping the momentum going. It's has nothing to do with how many people have bought at an inflated price. If anything your mass adoption of the device helped hasten the price reduction. They've re-couped their costs and are reducing their price accordingly, all while still maintaining a healthy profit. I'm an Apple old-timer, and this is the exact reason I didn't rush out and buy one. I knew that within a few months there would be a price drop, it's not that hard to figure out. Now, the price is more than tempting enough for someone like me to bite. And that's exactly what Apple was shooting for - the holdouts.
So what happens when I'm not one of the "influx of switchers, newbies, whatever the hell you're called"? Today's annoucement is NOT Apple, at least it wasn't UNTIL today, if you're truely an "apple old-timer" then you'd know that.
Quote:
Are you mad at Apple for reducing the price, or are you really just mad at yourself because you were foolish enough to buy a $600 phone? I'm guessing it's more the latter.
By what measure is a $600 phone "foolish"? What market and profession are you in? Guess you don't know that most Treo, Qs, WM smart phones are near that category but the only reason you don't see that is the operator subsidised the phone cost with your monthly subscription. Who's foolish?
Quote:
There's a reason Apple has entered such a renaissance, they get it. They get the market, and they get the consumer. It's no holds bar now baby, Apple's out to be the dominating force in this market and they've got one hell of a gameplan.
I understand Apple wants to dominate the market, that's what any good, well run company aims for, but not at the expense and alienation of their current customers. You have no idea how many people today are customer of Apple as a direct result of my consultation, recommendation, or advice. This seems like a small thing in the moment and maybe it is, but not if it's an indication of Apple's new attitude.
Quote:
Did you ever stop to think that maybe Apple is trying to screw with the competition more than with their customers?
Of course, but where's the line?
Quote:
Get over it and quit your bitching. No one is going to feel sorry for you so. What's your alternative, Dells and Nokias? Didn't think so. So shut up and be happy with what you've got.
[/end rant}
You obviously haven't bought very many phones, besides the el-cheapo free phones offered at the operator store. We know our choices, I'm no less satisfied with the phone, only Apple.
I can honestly say I've never bought ANYTHING that was devalued this much this fast in 25 years.
I'm glad for you. But there are many people doing just that every day when they buy a new car. Why is it Ok for them to pay extra for new and now but not for you?
Wow stop with all the QQ posts about the iPhone price drop. It is an unusual move by Apple since they usually tend to a rigid pricing system, but then again, them entering the phone market is a new thing - no one could have known what to expect.
At the time you bought your iPhone, you felt you had an even exchange; if not I don't know what the hell you were thinking. Regardless, you agreed on the price, and the "fault" is just as much yours as it is Apple's.
If Apple added $200 worth of features and still charged $600 for it I bet you guys would be thinking "Damn, I wish I waited for a 2nd gen." Instead, they just dropped the price $200, and you should be thinking "Damn, I wish I waited to see how all this was going to pan out."
Exactly so. I think the early adopters need to also remember the R&D costs of something like this that need to be paid for. As that gets paid off, the cost can be lowered. No one (including Apple) really knew what sales rate would be achieved and how quickly they would recoup overhead costs and be able to reduce the price. They had to be more conservative on pricing to make sure of their own success and our future benefit with new developments they will make.
1 million iPhones and $200 means they recouped $200m of investment in a major new product line.
As has also been pointed out on this thread, mobile phones have a shorter product life-span than many other products as well; so they couldn't wait anything like 1 year to drop the price!
I know three people in my office that will be purchasing iPhone today because of the price drop and I think this will be quite common. I think with the new price iPhones are going to be flying off the shelves.
If you feel like that $200 (that you never deserved to begin with) is such a detriment to you, you probably had no business spending $600 on a cell-phone to begin with.
Does it suck?... sure.
Should you be so worked up about it?... heck no.
Apparently you looked at a phone with a $600 price tag and thought "cool... i want it... that price is reasonable to me.... I'll buy it!"
So what if someone else buys it for less???... YOU paid what YOU felt was an appropriate price. (Or else you were a fool.)
Come on. Can you point out any other time Apple has done something like this. Can your point to a HTC phone, BlackBerry, or pretty much any other smartphone that has dropped like this. I say let people vent, they have a right to.
I know I may just be a cat, but if you look at the forest through the trees, this is a normal price drop. If you bought one of the trees the second it came out, you're pissed.
