I thought I’d post an email I wrote to a friend on Thursday, the day after the now-legendary iPhone price drop. In the email, I ponder about Apple’s plan(s).
I think Apple has had this planned since earlier this year when they saw how crazy everyone was getting over a non-existent iPhone. If you look at it, they should be coming out with a 16GB iPhone in another month or two to take up the top price point. I think yesterday’s move was just laying the groundwork for that.
I also think they knew they would piss people off by lowering the price, but they underestimated just how upset people would be. And they didn’t want people to get too upset or change the marketplace too much, so they didn’t announce the 16GB iPhone yesterday.
They’re implementing a tiered marketing strategy. They know each of the levels of updates they want to make to the current iPhone, they’re just planning it out and implementing that plan with the end goal of maximizing profits for each seasons’ shopper.
They knew the iPhone was overpriced but that the market would support that price because of supply/demand. Now, though, they’re trying to position themselves to maximize profits over the holiday period.
You wait — in November, they’ll release the 16GB iPhone just before the holidays.
They successfully captured max profits from the early adopters and now the back-to-school crowd is in their crosshairs. Next up is the holiday shopper.
Now, today, some rumor sites are posting about a supposedly leaked T-Mobile ad which advertises a 16GB, 3G iPhone to be released in, gasp, November.
The even more interesting thing here is that I think we’ve finally reached the point where advances in technology have outpaced the market’s ability to accept them. In other words, technology is changing faster than people are willing to pay for it.
