The Touch
2007-09-06 03:10PM PDT/Home
I can't be the only one thinking that the iPod "Touch" would be perfect platform to hack on. Be still my beating credit card. Even so, what happened to the Maps application? Mail? The Stock and weather widgets, heck even the Notepad? Frustrating. It unfortunately reminds me of the old G3, and early G4 iBook days when Apple hobbled the video card so an external monitor could only be run in mirror mode. Yes, yes, you want us to buy that other, more expensive product. I got it. But don't hobble your lower margin products to do it.
That said, I do want to give Apple major kudos for the open letter. While my wife absolutely loves her iPhone, and I can't pry it from her hands. It's still nice to get some luv.
Update: The iPhone price cut dust up made the NY Times (via Techmeme). My favorite quote:
By starting the price high, manufacturers can gauge early demand and reap greater profit from early adopters who are willing to pay any amount to be the first with a particular device. "It's probably a formula taught in business school," Mr. Dulaney said.
I think the business school formula is getting a real-life revision.
Update: Another NY Times article, this time from their technology blog by Saul Hansell who makes the observation that perhaps the iPhone has been selling well enough for it to scale faster reducing the price sooner. But this was my favorite quote so far:
One of the minor miracles of the iPhone story so far, in fact, has been that Apple has been able to sell many hundreds of thousands of them without the sort of parts shortages that all too often plague new devices.
Put two and two together. Apple put up a substantial amount of capitol to have a ready supply of iPhones available at launch. That represents a significant risk to the business. In hindsight it doesn't seem like much of a risk, but at the time I'm sure there were some sleepless nights by Apple execs. Remember Jobs himself visited the Palo Alto store on the first night the iPhone was released to see how it was doing. The $200 drop in price, more than anything else, I think, reflects a significant drop in risk to the business. (via Daring Fireball)
Update: Apparently the hobbling of the Touch goes even deeper than what I had commented on above. Apple even removed the add button in the Calendar app so you can't add an event on the go with the Touch. (via Daring Fireball)