Mr. White:

PLEASE don't say, "Apple's (AAPL) new iProducts underwhelm market." You don't know that yet... No one does. Perhaps the press and some financial analysts weren't taken with the announcements, but the "market," hasn't had an opportunity to speak or act yet.

I don't understand why reporting has to have a negative cast or take Britney Spears without underpants to make headline news. There are positive things happening every day. Apple's announcement, at least for CONSUMERS, was very good news, as I suspect it will turn out to be for investors.

Respectfully,
August

You didn't even mention the iTouch. I really would have bought one if it had more than 16G. My husband has an iPhone and I abhor the execrable service of AT&T and would never pay them a monthly fee for static-y, unreliable service. My county is looking into free countywide WiFi. But 16G just isn't big enough.

And the Video Nano doesn't have enough memory to be terribly useful in playing video.

August:

When he says the new announcements "underwhelm market", he's speaking of the stock market. And seeing as there was a 5% drop in the stock price immediately after and then another almost 2% drop today, that right there is the "speak or act" that the market is doing in response to the announcements.

This is a stock site and this article explains what happened to the stock with these announcements. What happens with consumers will be reflected when the sales numbers and quarterly earnings statements come out.

It seems everyone somehow forgot that Apple grossly lowered their forecast for this upcoming quarter at 65 cents / share. Most analysts wanted something in the range of 85-95 cents but apple came in SOO low. Why? Because they anticipated a price cut on their iphone and if you listen to their conference call they spoke about a slew of new products. It really kills me how all these people who follow Apple never pay attention to the past when they've all been wrong. I remember when Apple hit $80 then fell all the way down to $50 because people feared iPod sales were slowing and then what...BOOOM Apple blows out the numbers and the stock hits an all time high of $151.

All you guys are doing is creating an insane buying opp. for the greatest company of the 21st century. A $400 iphone is now in everyones budget.

I think the price drop is a fear based reaction to the surprise of the price drop. Right now an aggressive move to gain market share seems like a good step. Apple want to be more than a niche player in phones. I am always surprised that analysts focus on the iPod business and ignore the significant change in Apple's core business. Apple could give away iPhones just to get people into the stores. Once they see a Mac, it is hard to go back to Windows. How hard do you think it would be for MAC's to gain a 10% market share now that they are Intel based? What would THAT do to the bottomline?

Mr. White:

My sincere apologies for criticizing your headline as being inappropraite or inaccurate. As the respondent above, SagexSDX has so kindly pointed out, you were referring to the stock market and not the "consumer," market, as I had taken it to be.

I have become so "OVERwhelmed," by negative reporting these days, I failed to fairly review your article, responding instead only to the headline.

Again, my apologies to you and also my thanks to SAGExSDX for pointing out my error.

Respectfully,
August

In reality the AAPL stock price should not be a surprise. In the previous MAcWorld conferecne, following the announcements the stock dropped. At that time excuse was given by media, as if, Steve Jobs did not mention anything about iphone, at that time, and as if for that reason the stock was dropped.
Just like any volatile stock, people took the profit from a quick runup. The stock is stangnat as it was stated. Look for trades around 1pm of 9/5/2007. Big sell off started at hat time itself, then partially recouped minutes later. As of around 1pm not any news about iphone price cut. People took profit and stock went down - now we can not say the drop is due to iphone price cut news - because stock already started dropping by that time. Please verify, if in doubt and write back.

APPLE TO CREDIT EXISTING IPHONE CUSTOMERS $100 AFTER CONTROVERSIAL PRICE CUT: WSJ

Well...with all due respect, the author is not an investor.

On 8/28, when invitations to the event went out, Apple began a run from 126 to 144, an increase of 14% in four business days.

The resulting decline is merely profit taking grounded in the ancient (but accurate) "buy the rumor, sell the news".

I think the fact that this hasn't sold off more is fairly indicative of the fact that market likes the products...I personally was looking for a drop back to the 126 area, but it looks like things have stabilized at 135.

We'll see what the market thinks of AAPL (the stock) when consumers begin another round of voting for Apple (the company) with their wallets.

Cutting the price was one of the smartest marketing ploys I've seen in a long time! Since the iPhone came out, all I've heard from the bears is: Why should anyone buy that iPhone when there are so many second-best models that you can get so much cheaper? Don't see the 2nd posters talking about that anymore! Bet that we will soon read about the 2nd best users trashing their 2nd best and buying the best that they wanted in the first place. Will

The price drop demonstrates Apple's desire to make a decisive push into the cell phone market. A significant part of that will be the introduction of the 3G iPhone, which will probably be priced around the introductory price of the original iPhone ($599).