I’m one of the people who should receive the $100 credit that Apple is offering to early purchasers of the iPhone. I think this is a reasonable move on Apple’s part to reduce the shock associated with the $200 price cut for the 8-Gigabyte iPhone. It certainly won’t cost them $100 per customer, since the credit is for products to be purchased at an Apple Store or at their online store.
When the $200 price cut was announced on Wednesday, a co-worker asked me what my reaction was to the news. I told him that I thought the price cut was very aggressive and would result in a large number of additional iPhone sales, but that the reduced price was a bit hard for me to accept since I had paid $599 for my iPhone. I said that a $100 price cut would have been a lot less of a shock to me.
The $100 credit that Apple will give customers like me should satisfy almost all of the group. Everyone who buys a high technology product at the very beginning expects to pay the highest price and endure some pain as the bugs are worked out. The iPhone is no exception.
I’ll probably use the $100 credit to buy a copy of iWork ’08 or the iLife ’08 upgrade to go on Kathleen’s MacBook. She wants iWork so she can use her MacBook to create spreadsheets.
I can’t justify spending the money to buy Microsoft Office 2004 for the Macintosh so late in its life. With Microsoft now not scheduled to ship Office 2008 until January, I can’t see buying that product at any price. It will probably be way more that $100, at any rate.