Apple fanbois are "the stupid"

WHY HAS no one cried foul about Apple's unannounced $200 price drop yet? It launched the Iphone fashion accessory a mere two months ago, and now it is dropping the price by 1/3rd and killing the lowest model. This says a lot about how cynically Apple uses their fans, hereafter referred to as 'the stupid'.

Think about it, two months for a 33% price drop, there is no way this can be spun well, it is just bad for Apple and bad for Iphone owners. Why is that? Well, from Apple's perspective, it either planned this before hand or did it in a reactionary way. Neither is good news.

If it did it in a reactionary way, it had to be a reaction to something, and I will go out on a limb and say it is not overly brisk sales. In fact, if you remember shortly after the iPhone fashion accessory went on sale, a bunch of Apple following analysts came out and said first week/month/whatnot sales were far below expectations.

This was shortly backpedalled on as 'overly high expectations on our part' and other twaddle. I sense the heavy hand of Apple IR/AR leaning on the analyst community. The reactionary side basically translates to 'sales blow' and if you talk about it, we'll cut you off.

One could argue that components dropped in price, and flash memory is a very volatile market. Flash costs somewhere around $10/GB in volume, so 8GB of flash would have to drop to the point where the makers are paying Apple $15/G to take it off their hands, hardly likely, to cover this. A custom CPU and a custom screen are also unlikely to drop that much that fast. In the end, cost drop is hugely unlikely as a cause.

The third scenario is that Apple fleeced the stupid, and that's millions of you. It knew the drooling yet amazingly stupid fanbois would pay any price for the iPhone, so it did just that, jacked the price up. The stupid dutifully paid $200 extra for it, and walked away happy. Morons.

If Apple did this, congratulations for coming out of your shell. Your fanbois are a rich source of unending income, fleece them. The Iphone is a start, now you know the trick. Build up the hype for months, and then suck the wallets of the stupid dry with a mediocre or worse product for exorbitant rates.

When it breaks seven months later, coincidentally three hours after the warranty expires, call them stupid and tell them to buy another. They are stupid, they will. You win! A few months later, release another Intel reference design wrapped in white plastic just well enough to drive reliability into the toilet, and you win again! Genius.

In the end, I think it is a combination of sales blowing and naked fleecing of the stupid. I think Apple would have gone on repentantly fleecing the stupid, but sales did not allow for that. All the miserable sales did was force Apple's hand and expose the hypocrisy. Luckily, all of the stupid out there are locked into a long term contract they can't get out of to a carrier that unrepentantly screws its customers. Does Apple care? Hell no, it has your money, the blame falls on Cingular/ATT, and did I mention the new iWhatnot we have coming out soon?

On one hand, I salute Apple for finally fleecing the stupid. On the other, I think this is the first sign of the ball of yarn unraveling. Apple will spin the Ipone as a huge success, and compared to sales of zero up till now, it is. I don't think it will meet internal expectations though, and that is going to bite them harder then they bit the stupid. µ