Zoom out and look at the forest.
Early adopters always pay a premium, and usually get a lot worse than iPhone v.1. This wasn't a new model of an existing product, after all, it was a new product.
In 1970, it cost millions of dollars for a 1/4 MIPS processor speed.
Just after 2000, it cost $2000 for 2000 MIPS processor speed.
The deflation ratio of cost per MIPS over the past 4 decades is 8 million to 1.
iPhone deflation from $600 to $400 over 2 months is a blip, a tiny dot in a much larger curve. On launch, it was worth $600, and I'm sure many of you would have paid more than that. The first "Virgin Galactic" flights into space are similarly over-priced, and have sold out with future price reductions already planned.
Eating 30% price reduction over two months for a new computing platform is the price of admission.
Apple needs to give its early iPhone customers (8 gigs for $599) some kind of financial credit for their early support.
Dropping the price by $200 after only 2 months on the market makes the early customers look like they were gouged, and leaves a bad taste in the mouth of people who were Apple's most enthusiastic supporters. Also, who's going to want to buy future high-priced Apple products when they first hit the market, knowing that a move like this will happen?
If the iPhone is selling so well, then Apple can surely afford to reward the Apple faithful.
Apologies to everyone for my rants. I've been a member of this board a long time and I rarely post. The sting will go away. I'm satisified to leave it at that. \
Um.. I don't think so. Yes it is selling well from a historic perspective (it outsold the Moto RAZR). But Apple haven't sold 1 million yet. There's no way at the current pace Apple were going to hit the 4 million by the end of this year and 12 million by the end of next year. Something had to be done. It's an aggressive move and I think it's probably correct. Don't make the mistakes that Sony have made with the ps3.
I'm surprised they didn't intro an iPhone nano. Apple must know something I don't. I find the move a litttle curious. Perhaps there will be more announcements on the iPhone front later this year.
There's no 4 million by the end of this year, and it's 10 million by the end of next year.
Apple did just call ME, and said they're giving me a total of $150 refund, which takes my purchase price down to that $300 level, I didn't even have to call them back. I'm still happy though.
I waited in line two hours on June 29 to get my now-antique 4GB iPhone. I was probably going to buy a new MacBook Pro in the next week or two, but now I just feel screwed. Suddenly my old PowerBook doesn't look so bad. This is going to cost Apple more than $200 in lost business from me.
Quite honestly, it was stupid to wait on line two hours to buy a phone.
You didn't need it right then, and neither did the other 270 thousand who bought it those first 30 hours.
If you're going to do something like that, then you can't complain about what Apple's done.
If they raised the price, then you would feel smug, and how smart you were to get it then.
I think some people are missing the point about the price reduction. Yes, it sucks if you bought before today, but this really is a smart business move by apple.
When the iPhone was first released, there were ~1 million rabid fans who were willing to pay huge amounts to be the first one there. At the same time, they knew that they wouldn't be able to produce the supply required to meet demand. When demand is high and supply is low, you get large prices. Now, that pool of rabid fans is gone, and the demand is much lower. In addition, apple's supply chain has probably smoothed out, increasing the overall supply. Lower demand, higher supply => much lower prices. Also, flash prices have been falling fast in the past month, which was a bit unexpected.
One thing that hasn't been said here - isn't Apple getting some cut of the AT&T contracts? If so, this price cut is a smart move as it will greatly increase the number of AT&T/iPhone users, giving Apple further revenue.
Finally, there's a lot of pressure from NBC and other media companies to offer more price flexibility on iTunes. Apple has had huge leverage on iTunes *music* because they dominate the mp3 player market for which music is being purchased. This is not the case for video, as much of it is being viewed on computers. With these new iPhone and iPod offerings, tens of millions of video capable devices will be on the market and only able to play iTunes purchased content. This will hopefully give Apple more leverage when negotiating contracts with the big media companies.
Its not necessarily a feature that's worth $200, Mel.
I think its not really fair to call ppl 'whiners' over this. The price drop was huge and very shortly after launch. Let's face it, the early adopters do have carte blanche to gripe over this.
However, for the rest of us, their loss is our gain. Bittersweet, eh?
I have to admit, I'm taken aback by how aggressive the iPhone's pricing is now. I'll still wait for 'iPhone 2.0' before I'll even seriously consider it, but I have to admit that the temptation meter has been seriously cranked up.
