Archive for the ‘iPhone’ Category

If you bought an iPhone at full price before Apple’s price cut of August 22nd, Apple wants to calm the frustration you may feel for having paid too much. You are entitled to a $100 credit but don’t expect cash. The $100 is an Apple store credit, applicable to future purchases. Here is how to claim your iPhone credit.

Apple Inc. sold its millionth iPhone over the weekend, days after it slashed the price by a third to spur sales.

The milestone was reached weeks earlier than expected and sent shares of Apple up $4.94, or 3.8 percent, to $136.71. The stock regained some of the ground it lost after the price cut spooked investors as a sign of weak demand and slimmer margins.

It took just 74 days for the combination cell phone-iPod to hit the 1 million mark, which Apple had said it would achieve by the end of September. By comparison, it took two years for the company to sell 1 million iPods, Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted in a statement.

Last week, Apple knocked $200 off the price of the 8-gigabyte iPhone, bringing its price to $399, and discontinued the 4-gigabyte version. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris declined to comment on whether the price cut helped spur sales.

The price cut may have helped a bit, but Apple clearly was on track already to exceed its own expectations, analysts say.

“I’d argue that sales have been fairly strong, and this alleviates concerns that sales were weak,” said Shaw Wu, analyst at American Technology Research.

The swift price cut — not surprising in the cell phone industry but rare behavior for Apple — angered hundreds of early buyers who bought the touch-screen gadget for top dollar. In response to all the negative reaction, Jobs issued an apology the next day and offered customers $100 credits.

Apple had said it was lowering the iPhone price to attract more customers, in time for the holiday season.

The move, which many analysts had predicted — but not quite so quickly — adds pressure to Apple’s rivals, but it also was possibly part of a broader strategy for its entire product lineup.

On the same day Apple slashed the iPhone price to $399, it unveiled a new iPod, also for $399. The iPod Touch is basically the same as the iPhone but without the cell phone capability.

Apple cut the price of the hybrid iPod-cell phone to prevent an onslaught of consumers from abandoning it in favor of the Touch, Tim Bajarin, analyst with Creative Strategies, speculated. “They solved the cannibalization problem with this,” he said.

AppleInsider reports today that a third iPhone class-action lawsuit has been filed against Apple (AAPL). This one claims that the company failed to disclose that the device was locked to AT&T’s wireless network and that using it outside the U.S. could result in substantial roaming charges.

The complainant is a New York state resident named Herbert H. Kliegerman who, according to AppleInsider, tells this story:

Approximately two weeks after purchasing his iPhone, Kliegerman traveled to Mexico for a week where he continued to use his iPhone to check emails and surf the web. He did so, according to the suit, after reading a statement on Apple’s iPhone website stating that “[y]ou can browse the Internet and send emails as often as you like without being charged extra.”

Upon returning from Mexico, Kliegerman claims to have received a bill from AT&T with $2,000 in international data roaming charges. Being a frequently traveler, he turned to the wireless carrier in order to obtain an unlock code for his iPhone, but was informed that such unlock codes would not be provided to him, according to the suit. (link)
Kleierman’s nine-page complaint, filed Monday in a New York State Supreme Court, notes that AT&T has routinely provided unlock codes for their phones in the past when requested by a customer. He is represtented by attorneys at Randall S. Newman, P.C.

The two previous class-action suits, filed in Illinois and California, allege that Apple and A&T failed to adequately inform early customers of the costs involved in maintaining a working battery for the life of the phone. Neither has come to trial.