Editorial

Posted on 18 Apr 2008 at 11:37

 

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If you've just bought an iPhone then the news that it's come down in price may grate, but don't feel too bad, it happens to all of us.

News that O2 slashed the price of the iPhone by £100 just as MacUser went to press wasn't entirely surprising. Rumours had been circulating for a while that such a move was in the offing and, as Paul Nesbitt reports, further talk abounds that Apple is looking to offload existing stock in preparation for launching a second edition of the iconic device. In fact, the only surprising thing about it is the fact that, at the time of writing, Apple is still selling the identical gadget, with the same contract requirements, at the old price through its online store.

But this won't be consolation to anyone who bought one just a week before the reduction was announced. They'll have unwittingly found themselves in the position of those who paid inflated rates for a US iPhone through eBay just before they arrived in Britain. The difference there though, was that anyone who sourced their pre-release phone knew full well that hanging on a few days would earn them a substantial saving.

If you bought yourself an iPhone at the old price days before the cut - let's say a week for good measure - then each day of use cost you an additional £14.28. That's not to be sniffed at; it could have bought you, every day, a case to protect it from scratches, two iTunes albums for its library, or an adaptor to let you use it with decent headphones.

Yet this happens time and again. None of us ever really knows when Apple or any other company is about to revamp, update, relaunch or cut the prices on its existing products. So we must ignore the bottom line of our till receipts and instead average the cost over the whole life of the product. Even if you only kept your iPhone for the term of the contract and then dumped it for a Nokia, that extra £100 will average out at 18p a day, and that buys you... well, very little at all. Keep it for any longer and the price just keeps on dropping.

Apply the same maths to the MacBook you bought just before the price came down, the DVD player that end of lined the next day and found itself consigned to the bargain bin, or the camera that had its megapixels usurped by an upstart rival and its ticket trimmed two days later.

Suddenly you'll feel a whole lot better about your most recent overpriced purchase. And, as we face times of economic uncertainty, it may even help sate your guilt. A little.

Author: Nik Rawlinson