Brace Yourself For Another iPhone Price Drop

9 to 5 Mac is claiming to have received a tip that soon Apple will once again be dropping the price of the iPhone – as well as the iPod Touch. This would be a $100 price cut across the board and could eliminate the lower-end models.

This makes some amount of sense given that they just launched the new 16 gig iPhone and 32 gig iPod Touch – and Apple is said to be making even larger margins on them. But if Apple does this price cut at the event they are said to be holding at the end of this month, that would be rather ridiculous. Once again consumers who rushed out to buy a device, in this case the 16 gigabyte iPhone, would be getting shafted by a $100 price cut a mere month later. A mid-April timing for the cut would seem to make more sense.

This price cut is also likely to create a nice price-point (perhaps $499?) for when the 3G iPhone arrives – which Forbes reiterated today shouldn’t be that far off.

The 8 gig iPod Touch is expected to be removed from the product line (though a $199 iPod Touch I would think would be very attractive to some consumers), while the 16 gig one would be $299 and the 32 gig one coming in at $399.

An interesting question is if Apple would get rid of the 8 gig iPhone after this price cut. We saw this happen to the 4 gig iPhone after the first price cuts, but a $299 iPhone might be nice for Apple to have around for a while (with the new 16 gig one coming in at $399).

Here’s a potential iPhone timetable for this year:

  • Late February 2008 – iPhone SDK Launches
  • March/April 2008 – iPhone price cut, 16 gig iPhone now $399
  • Summer 2008 – 3G iPhone $499

More thoughts:

Post by MG Siegler on 02/10/08
Comments
  • louisgray
    Customers who buy it now have zero call for complaining. If Apple lowers the price later, big frickin' deal. I'm surprised Apple gave into the whiners last time.
  • nimbus
    3G shouldn't mean that they have to raise the price. That should be something standard in the iPhone.
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