Steve Wozniak: My Life on the D List …
by John Paczkowski
Posted on September 24, 2007 at 10:43 AM PT
New rule: stop bitching that Apple cut the price of the iPhone. Early adopters always pay a premium. Early adopters being a business term meaning dips***s who stand in line for six hours for a freaking phone. It’s not a price cut, it’s a repeal on the nerd tax. If you didn’t have to be the first on your block to have the latest gizmo, you’d now have an extra $200 to spend on your imaginary girlfriend.”
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is as peeved as anyone about the iPhone’s recent price cut–more so because he’s apparently purchased upward of 20 of them for friends (friends like Kathy Griffin?).
During a Q&A session this past weekend at the ConnectWise Partner Summit in Tampa, Fla., Wozniak lambasted Apple for dropping the iPhone’s price by $200 just 68 days after bringing it to market. “Nobody expects a product to drop that much in price in such a short time,” Wozniak told CRN. “Steve Jobs and everyone expects technology to drop in price. The first adopters always pay a premium. I am one of them. I am used to that. But that one was too soon, too harsh.”
Wozniak was critical of Apple’s $100 iPhone credit plan as well, noting that it’s not exactly worth $100. “Why don’t you just take my receipt and give me the money back? And of course it always comes back to Apple Store credit. So instead of getting $100 back you are getting $50 back, sort of. It is very optimal to the company. I feel badly about the situation for everyone. I don’t think Apple should have even done it. Maybe a very much more gradual price reduction, $50 at first, or find ways to bundle it into a savings on your account.”
