In June, as you can’t help but know, the iPhone became Apple’s most-hyped product ever, so much so that the company’s fate became intertwined with the groundbreaking device. Jobs began his presentation last week by revealing that Apple would soon sell iPhone ringtones for 99 cents. This was supposed to be an appetizer for a main course of iPods.

It was a full meal, indeed. For those keeping score, a new iPod nano is as slim as a Junior Mint, and horizontally stretched a bit so that a bright new screen can show sharp video content. A new full-size iPod, now dubbed the iPod classic, has enough storage for 40,000 songs. The star of the show, the iPod touch, has the same flashy touchscreen interface as the iPhone and has Wi-Fi connectivity. It’s the coolest iPod yet, a great way to watch “Wild Hogs” and use Facebook, and at $299 and $399 (depending on memory), it’s priced to sell.

But before he left the stage, Jobs dropped a bomb: Apple cut the price of the iPhone from $599 to $399. Slashing the price by $100 might have been high-tech business as usual. But slashing the price tag by a third, only two months after hogging high tech’s red carpet, was startling. And it became the story of the day. Since reports had been rife that sales of iPhones weren’t soaring, some critics opined that this drastic cut was born of desperation. And wouldn’t those who bought one at the higher price now feel like suckers?

After the show, Jobs insisted that the move didn’t reflect lagging sales—total figures are creeping up toward a million. (Apple hopes to sell 10 million by the end of 2008.) Instead, he was making a timely gamble. A lot of people are going to be giving phones as holiday presents, and Apple’s research, he says, shows that they want to choose an iPhone but believe it costs too much. Bringing the price down means making the sale. “We have one chance to go out and go for the holiday season,” he said to me. “If we don’t take that chance, we wait a whole other year. We’re willing to make less money to get more iPhones out there.” What about people who just bought one for $599? “I feel for them,” he said. “But, you know, we’re not harming anybody.”

Plenty of aggrieved iPhone buyers felt differently. And Jobs’s IN box was so stuffed with their complaints that 24 hours later he decided he owed them more than sympathy. While emphasizing that lower prices just reflect “life in the technology lane,” he apologized to disappointed customers and offered all previous iPhone buyers a $100 Apple credit. (I find it ironic that the same Apple fans who in June were lofting their newly acquired iPhones in the air like they’d won the Stanley Cup are now complaining that they paid too much.)

That turnaround, of course, generated even more headlines about the price cut. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of iPod issues to consider. Will the iTunes store prevail over balky content holders like NBC who want more pricing control? Will iPod touch users who get a sudden urge to buy an Amy Winehouse cut immediately seek out the nearest Starbucks to get free access to the iTunes store? (Apple and Starbucks announced a partnership so iPodders could wirelessly purchase the trendy tunes that play on the coffeehouse sound system.) Why isn’t there an e-mail application on the iPod touch? Why is the iPod classic, whose screen doesn’t compare with that of the iPod touch, the only model capable of holding a season’s worth of television shows? Will people really watch movies on the nano’s two-inch display? Which one should I buy? Click-wheelers would normally be jawboning such weighty questions, but instead the news is the iPhone Price Cut.

Suggested ringtone for Mr. Jobs: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”