(Well, okay, the ATT exclusive does still put the fire out for me a bit.)
.
I didn't say it was worth $200, and you didn't indicate that any one feature would BE worth $200.
You made to arguments. One was the price drop, and the other was a lack of any real new features.
The first was whining, and the other was simply wrong.
Apple isn't going to drop every feature everyone wants down on one update. They will appear over time.
Many people on these boards have complained quite a lot about not having the itunes buy on the iPhone, so, that's a big update for them, even if it isn't for you.
As for the price drop, if Apple could pull it off, good for them! Now more people will be able to afford it that couldn't before.
Lighten up. You bought a high end high tech product. That's what happens. I guess you never bought a high end Intel processor in the late 90s, huh? They started at $1000, and every three months dropped by about 40% .
Quit whining. YOUR purchase didn't change - you paid what they asked for a product you probably love. Now they want more sales so they drop the price. Get over it. Next time don't be such a nerd and buy the day of, kay?
Man, wow... you a little rough there ain't you. Regardless of what everyone is saying.. the people who felt that they got ripped of did get ripped of, or should i say, allowed apple to recoup development cost at a rapid pace.
I don't care what anyone says.. there's really no justification for a $200 price drop in 2 months. Components prices are not dropping that fast. It's clear apple wanted to make money from the early adapters, also it's possible the pace of sales was dropping. The numbers on a monthly basis could be impressive but there might have been a slowing of the pace. The majority of the people left to buy are those that will not buy the product at $599.
Hey suckers, don't feel too bad, you contributed to the stock price of apple.. besides, if everyone had done what i suggested, the iphone would have flopped and then where would apple be?. Gotta tell you though, i met a lot of non-techies that refused to buy the iphone (and these people don't even care about the apple vs microsoft argument) and i met some who could not wait to get it. It's good that the iphone had lots of demand but then, the people who would not get it felt very strongly.. not good.. The product had high positives but also high negatives. It's better to have high positives, low negatives (ie, people who did not get the product but did not feel strongly against the product). With the price drop, apple will convert some of that high negatives into positives.
Wow, that's a huge price drop. It's understandable that people would complain who bought it recently but businesses have done that many times before and it makes perfect sense if Apple want real market penetration. Other smartphones are going to look terrible in comparison to that now.
Still, it makes you realize how much of a profit margin they had on these things.
I'm glad that it's this price ready for release in the UK/Europe but hurry up and do it already Apple!!
But that's the point. If this product were in a normal life cycle and had a price reduction, that's understandable. This is a brand-new product LINE, not like just updating an iPod to higher capacity or changing colors or adding photo support (as in the past). The LINE has only been in a life cycle for TWO MONTHS. Anyone who thought the price would stay high forever is diluted. But I expected to see something of a normal life-cycle. Apple doesn't usually just cut the price on a current product. They may intro new features and capacity, and the price stays the same or sees a modest reduction, like $50. I call out anyone who says this is normal.
I love Apple products too, and I used to think those people who dissected iPods to make a bill of materials and figure out margins and cost were nuts. I'll be one of those people from now on.
I'll recommend it, once it's available on something besides AT&T. Maybe that's why SOME of us are also upset: we're shanghi'd into AT&T's service AND we paid too much for our phone!
I really don't get this.
The fact is that these phones are good for two years. Apple will continue to update the software, so you will have more than you bought originally. By the end of the two year period, the phone will be worth the same, regardless of the fact that they lowered the price now, or if they had waited until sometime next year.
The only honest thing I can figure, is that you guys bought this phone as a prestige product as much as for its feature set.
As such, the high price was a selling point. I can see you metaphorically burnishing your nails on your shirt everytime someone asks how much you paid for it.
Now, you're embarrassed that the price dropped so much.
And that's what's truly burning you up.
You wanted to bask in the sun a bit longer.
Denying it won't help. We all do it. It's even part of why we buy Macs despite everything else.
Seeing how so many of us paid $200 too much for our Iphones, how about Apple giving us an update that isn't focused on milking more money?
Since you did, I'll say it again...
I don't think I paid too much; if I had I wouldn't have spent the $599 at the time. However, it would be very nice if Apple sent us early adopters a little thank you. Maybe split the difference, and issue anyone who activated an iPhone through iTunes a $100 gift certificate for the iTMS... Now that would make me feel appreciated, and in reality it wouldn't even cost them the full $100!
