Apple is giving $100 in store credit to all iPhone early adopters. If you bought your iPhone in the last 16 days (up to 14 days before the price cut), you're entitled to a $200 rebate per phone—and are not entitled to the $100 store credit on top of that.

This is a rather generous response to the backlash of iPhone owners upset about the $200 price reduction. Of course, there's a backlash to the backlash, but it's not hard to sympathize with those that would get upset that a supplier has reduced the price of a product, when considered in the right light.

When the iPhone debuted, everyone who wanted one, could afford one, and thought it was worth the price got one. Everyone who either didn't want one, couldn't afford one, or didn't think it was worth the price didn't get one. Then there are those in the third group, those who from a purely rational standpoint couldn't really afford one, didn't really think it was worth the price, or possibly didn't really want one, who through an irrational process convinced themselves they should buy an iPhone. This process may have been influenced by external factors, such as advertising, hype or peer pressure, or internal factors such as emotional well-being or simple fascination with the product.

It's the people in this third group that feel betrayed by the price reduction. It's reasonable to assume that Apple had planned the price reduction prior to the iPhone debut, and from the customer's perspective, it feels like the intent of Apple's plan was to exploit the emotional, irrational factors that contributed to their purchasing decisions to get an "extra" $200 per customer. The suddenness and amount of the price reduction kicked at the shaky scaffolding of emotional rationalization many iPhone owners used to justify the original purchase. A less sudden or less dramatic price reduction would have made it easier for early adopters to reinforce whatever emotional structure they used to remain satisfied.

It's important to recognize that the irrationality of shopping applies to all of us. It's difficult to imagine that anybody made a truly rational purchasing decision about a super-hyped $600 product that nobody had ever seen before, even if its feature list did somehow correspond to a well-considered list of needs. Even those of us in the "it was worth $600, no regrets" camp can't legitimately claim that we were able to assess a personal value and corresponding price through a well-considered rational process. The most we can say is, "I'm comfortable with the decision I made, as irrational as it may have been," for whatever reasons that may make it comfortable.

The problem for Apple is that buyer's remorse, as irrational as it may be, is a major part of the customer experience. If customers are going to feel disappointed with having purchased Apple products after price changes and new product releases, they'll buy fewer of them. So while Apple isn't strictly obligated to offer a two-week price guarantee or a $100 one-time store credit to early adopters (and that's debatable), it's in Apple's best interest to manage this aspect of the customer experience.