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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.


Thats the problem. I have been watching Apple's history on product releases. I can't verify anything before 2000 as I wasn't watching closely, but I have never seen Apple drop a new product 33% 68 days after release like the iPhone. In fact, I have a hard time thinking of any major tech product that has seen such a dramatic drop that soon after the introduction, especially when sales were doing just fine. The drop in this case turns out to be the rare exception in Apple's standards, not the normal policy. The iPods go for nearly a year before being changed out for newer models at similar prices. The computers average at least 6-8 months before being either price dropped or bumped in specs. This can be seen at the Mac Rumors buyers guide.

I still like the device, and thus far still have no major complaints about it. I was willing to live with gen 1, because it's so damn good. And so far, my Gen 1 products from Apple haven't left me with a feeling of missing a serious feature or have major limitations as you state.

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In fact, one could argue that it would have been irresponsible to their shareholders not to have done this.


While I know I've said in the past short term stock shifts don't mean much, and still stand by that, it is interesting that Apple's stock did tumble nearly 8% yesterday, with the start of the tumble coming around the time the announcements were posted to Apple.com. So overall, it seems the shareholders weren't immediately impressed with the announcements yesterday. My guess is the drop may have been due to people thinking the price drop represents a panic move to try and sell more devices, and is a hint that sales weren't as good as people hoped for. Though to counter that, Apple states they are still on track for their goal of a million to be hit this month, so who knows what the real motivation behind the cut was.