Comments
you whiny bitches... Apple is doing the same thing it always does. It's just now they are in a market where cycles are a lot closer.
How very estute
The fact remains that if you wanna play, you gotta pay. And you did, and you've been enjoying your iPhone and rubbing it everyone else's faces for two months now. You were king of the world for a while, you got what you paid for.
Yes to the first, Yes to the second, No to the third, No to the fourth, Yes to the fifth.
Now shut up.
Uh, ok
No one forced you run right out and buy one. That's the problem with a large influx of switchers, newbies, whatever the hell you're called, you just don't get it. This is Apple. It's all about keeping the momentum going. It's has nothing to do with how many people have bought at an inflated price. If anything your mass adoption of the device helped hasten the price reduction. They've re-couped their costs and are reducing their price accordingly, all while still maintaining a healthy profit. I'm an Apple old-timer, and this is the exact reason I didn't rush out and buy one. I knew that within a few months there would be a price drop, it's not that hard to figure out. Now, the price is more than tempting enough for someone like me to bite. And that's exactly what Apple was shooting for - the holdouts.
So what happens when I'm not one of the "influx of switchers, newbies, whatever the hell you're called"? Today's annoucement is NOT Apple, at least it wasn't UNTIL today, if you're truely an "apple old-timer" then you'd know that.
Are you mad at Apple for reducing the price, or are you really just mad at yourself because you were foolish enough to buy a $600 phone? I'm guessing it's more the latter.
By what measure is a $600 phone "foolish"? What market and profession are you in? Guess you don't know that most Treo, Qs, WM smart phones are near that category but the only reason you don't see that is the operator subsidised the phone cost with your monthly subscription. Who's foolish?
There's a reason Apple has entered such a renaissance, they get it. They get the market, and they get the consumer. It's no holds bar now baby, Apple's out to be the dominating force in this market and they've got one hell of a gameplan.
I understand Apple wants to dominate the market, that's what any good, well run company aims for, but not at the expense and alienation of their current customers. You have no idea how many people today are customer of Apple as a direct result of my consultation, recommendation, or advice. This seems like a small thing in the moment and maybe it is, but not if it's an indication of Apple's new attitude.
Did you ever stop to think that maybe Apple is trying to screw with the competition more than with their customers?
Of course, but where's the line?
Get over it and quit your bitching. No one is going to feel sorry for you so. What's your alternative, Dells and Nokias? Didn't think so. So shut up and be happy with what you've got.
[/end rant}
You obviously haven't bought very many phones, besides the el-cheapo free phones offered at the operator store. We know our choices, I'm no less satisfied with the phone, only Apple.
... your asking for free ringtone's from Apple....
It's "ringtones."
I can honestly say I've never bought ANYTHING that was devalued this much this fast in 25 years.
I'm glad for you. But there are many people doing just that every day when they buy a new car. Why is it Ok for them to pay extra for new and now but not for you?
edit: Ah, I see this has already come up...
Wow stop with all the QQ posts about the iPhone price drop. It is an unusual move by Apple since they usually tend to a rigid pricing system, but then again, them entering the phone market is a new thing - no one could have known what to expect.
At the time you bought your iPhone, you felt you had an even exchange; if not I don't know what the hell you were thinking. Regardless, you agreed on the price, and the "fault" is just as much yours as it is Apple's.
If Apple added $200 worth of features and still charged $600 for it I bet you guys would be thinking "Damn, I wish I waited for a 2nd gen." Instead, they just dropped the price $200, and you should be thinking "Damn, I wish I waited to see how all this was going to pan out."
Exactly so. I think the early adopters need to also remember the R&D costs of something like this that need to be paid for. As that gets paid off, the cost can be lowered. No one (including Apple) really knew what sales rate would be achieved and how quickly they would recoup overhead costs and be able to reduce the price. They had to be more conservative on pricing to make sure of their own success and our future benefit with new developments they will make.
1 million iPhones and $200 means they recouped $200m of investment in a major new product line.
As has also been pointed out on this thread, mobile phones have a shorter product life-span than many other products as well; so they couldn't wait anything like 1 year to drop the price!
Does it suck?... sure.
Should you be so worked up about it?... heck no.
Apparently you looked at a phone with a $600 price tag and thought "cool... i want it... that price is reasonable to me.... I'll buy it!"
So what if someone else buys it for less???... YOU paid what YOU felt was an appropriate price. (Or else you were a fool.)
