I had a recent experience involving the 8GB iPhone 3G that I thought really shows why Apple is such an amazing company. Let me explain. We all know this week that Apple announced the newest version of its iPhone would be hitting stores by June 17th, which will include the newest version of the Mac OS 3.0, and a number of other new features that will greatly improve the iPhone. Well, me being an Apple advocate to my friends and family, I continually support their purchasing of any Apple products from computers, to cell phones, to programs like Cartographica.

I recently encouraged my girlfriend to purchase an iPhone from a local AT&T store, which she did without much hesitation. I encouraged her to buy the phone without knowing that the newest version of the iPhone was due to hit stores in June (this was about three weeks ago), and that the price of the 8GB iPhone would be reduced to $99 as was announced this week at the Developers Conference. Unfortunately, she paid the full $199 price for the phone before we knew the price was going to be reduced. When we learned of the price reduction we felt like we should probably be able to get some money back because the purchase had taken place fairly recently, and the price reduction was fairly significant (over $100). So we went to the AT&T store to see what kind of deal could be worked out so that she could get some money back, and so I could feel a little better about encouraging her to buy the phone. As it turns out, AT&T is offering to refund $100 plus the amount of tax that was paid on that amount of money as long as the purchase was within the last 30 days. When I stepped back and looked at the situation I felt that there should be some appreciation paid to both Apple and AT&T for their willingness to work with my girlfriend, and all of their customers, by very easily and painlessly refunding their money. It seems that so often large companies are able to take advantage of their customers by saying all sales are final, and then refusing to understand where the customer is coming from. This was not at all the case with Apple or AT&T, we walked into the store, my girlfriend explained her problem, and we were out of the store in less than ten minutes with the refund. I think this type of behavior shows why Apple and AT&T have a great partnership, and a great relationship with their customers. As a customer of Apple and At&T I feel that this shows a great amount of respect for the customer, and shows that they care about making the customer happy. Geez, I just love Apple, don't you?