Steve Jobs has always been a smart marketeer. I may be extremely critical of some dubious stock option awards (and cancellations, seemingly just to hurt engineers) and his, let's call it “colorful” language used off the public stage; but he has always been on top of understanding his loyal base of followers, and users.
The disaster that followed the $200 price cut on the 8 Gbyte (8 GB, 8 GigaBell in Apple speak) iPhone and the elimination of the 4 Gbyte model were both totally predictable. The $100 store credit offered to early adopters (what can you buy in an Apple Store for $100?) was just an insulting afterthought.
The news was accompanied by the message that one million iPhones have been sold since launch, certainly an impressive number considering the limited network of the “new” AT&T.
Before the launch, I attempted to predict what and where the product would sell and I don't think that I did that bad a job. What I didn't note was that I had heard about an iPhone clone being sold in Taiwan about six months before the real product. I didn't comment because I could not accurately source any information. Bloomberg has now done so. Although the fake products are Apple look-alikes, designed based on published photos before the iPhone launch, they have the Apple logo on the back -- and they work…
They are priced, of course, at far lower numbers than the real products and they have the distinct advantage of not having Apple software and can therefore operate on any network. Since Apple will not hit the Asian market with the iPhone until at least 2008, they will have significant problems in getting any traction there at all compared to the local products. I must say that I particularly liked the caution to look-alike producers: Waring. It will break the law without authorized by Apple Inc., if you use `iPhone' logo on any electronic pruducts. So, I guess it's all right to use the Apple logo, but not that of the iPhone.
My other major concern with all these Apple products is battery life. I have no clue what chemistry is being used in the batteries for the iPods or iPhones. I do know, with a certainty, that they are not going to last forever. I came across one loony who believes that there is a fault in the OS system in the iPod, and that when the battery charge lasts no longer than an hour he can defrag the system and bring it back up to a seven or eight hour playing life.
Originally, the company policy of Applewas to tell customers with unchargeable batteries to go buy a new product. Isn't that customer-friendly?
Eventually the company must have come to realize that really was not a very proactive solution, so they started an exchange system. When your iPod battery starts to fail to hold a charge any longer, send it in with a payment of $59, plus $6.95 shipping and handling, and they will replace… no sorry, they won't replace your battery; they will replace your beloved iPod with a new, used or refurbished unit, at their choice. With the higher pricing of the iPhone, expect that when they are eventually forced to do the same, that it will be a $99 charge -- plus shipping and handling.
I don’t know who is fooling whom in all this. Most users will never hear about the replacement service anyway, and will buy new; others will be disgusted at receiving someone else's hand-me-down unit and will also buy new. If your original unit was engraved on the back -- showing, probably, love from the presenter -- your grotty, refurbed replacement can also be engraved: just add another week to the turnaround. And, don't forget, when that product comes back to you it will be clean of data: if you didn't back up your songs before shipment, it's back to iTunes to replace them.
There is a way of avoiding this. One company offers replacement batteries for iPods. They sell you the replacement batteries, a tool to open the product, etc. Requires soldering. The prices are low, but who in their right mind would put a battery of unknown origins in a portable product being carried by your kid? This is simply not an option.
OK, Jobs, you win. In your favorite vernacular - when my daughter's iPod doesn't entertain her for longer than the school bus ride home - I will buy a f*****g new one. But I can mentally curse you...unless, of course, your early-adopter iPhone buyers haven't already strung you up from a Stevens Creek Blvd. lamppost outside your Cupertino headquarters -- with an Apple in-store credit certificate tied to your ankle.
