Michael Henley

I thought I would jump on this bandwagon, if only to prove that I don’t approve of or agree with everything Apple does from on high at Cupertino. As you will know, Apple held their special event on 5th September at Moscone West. After the first few months of iPhone sales figures etc had come in, Apple knew what we all said from the beginning – a 4GB iPhone was simply too small and the demand clearly wouldn’t be there if there was a larger capacity version around. Indeed the only reason I believe anyone would even contemplate buying one of the smaller capacity phones would be the price.

Having said that, if I were an iPhone owner (and one of the only reasons I am not is that I am in the UK), I would not be best pleased with Apple at the moment. Of course technology moves on, and buying at the wrong time is always a risk – I waited 6 months to buy this laptop simply because I read the rumours of an update on the horizon. Equally I would say that buying on the day of a product’s launch can’t possibly be too early. The early adopters were screwed over by Apple. Of course this won’t stop them from buying another Apple product – and it wouldn’t stop me. We all know the risks. I do object to the half-hearted measures Apple and Steve have put out there to try to placate their customers.

If they are $200 out of pocket, then how is a $100 store credit going to go anywhere to solving that? I would say that it should be either just paid back into their accounts so that they can spend their money anywhere, or they should be getting more. Profit is profit, but sometimes I wonder how long Apple’s rock-solid fanbase will keep the shit from sticking to them… This is the summary of Apple’s whole ethos though. They know that regardless of what they do, their ‘fanboys’ will keep defending them better than any $5,000/hr lawyer could, and so they are willing to sit in their airtight campus, not informing anyone of their upcoming products, and doing whatever they want. Their products are revolutionary, but that can only keep them safe for so long.

In saying this I am being quite hypocritical. I am writing this on my 3 month old MacBook Pro, listening to music on my 3rd Gen. iPod, and eagerly awaiting the 29th September when I will travel for over an hour to go to the Regents Street Apple Store simply to play with the new iPod touchs and worship at the altar of Steve. That said if I had bought a 4GB iPhone a few months ago, to have it discontinued, or if I had bought an 8GB iPhone only to have it dropped in price a few months later I wouldn’t be happy. This is primarily because I have found that Apple does not rush any decisions. This is one of the reasons I believe they keep so quiet about new products – so that they can plan out in minute detail what they are going to do over the few months after launch etc. This means that they have intended for a long time, possibly even before the launch of the iPhone, to drop the price in September. This is no doubt why they have only released the iPod touch now – they can now use the consumers of those as Guinea Pigs, and see if the demand for it, and for a 16GB iPhone, which I expect is on the horizon, is there. As John C. Dvorak says, never buy the first gen. of an Apple product. For once I am thankful I live in the UK, because we will probably get the 2nd Gen. of iPhone.

I wonder why Apple ever launched the 4GB iPhone – the only reason I can think of is that they were desperate to prove from the word go that their phone would beat all the competition simply because they made it, and so introduced a cheaper option to maximise sales figures of the iPhone as a whole. Still, I look forward to the 16GB (or larger because although more acceptable, 16GB is still too small for a device where video playback is one of the key features) iPhone and iPod touch, and will be buying one. It just hope that Apple don’t ‘suddenly’ figure out how to fit 32GB inside the 8mm thin case and revise the iPod touch up to Gen. 2….