\\
Come on. Can you point out any other time Apple has done something like this. Can your point to a HTC phone, BlackBerry, or pretty much any other smartphone that has dropped like this. I say let people vent, they have a right to.
I know I may just be a cat, but if you look at the forest through the trees, this is a normal price drop. If you bought one of the trees the second it came out, you're pissed.
Zoom out and look at the forest.
Early adopters always pay a premium, and usually get a lot worse than iPhone v.1. This wasn't a new model of an existing product, after all, it was a new product.
In 1970, it cost millions of dollars for a 1/4 MIPS processor speed.
Just after 2000, it cost $2000 for 2000 MIPS processor speed.
The deflation ratio of cost per MIPS over the past 4 decades is 8 million to 1.
iPhone deflation from $600 to $400 over 2 months is a blip, a tiny dot in a much larger curve. On launch, it was worth $600, and I'm sure many of you would have paid more than that. The first "Virgin Galactic" flights into space are similarly over-priced, and have sold out with future price reductions already planned.
Eating 30% price reduction over two months for a new computing platform is the price of admission.
Buy yourself a ringtone and get over it.
Apple needs to give its early iPhone customers (8 gigs for $599) some kind of financial credit for their early support.
Dropping the price by $200 after only 2 months on the market makes the early customers look like they were gouged, and leaves a bad taste in the mouth of people who were Apple's most enthusiastic supporters. Also, who's going to want to buy future high-priced Apple products when they first hit the market, knowing that a move like this will happen?
If the iPhone is selling so well, then Apple can surely afford to reward the Apple faithful.
No they don't.
Um.. I don't think so. Yes it is selling well from a historic perspective (it outsold the Moto RAZR). But Apple haven't sold 1 million yet. There's no way at the current pace Apple were going to hit the 4 million by the end of this year and 12 million by the end of next year. Something had to be done. It's an aggressive move and I think it's probably correct. Don't make the mistakes that Sony have made with the ps3.
I'm surprised they didn't intro an iPhone nano. Apple must know something I don't. I find the move a litttle curious. Perhaps there will be more announcements on the iPhone front later this year.
There's no 4 million by the end of this year, and it's 10 million by the end of next year.
El Jobso sacrificed his early adopters, so that he could hit his sales projections.
I waited in line two hours on June 29 to get my now-antique 4GB iPhone. I was probably going to buy a new MacBook Pro in the next week or two, but now I just feel screwed. Suddenly my old PowerBook doesn't look so bad. This is going to cost Apple more than $200 in lost business from me.
Quite honestly, it was stupid to wait on line two hours to buy a phone.
You didn't need it right then, and neither did the other 270 thousand who bought it those first 30 hours.
If you're going to do something like that, then you can't complain about what Apple's done.
If they raised the price, then you would feel smug, and how smart you were to get it then.
Give me a break!
When the iPhone was first released, there were ~1 million rabid fans who were willing to pay huge amounts to be the first one there. At the same time, they knew that they wouldn't be able to produce the supply required to meet demand. When demand is high and supply is low, you get large prices. Now, that pool of rabid fans is gone, and the demand is much lower. In addition, apple's supply chain has probably smoothed out, increasing the overall supply. Lower demand, higher supply => much lower prices. Also, flash prices have been falling fast in the past month, which was a bit unexpected.
One thing that hasn't been said here - isn't Apple getting some cut of the AT&T contracts? If so, this price cut is a smart move as it will greatly increase the number of AT&T/iPhone users, giving Apple further revenue.
Finally, there's a lot of pressure from NBC and other media companies to offer more price flexibility on iTunes. Apple has had huge leverage on iTunes *music* because they dominate the mp3 player market for which music is being purchased. This is not the case for video, as much of it is being viewed on computers. With these new iPhone and iPod offerings, tens of millions of video capable devices will be on the market and only able to play iTunes purchased content. This will hopefully give Apple more leverage when negotiating contracts with the big media companies.
Its not necessarily a feature that's worth $200, Mel.
I think its not really fair to call ppl 'whiners' over this. The price drop was huge and very shortly after launch. Let's face it, the early adopters do have carte blanche to gripe over this.
However, for the rest of us, their loss is our gain. Bittersweet, eh?
I have to admit, I'm taken aback by how aggressive the iPhone's pricing is now. I'll still wait for 'iPhone 2.0' before I'll even seriously consider it, but I have to admit that the temptation meter has been seriously cranked up.
