Apple has bowed to pressure from iPhone owners complaining about the $200 (£99) price cut to the device made on Wednesday. US shoppers who bought the iPhone in the last 14 days will be eligible for a full refund or credit, as is Apple's standard policy. However owners of iPhones bought before that will be given a $100 (£50) Apple Store voucher in compensation.
In an open letter, Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote that he had received hundreds of complaints from disgruntled Apple iPhone customers. "We want to do the right thing for our valued Apple iPhone customers. We apologise for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations," Jobs wrote.
He maintained that price cuts are part of life in the consumer technology world. "There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cut-off date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever," Jobs explained. "This is life in the technology lane."
That's technology
In an interview with USA Today, Jobs was asked if he wanted to apologise to those that had bought an Apple iPhone for $599 (£296), before the price drop was announced. "That's technology," Jobs said. "If they bought [the Apple iPhone] this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that's what happens in technology."
Apple slashed the price of the 8GB Apple iPhone to $399 (£198) from the previous $599 (£298) on Wednesday, irritating many early adopters of the device. Hundreds of thousands of Apple fans rushed to stores a couple of months back to get their hands on the Apple iPhone, following its launch on Friday 30 June.
Details of the $100 Apple Store vouchers are still being confirmed, Jobs wrote, but will be posted on the Apple website during the coming week.
