This is a post I wrote in while attempting to become a blogger with TUAW. They didn’t pick me, so enjoy this somewhat dated post. 🙂
Thoughts on the iPhone Price Drop
Everyone knew it was coming, the iPod touch is finally here. After years of speculation, Apple has finally unveiled the mecca of iPods. Of course, my personal bias was always for a phone based iPod, and I was glad to be able to skip straight to it. Much to my surprise, as everyone’s was Apple’s recent price drop on the iPhone.
It seems so obvious now. Once the iPhone was announced, it was only a matter of time before Apple would release a version without the phone, for all of the users stuck with Treos from the office, or who are happy with a different wireless provider. Once this product is announced, it is instantly in direct competition with Apple’s biggest innovation of 2007, the iPhone.
Here is a scenario: The infamous John Appleseed walks into an Apple store. He has received a lot of calls from an iPhone, but he isn’t sure he wants to give up his trusty Motorola Razr. He’s been thinking about getting a new iPod, but doesn’t know much about the new models.
First he picks up the shuffle, but he knows he wants to watch video, so he puts it down. He then moves over to the Nano, but it looks too weird. The iPod classic is nice, but it reminds him of his current iPod photo, and John just doesn’t need that much hard drive pace.
He then sees the iPod Touch and falls in love. He can download music directly to it via wi-fi, it holds a good amount of music, he can get online with it. Its pretty awesome, and the big one is 200 dollars cheaper than the iPhone, so… but wait! The Apple Personal Shopper mentions that the iPhone is the same price. Why not go ahead and pick one up, the hard drive limitations might be worth it to be able to just keep track of one device.
In my opinion, it is a smart move by Apple to not have it’s products compete against each other, and the 100 dollar rebate Apple is offering to early adopters is a smart move to soothe those who helped support it’s launch.