Price Cut! Apple Slashes iPhone Price, Debuts New iPods

The Apple iPhone now costs $200 less than when it debuted in June

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Apple acolytes who waited in long lines in June to be the first to own hot new iPhones may have come to regret their purchases after discovering on Wednesday that Apple was cutting the price of the devices by $200. The market wasn't too happy either, as Apple's shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market fell a few dollars Wednesday following the news. They started the day lower on Thursday but began to slowly rebound.

Those who feel they were cheated, however, may find solace in one of the new or upgraded iPods that Apple also introduced this week, including the iPod touch and revamped iPod nano.

On a pace to sell one million iPhones by the end of the month, Apple ramped up the iPhone marketing machine a notch, lowering the price tag of its eight-gigabyte model from its introductory $599 to $399. The new price will be offered in the U.S. through Apple and AT&T retail and online stores.

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For those itching to invest in another Apple music player, the company now offers an iPod with a touch user interface similar to the one found on the iPhone. The eight-millimeter (0.3-inch) thin iPod touch is the first iPod to include Wi-Fi wireless networking and supports use of the Apple Safari browser. The eight-gigabyte version is priced starting at $299; the 16-gigabyte version starts at $399. Both come with a 3.5-inch wide-screen display. Apple is now also offering the ability to access the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store over a Wi-Fi network directly from an iPod touch or iPhone.

Apple also unveiled a new iPod nano on Wednesday that has a larger, two-inch display with 204 pixels per inch that rivals the resolution of Apple's video iPod. The new four-gigabyte iPod nano comes in silver for $149; the eight-gigabyte model is available in silver, black, blue or green as well as a red special edition for $199.

Rival Microsoft is hoping to capitalize on the mixed reactions to Apple's news by cutting the price of its 30-gigabyte Zune digital music player by $50 to $199. While Microsoft has made no official announcement regarding the price cut, the move was reported on the Zune Insider blog written by Cesar Menendez, a Microsoft employee working on Zune.

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