Jobs apologizes for iPhone price cut; Apple to issue $100 credit

'We want to do the right thing,' says CEO in open letter

By Gregg Keizer

September 6, 2007 12:00 PM ET

Comments

Computerworld - Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs this afternoon responded to a flood of complaints from existing iPhone owners over yesterday's $200 price cut by promising the company would issue a $100 credit to anyone who bought an iPhone before the change.

"I have received hundreds of e-mails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale," Jobs said in a statement posted to the Apple Web site.

In the open letter addressed to "all iPhone customers," Jobs defended the price cut, saying "now is the right time to do it. IPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to 'go for it' this holiday season." He also echoed -- albeit in more circumspect language -- comments made yesterday in an interview with reporters from USA Today in which he told disgruntled owners "that's what happens in technology."

"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," Jobs said today. "This is life in the technology lane."

But he tacitly acknowledged that Apple had stumbled. "We need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price," Jobs said in the letter. "Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these."

All current iPhone owners with the exception of those eligible for other rebates -- people who purchased an iPhone in the last 14 days, for example, can return it for a refund, minus a 10% restocking fee -- will be issued a $100 credit good either at Apple's own retail stores or its online shop, said Jobs. Details were not available, but he promised they would be posted to the Apple site next week.

"We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers," he concluded. "We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple."

Apple's change of heart was in reaction to the overwhelmingly negative comments that iPhone owners posted to the company's own message forums -- and forums at other Web sites -- starting just minutes after the price change announcement yesterday.

Related News and Discussion:

Read more about macintoshes in Computerworld's Macintoshes Knowledge Center.

Comment Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Jump to comments

Apple

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER

EFD vs. HDD - What You Need to Know

Enterprise flash drives provide a new Tier 0 storage layer capable of delivering high I/O performance at a very low latency. Proper use of EFDs in an Oracle environment can deliver increased performance compared to fibre channel drives. Read the recommendations for identification of the best DB components for EFDs.

WHITE PAPER

Gartner Research Report: Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers, 2009

The market for products to improve the delivery of application software over networks remains dynamic and innovative. Vendors focused on solving enterprises' most-pressing application problems have become the top players.

WHITE PAPER

Eight Criteria for Server Load Balancing

Server load balancers are a simple yet highly effective means to scale an application environment while ensuring its availability. Today's solutions should also address application performance and security. Read about the top eight criteria you should consider when choosing a server load balancer and how Citrix NetScaler meets those requirements.