Are you one who’s been wanting that iPhone or iPod Touch but on a budget? You might be in luck within the next two months, there are rumors (of course) swirling that Apple is planning a $100 price drop across the board. That would make for a $300 16GB iPod Touch, or $400 for a 32GB Touch or 16GB iPhone.
Coupled with the pending SDK, that makes the iPhone almost appealing to even the most hardened anti-iPhone cynic. Even me.
$100 price drop on iPhones and iPods coming in the next two months [9-to-5 Mac]
Uhh what about the red headed step child of the 16gb – the 8gb verison?
You’ve got to be kidding me? Hard to believe since Apple just added the 16gb iPhone, that release would have been a perfect time for repricing. Did anyone notice that Apple is doing a lot of ad lately? I wonder if iPhone demand is falling off…
Or does it occur to you that apple is a bunch of pretencious greedy hippies disguised in suits? There will always be a demand for apple products and they will always charge EXTREME prices, this is how they make money, Almost all apple users sell their outdated products for the new verison that comes out almost twice a year. Apple fucks over early adopters which in my opinion is a large portion of their customers, than lowers the price to lure new customers in.
Tick tock folks. As said by Jobs himself, there’s going to be more, and more frequent. If you’re silly enough to buy full price, more fool you. But let’s not roundly criticise just Apple – it’s a known marketing technique to maximise profits. That’s why the extras at Starbucks cost so much, why shoes not in sales are expensive.
Apple don’t force people to buy their product. The early adopters buy at their own risk. If they don’t know the industry adage: “1st version has bugs, 1st batch beware” then that’s there problem.
Of course, Marc M is arguing both sides – saying that they’re costing extreme prices in an article about a price cut (on top of the increase in RAM of the line ups) then saying by droppping prices they’re overcharging the early adopters.
Once made in bulk, and over time, there will be discounts. Hell, this applies to any white good.
This makes no sense at all.
1. This would eliminate the profit margin on at least the 16GB iPhone
2. They just used the 16GB iPhone to open the $499 pricepoint.
3. Apple knows it will need to make significant profit off the device itself due to the expansive jailbreaking community. It won’t rely on AT&T Kickbacks.
4. They made this mistake last year and suffered a huge PR hit for it.
5. Significantly cheaper models would seriously cannibalize other products in the line-up. Right now there is a smooth curve of a price and power with the Touch being the only confusing option in the mix.
6. Apple doesn’t need to. The speed of adoption has been huge and will only increase once a 3G (and hopefully GPS) model emerges.
7. You lower the price of a product AFTER a serious tech revamp has been around a while. So, no Apple wouldn’t do this just prior to a 3G release, and little more than a month after the 16/32 gb model introduction.
I think Ian has hit the nail on the head on many points.
Apple is kind of like Porsche: products are created specifically to fill in niches within the pricing scheme and designed not to cannibalize sales for another niche.
iPod Nano 8GB = $199, iPod Touch 8 GB = $299, Touch 16 GB = $399, Touch 32 GB = $499, iPhone 8 GB $399, iPhone 16 GB = $499.
A nice orderly progression of cost and functionality.
In fact, I am so confident that this will not happen that I am going to go out and buy my iPhone 16GB this weekend.
Ha!
i’ll break dance battle you mother fuker