JD on EP

Amen JD. The ranting is ridiculous.

Agree 100% with you. Last time I checked this happens for EVERY cell phone. Also I could understand if you bought it at 9:00 am and no one told you "psst...wait an hour". They offer money back up to 14 days before. Someone else pointed out you have to live with the fact that the $200 was worth it to have it two weeks ago and showoff to anyone who cared :).

This weekend I was at an outdoor picnic in a remote area, and one of the picnickers was the chief operating officer of a multi-million dollar organization. He was showing off his new iPhone. I said I wasn't ready to pay extra for a less-convenient device, and so saying, produced my own phone and used one-touch speed dial to leave a message for a friend. "Oh, I can do that too," he said, matching me button for button at least in his imagination, since by the time I had left the message he was showing me how he could choose the speed dial option from a menu, select the person he wanted to quickly dial, etcetera and so on.

What impressed me most was how much he loved this little new device -- the real happiness it gave him to be able to take photos, zoom in on them, send them to friends, look up maps right there at the picnic table, even view a little movie. I was amazed there was cell phone reception out there in the middle of nowhere. I didn't bother to argue how much more convenient my cheaper phone was for me, and it didn't even cross my mind to say "well, MY phone does VOICE recognition."

Instead, I took snapshots in the setting sun of a happy silhouette, fingers illuminated by the light from the sparkling little phone in a moment which, because it happened last week and not sometime in the future, was worth easily $200 dollars (just not my 200).

I've been watching the whole thing unravel and it's an interesting study on a user group being exposed to a new situation. Apple has always managed the price reduction of their products in the past. So the early adopters have not seen price drops for at least 6-8 months. That doesn't work in the mobile world. My motorola phone was half the price in 4 months. I'm glad that apple is not trying to fight it. These things get cheaper to produce fast - it's a bit hard to hold apple to a pricing roadmap that no one else is following. This is the reality of the industry.

I'm not entirely sure that I'd use "announce" and "implement" interchangeably. We'll see how smooth the process goes.

This morning I reacted to it, but I've been thinking more on it throughout the day. It's not just a gadget, and it's not just money -- more like what George Girton wrote, of how it's an opportunity to show one's friends and acquaintances something special, something they may have heard of but hadn't seen before.

In a thrice, "my friends think of me as knowing cool stuff" crashes into "my friends know I didn't get the lowest price on a phone". Big change in self-image.

That theory holds up with what we're seeing, doesn't it...?

jd