iPhone Price Drop is a Tough Pill to Swallow

One thing I've learned as a consumer is that it doesn't pay to be an early adopter of Apple products, hence why I waited to buy an iPhone. As soon as I heard the iPhone's price dropped to $299 and $399, I couldn't help but think about all the people that paid full price for an iPhone yesterday or even two months ago. Apple reported selling 270,000 iPhones in June, and that's not including sales in August or September. That's already a lot of angry customers.

So was it worth paying an extra $200 to have an iPhone two months early? One Crave editor seems to think so, but try telling that to the thousands who bought an iPhone not knowing it would have such a dramatic, sudden price reduction. Angry customers are flooding the Apple forums with complaints about the $200 price drop, and even asking for compensation. FauxOne says, "I may never buy one of your products until I see its first price drop or upgrade...You have one million people who are feeling exactly as I am right now." Fourteen year-old Violin93 says the price drop "felt as if I had just gotten hit by a bus."

Much of the resentment is about the way the iPhone depreciated in value in less than 67 days. Jeremy Riga says, "I am NOT angry at the $200 price drop. I'm angry that Apple has decided NOT to keep the VALUE in the iPhone (or that it wasn't there to begin with). Because as a savvy consumer I understand the difference between buying something of value, and something that is overpriced. I bought the iPhone because I was sold, at $600, on the VALUE. Now today I am finding that I was wrong - it was NOT worth $600 - it was worth $400, perhaps even less. Thus, it was overpriced and I was over-sold by someone I have trusted to sell me worthwhile, and valuable products in the past. Steve Jobs."

Early adopters of the iPhone even started an iPetition asking Apple to compensate them with a discount on Apple hardware or iTunes credits. What do you think? Should these early adopters suck it up or be compensated?

I paid $600 for my iPhone, Am I a Sucker? [Crave]