iPhone | Flash Developer | eLearning
OK, as most of you know I’m 100% a Mac Fan Boy because of their solid products, but Apple has given me a bit of mixed feeling with their last keynote. Apple usually does great with product marketing, development and interacting with their customer, but with the last keynote I had really mixed feeling between really impressed and seriously pissed.
What really impressed me was the upcoming release of Snow Leopard. Everything is much more refined and the best part is the $29 it is going to cost me to upgrade. This is the smartest thing Apple could do to separate themselves from Microsoft Windows. Lower price point and better features to upgrade. IMHO this is BRILLIANT! Now onto the iPhone… I was seriously fascinated by all of the new features: ability to interact with 3rd party hardware, tethering, ability to shoot AND edit video, better camera, voice controls, cut and paste, etc…
What really pissed me off is their stupid upgrade policy! My two year contract with Verizon Wireless was ending on June 1. I still wanted to keep the same mobile number that I’ve had for seven or eight years, but I wanted to get away from my crappie local Verizon Wireless service and I’ve been drooling over an iPhone. So I went to my local AT&T store and they told me I should buy my iPhone now. I was a bit hesitant because I had heard all of the rumors about a new potential iPhone being released. So I asked the AT&T sales representative and she told me that Apple wasn’t releasing another iPhone, just the software. So me, listening to AT&T’s stupid sales representative (who’s biz card I still have), I went ahead and got my iPhone that week.
My, oh my, was I concerned when I found out that Apple was releasing the iPhone 3Gs, then in the keynote address they mentioned we could upgrade starting at $199. I was thinking this is a great price, just like the new version of Mac OS X… man Apple is really doing it the right way to make all of their existing customers really happy. I thought I would add another line to my AT&T plan, give my iPhone 3G to my finacee and I’ll get the new iPhone 3Gs. But NOOOOO…. what they failed to mention in the keynote was this great pricing is only for qualifying customers (new and 2 year customers).
Apple & AT&T… WTF were you thinking? Do you know that you just missed a huge opportunity to really drive revenue and customer loyalty? If you would have allowed all of your existing customers to upgrade starting at $199 price (in exchange for renew their 2 year contracts or even add an additional year), you could have made serious profits and made your exist customers extremely happy. But you missed your golden opportunity and in turn pissed off a ton of your existing customer base. Thanks Apple and AT&T for giving us the bird…
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I completely agree! The iPhone f***ed me over! And I’m a loyal apple supporter… but boo hiss AT&T and Apple