Most designers love design technology: the latest Adobe release, the hottest Apple hardware, the biggest Wacom tablet. But, as many of us learned this week, being an early adopter has its risks.

After releasing the $599 iPhone on June 29, Apple slashed the price to $399 on September 5. The early adopters were none too pleased—so displeased, in fact, that within hours, attorneys general were contacted and class action lawsuits were suggested.

Apple’s latest lineup is getting overshadowed by its iPhone price cuts.

Why so much upset over a price cut? After all, price cuts happen in technology all the time. The difference here is that the price was cut 33% in only two months—an unprecedented move that alienated Apple loyalists and ended up overshadowing Apple’s big news of the day.

Many products offer price protection of a few weeks to a few months, but in the case of the iPhone, only customers who purchased their phones within 14 days of the price change will see a rebate or credit. If you purchased outside of that 14-day window, you’ll either need to fight it to the teeth (word on the street is that this works for some), or just suck up that $200 and forget about it. Either way, this should teach us all an important lesson about early adoption.

At the end of the day, early adopters are essentially unpaid beta testers. We stand in line, we pay more than a product may be worth… just to get the fun and the satisfaction that comes from being the first to try the next big thing. The results aren’t always pretty, though. This time it was a price slashing, but sometimes it’s major software bugs or hardware that turns out to be flimsy. Quoting Apple CEO Steve Jobs from a recent USA Today interview, “Well, that’s what happens in technology.” Disappointing, and making me rethink my early adopter ways, but true all the same. So here are a couple of quick tips for the die-hards out there:

1) Be able to accept the financial risks. Prices do get cut (rarely as soon or as much as in the iPhone’s case, but it happens). Make sure that what you’re buying is worth what you’re spending, and that you’ll still think so even if the price drops down the line.

2) Have a backup plan. If you just have to have the newest laptop or software upgrade, be safe and keep your old reliable ones around until you’re certain that your new ones are working properly for the long term.

3) Consider what the product means to your livelihood. Is the newest smartphone or image editing app going to save you big time and money? Then perhaps it’s worth the risk of early adoption. If you’re not sure, or if you could potentially lose big time if there’s a problem with the product, why not hold off? Waiting just two or three months from product release can give you time to research its potential issues and make sure it does what you expect it to do effectively.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.