(Well, okay, the ATT exclusive does still put the fire out for me a bit.)
.
I didn't say it was worth $200, and you didn't indicate that any one feature would BE worth $200.
You made to arguments. One was the price drop, and the other was a lack of any real new features.
The first was whining, and the other was simply wrong.
Apple isn't going to drop every feature everyone wants down on one update. They will appear over time.
Many people on these boards have complained quite a lot about not having the itunes buy on the iPhone, so, that's a big update for them, even if it isn't for you.
As for the price drop, if Apple could pull it off, good for them! Now more people will be able to afford it that couldn't before.
Lighten up. You bought a high end high tech product. That's what happens. I guess you never bought a high end Intel processor in the late 90s, huh? They started at $1000, and every three months dropped by about 40% .
Quit whining. YOUR purchase didn't change - you paid what they asked for a product you probably love. Now they want more sales so they drop the price. Get over it. Next time don't be such a nerd and buy the day of, kay?
Man, wow... you a little rough there ain't you. Regardless of what everyone is saying.. the people who felt that they got ripped of did get ripped of, or should i say, allowed apple to recoup development cost at a rapid pace.
I don't care what anyone says.. there's really no justification for a $200 price drop in 2 months. Components prices are not dropping that fast. It's clear apple wanted to make money from the early adapters, also it's possible the pace of sales was dropping. The numbers on a monthly basis could be impressive but there might have been a slowing of the pace. The majority of the people left to buy are those that will not buy the product at $599.
Hey suckers, don't feel too bad, you contributed to the stock price of apple.. besides, if everyone had done what i suggested, the iphone would have flopped and then where would apple be?. Gotta tell you though, i met a lot of non-techies that refused to buy the iphone (and these people don't even care about the apple vs microsoft argument) and i met some who could not wait to get it. It's good that the iphone had lots of demand but then, the people who would not get it felt very strongly.. not good.. The product had high positives but also high negatives. It's better to have high positives, low negatives (ie, people who did not get the product but did not feel strongly against the product). With the price drop, apple will convert some of that high negatives into positives.
I think I'll wait for MacWorld SF in January.
They should lower it to $199 by then.
Seriously, they should have dropped it a $100 today and then another $100 on black Friday.
Still, it makes you realize how much of a profit margin they had on these things.
I'm glad that it's this price ready for release in the UK/Europe but hurry up and do it already Apple!!
But that's the point. If this product were in a normal life cycle and had a price reduction, that's understandable. This is a brand-new product LINE, not like just updating an iPod to higher capacity or changing colors or adding photo support (as in the past). The LINE has only been in a life cycle for TWO MONTHS. Anyone who thought the price would stay high forever is diluted. But I expected to see something of a normal life-cycle. Apple doesn't usually just cut the price on a current product. They may intro new features and capacity, and the price stays the same or sees a modest reduction, like $50. I call out anyone who says this is normal.
I love Apple products too, and I used to think those people who dissected iPods to make a bill of materials and figure out margins and cost were nuts. I'll be one of those people from now on.
I'll recommend it, once it's available on something besides AT&T. Maybe that's why SOME of us are also upset: we're shanghi'd into AT&T's service AND we paid too much for our phone!
I really don't get this.
The fact is that these phones are good for two years. Apple will continue to update the software, so you will have more than you bought originally. By the end of the two year period, the phone will be worth the same, regardless of the fact that they lowered the price now, or if they had waited until sometime next year.
The only honest thing I can figure, is that you guys bought this phone as a prestige product as much as for its feature set.
As such, the high price was a selling point. I can see you metaphorically burnishing your nails on your shirt everytime someone asks how much you paid for it.
Now, you're embarrassed that the price dropped so much.
And that's what's truly burning you up.
You wanted to bask in the sun a bit longer.
Denying it won't help. We all do it. It's even part of why we buy Macs despite everything else.
Seeing how so many of us paid $200 too much for our Iphones, how about Apple giving us an update that isn't focused on milking more money?
Since you did, I'll say it again...
I don't think I paid too much; if I had I wouldn't have spent the $599 at the time. However, it would be very nice if Apple sent us early adopters a little thank you. Maybe split the difference, and issue anyone who activated an iPhone through iTunes a $100 gift certificate for the iTMS... Now that would make me feel appreciated, and in reality it wouldn't even cost them the full $100!