Topics: Mobile

Jobs To iPhone Customers: Drop Dead

Posted by Richard Martin, Sep 7, 2007 12:45 PM

So, you waited in line for 48 hours so you could spend 600 bucks to be the first on your block to buy an iPhone. Now your neighbor Jerry can buy one for $200 less, and you feel, well, jobbed. And you think people should feel sorry for you?

"I feel like a looser," wrote "Shane," a commenter on the InformationWeek message board. Well, Shane, if feel that way, and you can't spell "loser," who are we to argue with you?

Now, waiting in line for tickets to see The Police reunion tour, that I can understand. Waiting in line to view the Elgin Marbles, Ok. But camping out for an overpriced consumer device that every tech blogger who's covered the business for more than five minutes had been saying for months would be discounted almost immediately post-launch? There's one born every minute, pal, and you're one of 'em.

And don't get the idea that just because Steve Jobs posted a pseudo-apology on the Apple Web site, and is offering another $100 so you can buy more cool overpriced stuff from your local Apple store, that he feels bad. ("I tried to tell [Larry Ellison] that it was secretly our plan all along," confides Fake Steve Jobs, "and how it's really super clever because we get to bring these iTards back into the stores all over again to spend their hundred bucks.") Jobs is no more capable of feeling sorry for his customers (who after all have the privilege of paying hundreds of dollars for the stuff he sells) than I am.

Read the Jobs letter again. Here's what it says:

1. I was right: "First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8-Gbyte iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it."

2. You got robbed. Get over it: "This is life in the technology lane."

3. OK, if you're really THAT mad, I'm kinda sorry you feel that way: "We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple."

Lots of Apple fanboys venting online in the last 24 hours are repeating some version of the comment from "Jayhuck" on the InformationWeek board: "I've learned NEVER to buy an Apple product again as soon as it rolls off the line -- if I ever buy one again, period."

Uh-huh. How much you want to bet there's lines outside Apple stores for the next hot device that Jobs and his designers dream up?

« Cell Phones = Bad News In Hospitals | Main | Another BlackBerry Outage Being Reported »

This is a public forum. United Business Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. United Business Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers.

Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of United Business Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in United Business Media's Terms of Service.

Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business.