Apple Gives $100 Store Credit To iPhone Customers 452
MooRogue writes "In an open letter to all iPhone customers, Steve Jobs responds to hundreds of emails from upset iPhone customers. Apple will be giving early adopters who are not receiving rebates or any other consideration $100 store credit at the Apple store.
Details will be posted on the Apple website next week"
Apple's open letter (Score:4, Interesting)
Really? Steve sat down and personally read hundreds of emails that all boiled down to "I paid $200 more than I could have so you suck."? Really? You don't think that after 35 or so he'd have gotten the idea?
(My GF's response when I showed her the article)
How to make a fanatic fan (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm myself bordering the state of Apple fan boy, but this is scary. People crying fool yesterday now praise the company for being responsive. I'm not into conspiracy theories, but if Apple had had this planed, this would be pure genius. Lowering the price and then getting the people who payed more to cheer you. Just scary how perfectly they play their crowd.
I don't think this was planed. But I think Apple knows that we now live in an attention society and that people highly regard companies who admit errors and change. In fact people overvalue this since they do not expect it (yet. Microsoft will obviously copy it someday). They did it with "greener Apple", they do it again with credits for iPhones which will generate more money for them due to people buying stuff in the Apple store.
Re:Why not $200 store credit? (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree with what someone else said though - if you want things on the day, you pay extra. It's always been the way, though maybe 2 months after release is a bit soon for a price cut like this. Jobs cites the holiday season as a reason - why not cut the price in November then? At least that lessens the chance that every iPhone owner is going to want your head impaled upon a pike so they can wave at it in a funny way.
Re:Steve; make it retroactive to all Apple product (Score:5, Interesting)
Even better if most of them spend it on Apple software. Such as, I dunno, maybe Leopard? Due out next month?
Teh Steve is laughing all the way to the bank, and this time I'm laughing right along. This is so brilliant it almost has to be on purpose.
Re:Wow, that was quick (Score:5, Interesting)
Good point. I recall reading somewhere that people are more impressed by a company resolving a bad experience to their satisfaction than they are simply by good experience. (This is, of course, self-limiting. If every initial experience is bad, most people will stop slogging through repeated bad experiences to get to the good ones. Well, software .0 versions notwithstanding.)
Re:Why not $200 store credit? (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple structures their prices in this manner so that people do not wait to they purchase products. This is also the reason they do not engage in price trickery (different prices for different verticals for no reason, arbitrary, limited-time rebates).
In practice, as long as I've been following these things, I have not seen the actual prices change muchh. The units get upgraded and the prices stay the same. Therefore, while it is true to say that your unit is worth less, it is difficult to make a direct dollar comparison. You just get more for your money - sometimes incrementally, sometimes radically. In this case, well, they probably weren't selling as many units as they wanted, or figured they were losing points with the demographic that made the iPod famous because of the outrageous prices.
The only other area I've noticed with radical price drops was the monitors. There are good reasons to lower their prices. For one, they have price competition from other companies who are making very similar or identical products, and it's harder to push the idea that a monitor worth just more for being Apple. Secondly, the iMacs are so cheap, and the desktops so expensive, that the potential market for the monitors is much smaller.
Re:Why not $200 store credit? (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought two: an 8gb for myself and a 4gb for the wife, and we stood in line on opening day.
I honestly believe that the phones were worth every penny that we paid for both of them ($499/$599 retail).
For the record, my wife let her phone slip while she was walking out of her parking garage, and smacked it at the pavement while flailing to catch it. The sleep/wake button got jammed inside the buckled aluminum, and we had to bring the phone in for service.
Apple took the phone back, offered us a loaner ($25ish, IIRC... we didn't take it), and had a *brand*new*phone* shipped to us the very next morning. Priority overnight Fedex, 7:45am, I might add. For a phone that my wife admitted to beating up and was ready to pay for repairs.
So, that was two weeks ago, now Apple offers us $100 apiece for being early adopters.
You just don't get that kind of service in the technology industry anywhere else these days that I've experienced.
I mean, I bought a Vista OEM copy and an nVidia "Vista Ready" mobo on launch day (it's my job to know how to support *everything*, turd or not). You don't see MS or nVidia offering to make things right because little things like on-board sound and networking don't function...at all...nVidia passes the buck to MS, and MS passes the buck to nVidia, and eight months later now, I still have to use USB dongles on that particular mobo for sound and ethernet. And neither of those companies have any intention of making things right. And that's just driver issues. Let's not even get into Vista quality (utter pile of refuse, kthanxbye). No rebate, no exchange for something that actually functions as described. Not even an option to downgrade to XP from MS.
Anyhow, I contrast that experience with something like buying my iPhone, Macbook Pro or any of the dozens of other Apple products I've purchased over the years and there's just no comparison. The iPhone is a *killer* product, and they're going to gain a ton more goodwill out of a gesture that they didn't have to make.
Long story short, the wife is now an absolutely fanatical Apple supporter just from these experiences.
