Well, that's in the best case scenario.
The poor dude that bought one on Monday has had $100/day of coolness factor depreciation.
On the other hand, if this surprises you, then you haven't been watching Apple's new product introductions since, oh, say, 1980 or so.
They ALWAYS crank up the price for the early adopters, and then generally issue a product with far improved specs at a much lower price within short order. And there is NEVER a migration path for the early adopters and there is ALMOST ALWAYS a serious mis-feature or limitation of the Gen 1 product which is corrected on Gen2.
Brilliant marketing, really. Think about it.
You get a large population of people who say "this whizzy new product is super-expensive, but it's so cool it's ALMOST worth it."
Then when a price cut comes along they think, "Damn, I seriously thought about buying this when it cost way more. It's a no-brainer to buy it now straightaway (at an only _somewhat_ premium price)."
Quick history recap (off the top of my head so numbers may be slightly
inaccurate):
- Lisa: $10,000
- Original 128K Mac w/o hard drive: 2500-2800 dollars (I.e., $5000+ in today's dollars)
- First LaserWriters: $7000
- Original Pricing on Cinema Displays: $mucho
- Original crappy iPod versus competitors products: 2x the cost.
- etc.
Also, with respect to the iPhone, I believe this was a phenomenally
executed piece of demand management for several reasons.
- Introducing the iPhone at a ridiculous price point (seemingly) establishes them as *the* top-of-the-line premium product in this space.
This could have backfired if there had been any major technical screw-ups with the product. But there weren't.
- Guarantees that demand won't exceed supply (by much) while they are ramping up a new and somewhat unfamiliar product.
In fact, one could argue that it would have been
irresponsible to their shareholders
not to have done this.
If they had rolled it out priced significantly less, then all of those PS3-ebay-first-day-flipper-scumbags would have been hawking them on Ebay marked up far above list price.
Thus diverting perhaps $50 million or more of profit from Apple's coffers into the hands of scalpers/leeches who provide no real value.
In conclusion:
Let's get real, guys. Whizzy gizmos for (many) boys are like fashion for (many) girls. You are basically paying a price which is unreasonably marked up for something which nobody actually _needs_ and which nobody will be caught dead using in two years time because it will be too embarassing/obsolete at that point.
It's all rolled in together. The very things which make it cool and pricey now will make it uncool and worthless eventually.
(Hey remember when those nasty-ugly plastic blue iMacs were considered cool?)
[Yes, I realize iPhone ownership is 47% female, and that many guys spend big money on stupid trendy shoes and moisturizer. So please forgive me using the dated stereotype of boys=gadgets, girls=fashion. The point is valid no matter which sex is buying what.]
Get over it, have fun with the iPhone til your contract runs out, then put it in your closet alongside the Member's Only jacket, parachute pants, Newton, Palm Pilot, giant earrings and shoulder pads, lower back tattoo, boxed copy of Netscape 2.0, enormous stack of dot-com stock certificates, and your "Don't Vote Me Off The Island" T-shirt.
P.S. I still love my iPhone, despite it's flaws. And I mentally and emotionally wrote off the entire $2000 total lifetime cost of ownership the minute I walked out of the Cultic Lifestyle Harmonization Mothership, excuse me, Apple Store.
Sure, it's a rip-off. A shiny, whizzy, fun, unable to put down, finger-scrolling, sideways turning, music-playing, YouTube watching rip-off. And you can't have mine.
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