“We just got a tip that Apple is planning on dropping the prices again on the iPhone and iPod touch line within the next month or two – perhaps at the late February event, perhaps as late as mid-April. Our tipster says that Apple will drop the prices by $100,” Cleve Nettles reports for 9 to 5 Mac.
“Also, the 8Gb iPod touch will be dropped from the lineup according to the source. It might also make sense that the 8Gb iPhone would get phased out as well, but it wasn’t mentioned in the tip,” Nettles reports.
“No specifics were given but the iPod nano line might also be the beneficiary of decreased memory pricing and might see capacities double in size,” Nettles reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dirty Pierre le Punk” for the heads up.]
9 to 5 Mac is a notoriously inaccurate site. They predicted the 5 million iPhones sold number before SJ announced the 4 million number, creating disappointment. I do not believe them now.
Phew, for a second there I thought $100 drop in stock price. Must learn to read complete sentences before jumping to conclusions (or off tall buildings)
Not sure I believe this rumour either…
Apple needs to do something…for example, in Germany just got T-Onlines weekly phone flyer in the newspaper.
For the first time since the iPhone arrived in Germany, the iPhone is no longer in the T-online advertising flyer. That´s not good. (Or it is selling so well that they don´t need to advertise it…which I doubt. I have yet to see anyone use one in Germany. )
The phone market is so fickle and wants new, new, new all the time. Apple needs to bring out a new model every six months.
The space for the extra memory chip in the iPod Touch is used up by the cellphone logic in the iPhone, so I would not expect the iPhone to get as much flash as the iPod Touch before the next major iPhone revision, if at all. It will probably remain a 1:2 relationship for now.
Towards the end of this year the iPhone early adopters will be nearing the end of their 18 month ATT contract. That would be the perfect time to get them to renew their contract with a new 3G, price-dropped (for renewers only) iPhone as an incentive.
I am sure Apple would have a ready market for all the refurbished iPhones traded in.
I also wish Apple would tie their products more (e.g. back to school MacBook and iPod in the the past) such as an iMac/MBP with an AppleTV/Touch/iPhone.
“Phew, for a second there I thought $100 drop in stock price. Must learn to read complete sentences before jumping to conclusions (or off tall buildings)”
in other news, stock traders in Korea are frustrated that their exchange is only one story tall, as they just keep jumping out the window over, and over, and over…..
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
I would like to see an iPhone with 4GB, no camera , at a price of $299.00 geared for the business market
guess I am an old fart, but I am using 1.5 gig of my 4GB for music, more than enough , I have every Sinatra song , and a few Beatles for when I am feeling wild and crazy!
check out todays “Joy of Tech”
Okay Early Adopters (iWhiners or iShowoffs) time to practice:
“That’s not fair! We are special Mr. Jobs, you have to give us something for free. I am telling on you!”
Just my $0.02
um holymackeral you might want to go back to school and learn some math. maybe first grade should do the trick.
The iPhone was released in July. the 2 year(24) month contract for the early adopters will expire around july 2009.
I want my 10.5.2 and TV Take 2 update. :^)
MDN Magic Word: “several” as in “several weeks waiting for these updates…
As a former marketer of consumer electronics price drop = declining demand. You probably have read the stories of how Apple has cut it’s orders for iPhones and iPods recently.
I am upset that Apple continues to promote the iPhone on TV as having high speed web access when the opposite is true. Internet access on the iPhone is painfully slow when you don’t have a wi-fi network available.
As for the iPod..it has probably reached saturation level with consumers. Conventional marketing holds that in order to keep demand you cut the price and introduce new features or new models. The new models have to be a substantial reason for consumers to want to upgrade.
To me what is exciting is the increased penetration of MAC OSX share while MS just announced that their new OS wont be available till 2011. By then we could see at least 3 upgrades to Mac OSX…
Reality Check…
If I hear these words one more time, I will scream;
” it’s not in our interests for Apple to become a monopoly in any market.”
APPLE IS NOT A MONOPOLY IN ANY MARKET, NOT EVEN IN THE DIGITAL MUSIC DOWNLOAD BUSINESS.
People really really really (REALLY!) need to take Econ 101 (or at least learn to use the dictionary) before tossing about the word “monopoly”.
Being the sales leader in a free and open market, does not a monopoly make.
They don’t use it in the US on ATT flyers either – I guess the thing just sells itself…In face it is quite hard (or used to be) to find on their website. I am still glad I bought mine on the first day it was sold….Best phone out there
Actually AT&T;’s Edge network is considered to be a 2.5G network by the telecommunications industry. It may be slow by 3G standards, but it is faster than the original systems….
Surfing on Edge is fairly miserable, but since the end result is the same website as I would get if I did it on my computer I find that I’m really not all that concerned about the slowness.
What I’m a bit more concerned about is not being able to receive or send photos via text messages.
My wife’s long (long long) ago discontinued piece of crapola Samsung slider phone can send photos via text. Why can’t my iPhone?
@Rich Apple Person–
On Wifi my iPhone internet is that fast.
Would you be happy if they showed a slow Wifi connection too?
People need to learn how to read a map. Develop a sense of direction. These days w/GPS and nobody knows how to find their Di@k unless they can Google how to or they have waypoints to it.
How about a disclaimer in the ads “Internet with wi-fi”.
Very unlikely to be true. Apple needs to use price to distinguish it’s different products. Right now the Shuffle is $79, Nano $149, Classic $249, Touch (8 Gig) $299 and iPhone (8 Gig) $399. Apple just announced increased capacity iTouch (16 and 32 Gig) and iPhone (16 Gig) without a price reduction when they could have easily announced the 16 Gig iPhone at the $399 price now occupied by the 8 Gig model.
It’s possible that Apple will eventually rearrange it’s pricing. Even more possible that it will eventually drop the 8 Gig model and charge $399 for the 16 Gig model. But if Apple dropped the iPHone by $100 it would have to dramatically drop the prices of all of it’s other iPod/iTouch products.
Just a dumb rumor.
If this piece of rumor bears out to be true, it just goes to show that in this very competitive electronics gadget market, Apple has little pricing power.
When the news of it upgraded memory for iphone and touch came out about a week ago, there was a debate on this website about weather it is justifiable for Apple to hike the price for $100 on these devices. I agree with ‘Rich Apple person’ that Apple has limited pricing power given the market condition and the deteriorating consumer confidence. A $500 phone with a pricy two-year contract will , IMHO, keep many drooling customers away. Even at last quarter’s sales pace (read: Holiday), it’ll be hard for Apple to reach the stated 10 million iphones sales target for 2008. Apple will not drop the price for charity, but will do so to prop up its share price and keep its investors happy.
@Rich Apple Person
I agree with you totally. They SHOULD put a disclaimer on the ad. It is totally misleading. Edge network is horrible and on the verge of useless. I tried to look up a Real Estate website last weekend and I had to give up after watching the page crawl for 4 minutes.
A lot of that is because of bloated web pages. I’m not saying that’s what caused your 4 minute page crawl but too many sites are overly complicated and loaded with frivolous junk. That’s one of the reasons Google’s search engine got so popular so quickly — simple search page that was fast.
Great…now the stock will drop another $30.00 cause analysts will launch the story and say no one is going to buy iPhones or iTouches because there is an upcoming price cut.