Greetings. Well, if you went ahead and held your breath waiting for the $200 Apple credit I suggested in Apple Faithful React to iPhone Price Slash Concerns!, you can let your breath out now.

In an open letter just posted, Steve Jobs apologizes for Apple's treatment of early iPhone adopters (who bought the product over the last couple of months since its introduction), and is offering a $100 Apple credit.

That's only half as much credit as it really should be for persons who purchased the top tier version of the product, but it's certainly better than nothing, and demonstrates that even Apple isn't immune to bad publicity.

It also points out one other observation of note. Maybe, just maybe, Apple has been taking its customer base for granted too long, and this event shows that Apple customers care about value for their money and not being unfairly manipulated, even during a highly hyped and orchestrated product launch.

Still, I give credit where credit is due (no pun intended), and while this entire episode could have been avoided, I do congratulate Steve and Apple for not stonewalling in the face of this controversy.

Hopefully this puts the iPhone thread to bed for now.

Take care, all.

--Lauren--