Blogging Whiners are whining because they paid a premium to be an early adopter? Well, duh. I had no illusions that it wouldn't be substantially cheaper by EU launch or the holidays.
Reminds me of a T-shirt I saw recently [pennyarcademerch.com].
--d
Re:Steve; make it retroactive to all Apple product (Score:4, Interesting)
Teh Steve is laughing all the way to the bank, and this time I'm laughing right along. This is so brilliant it almost has to be on purpose.
Something you learn in basic economics, is that opportunity loss is a loss as any. I know what you think: "haha, software costs $0, so they didn't give you anything at all".
Nope, piracy of the OS itself is almost non-existent on Macs, and those early buyers would purchase Leopard for $100. Those are $100 lost for Apple, never mind how they are going to be spent.
The benefit for Apple here is that it's not cash but store credit, from then on, what they do with it is doesn't matter.
Re:Google Video (Score:3, Interesting)
used market for cell phones and ipods (Score:4, Interesting)
It's all because of the iPod touch (Score:5, Interesting)
But C'mon the iPod touch is freakin' cool, and way more newsworthy than the iMac. The Steve really f*cked up by announcing the price drop at the same time as the iPod touch. This $100 rebate is his effort to try an recover from this and hopefully get some positive press.
Yeah, the rebate is good customer relations and preserves the brand... but I think the main benefit is in squashing the 'disgruntaled iPhone people' meme before it got out of control.
I'm not saying this to be critical of his motives, but to admire him for doing a good job protecting shareholder value. As a little-guy shareholder I am really greatful that he works so hard to protect my investment's value even though most of his personal wealth comes from his other business (Disney/Pixar). This rebate is really good (and timely) damage control. Next step: he has to give Pouge and Mossburg free iPod touches
Re:Why not $200 store credit? (Score:4, Interesting)
Trust is a very hard thing to earn amongst geeks. Ok this is way offtopic, but anyways.. I believe a lot of it comes from our social environment - we get beat up in schools as a kid, growing up the local bully would trick us into doing something foolish at our own expense and their entertainment (from our innate desire to 'fit in', so to speak), even so far getting trolled by our own kind in various outlets (getting PKed from people you considered 'friends,' or being goatse.cx'd), or being victims of various exploitations (at work, at love, etc). Growing up in that kind of environment, at times when I see a genuine gesture of grace, I can't believe it for a minute, and my head is spinning thinking of all the possibilities and reasons of why someone would do such a thing, likely at my expense nonetheless. Maybe it's just the nature of geeks to think ahead, *shrug* I don't know.
But in any case, it will come as second nature to us to be distrustful. Sometimes that manifests prematurely - perhaps the sales of the iphone are worse than expected and Jobs is trying to boost sales in order to look good in front of the other cellphone carriers - I could be thinking. Or perhaps: sales really did go well early on, but they noticed a sharp drop after the first month because they priced themselves out of the sweetspot (coupled with the whole ATT bundling push fiasco). A PR maneuver like this could bring forth a few more customers, maybe. Or maybe this was planned from the start, and luckily their supplier had better than expected yields for hardware parts and Apple took that to their advantage in order to get a jump on more marketshare against the other cellphone manufacturers (at the same time looking good towards consumers and not looking like total price-gouging capitalists which any true-blue american company in the business of cellphones is so well known for). Who the hell knows? Perhaps the cellphone carriers looking to take advantage of apple forced apple to price their units high (perhaps with aid from other manufacturers that had stake at the carriers, like clique'y capitalism), so Apple played the game according to the rules set upon them - untill the time was right for them to turn around, give the carriers the finger and set the rules how Apple wants to play them. (too much tinfoil hat?)
Anyways, it's a refreshing change of pace, and a nice gesture for Apple to go forth and do all that. For the rest of us that know how Apple rolls, we've all be patiently waiting for the price to go down (and more carriers to be supported) - or we've been waiting for the ipod touch instead. Or we're waiting for revision B down the road when something wacky happens with the iphone 6 months from now.
It was overpriced when it came out (Score:3, Interesting)
If it was faulty or you got less than what was advertised then sure.
WRT rebates for punishing companies, I personally don't think fines/rebates are that effective. Bosses being sent to prison is definitely more effective...
AppleCare rules (Score:3, Interesting)
My friend broke the screen of his iBook which he had in a backpack while skateboarding. Free replacement from Apple. My brother broke his iPod in a biking accident. Apple replaced it free of charge. A friend of mine stumbled over a pre-mag-save PowerBook cable and the cable ripped out of the plug. Apple sent me a new charger, no questions asked.
I would tell anyone to extend AppleCare to three years for portable devices. If anything happens, Apple will fix it.
Re:Wow, that was quick (Score:3, Interesting)
Well... it might be also be assumed that I'd buy Leopard anyway. In which case that's an additional $100 (theoretically in pure profit) that they did NOT get from me. Or an extra $100 that I didn't spend at the iTunes store. Or so on.
In short, your "logic" only holds for items that, but for the $100 gift card, I would NEVER have purchased in the first place.