Bad PR for Apple

New York Times: Business Day (section) Friday Sept. 7, 2007 page C -1

IPhone Owners Crying Foul Over Price Cut [Headline]
By Katie Hafner and Brad Stone

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 6 -- In June
they were calling it the Godohone. Yes-
terday, it was the Chump Phone.
People who rushed to buy the Ap-
ple iPhone over the last two months
suddenly and embarrassingly found
that they had overpaid by $200 for
the year's most coveted gadget.
Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., has
made few misstepts over the past decade
but it angered manhy of it most loy-
al customers by dropping the price of its
iPhone to $400 from $600 only two
mnths after it first went on sale. THey
let the company know on blogs, through
e-mail messages and with phone calls.
Yesterday, in a remarkable conces-
sion, Steven P.Jobs acknowledged tht
the company had abused its core cus-
tomers' trust and extended a $100 store
credit to the early iPhone buyers.
"Our early customers trusted us,
and we must live up to that trust with out
actions in moments like these," Mr. Jobs
wrote in a letter posted to Apple's Web
site.
The rebate, at least, was enough to
mollify some early iPhone customers
like Kevin Tofel, a blogger in Telford,
Pa., who writes about mobile phones at
a blog called jkOnTheRun.
***
"I just felt so used as a customer, "he
said.
***