Steve Jobs’ iPhone Price Drop Excuse: A Little Ahead of Its Time

No doubt Steve Jobs speaks from the heart, but he must’ve been high when he wrote his apology to early iPhone adopters for dropping the price $200 after just two months.

…being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you’ll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon.

While I agree that you can’t postpone every tech purchase just to wait for the next price drop, that’s because most tech price drops take around six months. Waiting six months to buy tech products can kill your competitiveness, but two months? I’m all for accelerating progress, but we’re not that close to the singularity just yet. Steve’s a little too far ahead of his time; I’d probably buy his excuse five years from now, but not today.

If Apple can make a profit off the iPhone at $399, they should have launched it at that price. No wonder the fanboys who camped out to buy the thing on launch day now feel so exploited.