BRENTZILLA

Keep coming across some interesting ideas of why Apple cut the price of the iPhone. Obviously, I have some opinions. Frederick DH Kim at Welcome Back collected some thoughts as well in a post entitled “iPhone Price Cut: 10 Reasons Why Apple Did It.”

Some I agree with, especially No. 2 (”incoming competition”) and No. 5 (”early adopter syndrome”). No. 6 (”development costs recouped”) may actually be right on the mark. No. 7 (”iPod Touch/iPhone share parts”) and No. 9 (”Lessons of Wintel War”) seem like non-sequiturs.

I couldn’t help laughing at No.s 1 and 3, because the iPhone outsold all other smartphones last July, and analysts had the iPhone set to surpass its targets.

More interesting is No. 4 — iPod Touch would undermine iPhone at the old price. Not sure that it would, because ultimately, the Touch comes across as the model that went to school on the short yellow bus. But the price difference probably would have had some effect, and Apple isn’t going to take chances interfering with iPhone’s success.

Meanwhile, another thought I had on the iPhone price cut: Could it be that those people in current contracts would be willing to shell out $125-$150 to cancel them in order to take advantage of the $200 savings on iPhone? May be a stretch…