Steve Jobs: "Because I Can"

Holy crap... Exactly how badly am I supposed to feel for people who had no issue shelling out $500 or $600 on a version one product? The way the tech press is pissing and moaning, you'd think Steve Jobs had just robbed money from UNICEF.

Of my friends who own iPhones, I haven't heard any of them complaining. They just had to go out and spend top dollar for the latest shiny gadget as soon as it became available. They've done it before, and they'll do it again. As such, none of them were surprised to see a big price drop.

The author makes some good points (Jobs is a tool for snubbing the interview, the price cut was well planned, and the reasoning behind the price cut, etc)... But, I think he's off the mark on some things:

"In the mind of Steve Jobs the entire incident had no downside, none at all, which is yet another reason why he is not like you or me." "So Apple still comes out $75 million ahead, which is important to Steve Jobs."

Jobs is a CEO. Making money for the company and the company's stakeholders is what he does. Its his job, if you will. So yes, coming out ahead is important to Jobs... and every other competent CEO.

And as for the Gates comment, "He has to know he can never win"... Define 'win'. The way I see it, Apple is indeed winning... they're just not playing the same game as Microsoft anymore.

There is simply no way Jobs decided on the $100 gift certificate a day or two after the keynote announcing the price cut.

Considering all the planning that goes into all public presentations by Jobs, that is not plausible.

Cringely is spot on here.

This whole thing is stupid. They set the price. In the product they sold, they made no guarantee that the price wasn't going to drop--lack of a future price drop wasn't part of the product. If anything, the main 'intangible' in this product was 'smugness'.

So, they set the price, and people bought it. End of story. They didn't force anyone to. If someone thought it was worth $600 when, as Cringely says, the 'real' price was the current price, then you made the mistake.

This reminds me of bad relationship advice - you have to abuse your customers a little in order for them to appreciate you better in the long run.

Didn't you all see the price drop coming? Maybe a $200 drop was a little unexpected, but I fully thought apple would come out with a new, better, and shinier iPhone months after the initial release when they announced it. Marketing-wise, its hard to claim that the price drop is a bad business move since they are still beating projections.

The key here is to learn from the master.