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Apple Slashes iPhone Pricing Dramatically.

Apple Attacks Smartphone Market with Inexpensive iPhone

Category: Mobile

by Anton Shilov

[ 09/05/2007 | 10:58 PM ]

Besides introducing the new family of iPod digital media players, Apple on Wednesday said it would reduce the price of the high-end flavour of its iPhone device by as much as $200 in the

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U.S. While the situation with iPhone availability in other parts of the world remains unclear, Apple may want to sell as many iPhones as possible on its domestic market.

Apple indicated that it is on track to sell-in its one millionth iPhone before the end of September and it is also lowering the price of the most popular iPhone model with 8GB of storage from $599 to just $399. The Apple iPhone 4GB model will be sold while supplies last.

“The surveys are in and iPhone customer satisfaction scores are higher than we’ve ever seen for any Apple product. We’ve clearly got a breakthrough product and we want to make it affordable for even more customers as we enter this holiday season,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive.

Analysts agree that Apple’s iPhone has become relatively popular since its launch, however, its popularity is a result of positive feedback from early adapters, the vast majority of which are those who generally like products from Apple. However, the number of such fans of Apple is limited and in order to increase its market share on the market of smartphones Apple either needs to offer lower-cost iPhone models, or cut the price of existing devices.

Apple iPhone combines digital media player, phone, Web browser and personal digital assistant’s features. The device is equipped with 3.5” touch-screen instead of keypad, includes support for quad-band GSM, EDGE, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 EDR wireless technologies. The iPhone also features a 2 megapixel (2MP) camera along with a photo management application.

Since Apple iPhone does not support 3G data transfer rates, its popularity in Asia and Europe is disputable. Moreover, after promising to make the iPhone available in Europe this Fall, Apple still has not announced any concrete intentions or plans.