Apple's retaliatory Google ad, countering a Nokia ad and congratulating "late adopters" on getting a lower price for the iPhone? A fake. [Gizmodo]

There's one class of privileged iPhone buyers who are going to get all of their money back: Those who bought the phone with an American Express card. Extending its usual price-protection policy, the card issuer is refunding $200 back to anyone who paid the old $599 price for an iPhone, blogger Muhammad Saleem reports. All they need to do is call customer service, he writes. (It's not clear what's going to happen to people who bought the cheaper 4GB iPhone, since that was discontinued, rather than reduced in price.) Some Visa and MasterCard issuers have 60-day price-protection policies on their cards, but for early adopters who waited in line to buy the iPhone on June 29, that window has already passed. Update: American Express apparently discontinued its price-matching benefit last year. Anyone else, like Saleem, luck into a generous customer-service rep? Another first-hand report after the jump.

Fox News television host Geraldo Rivera is looking for offended iPhone early adopters. If you're aggrieved by Apple's price cut and not satisfied with the $100 Apple Store credit, then a Fox producer wants to talk to you, like, now for tonight's 8 p.m. program, according to this Craigslist posting. We can't wait to see who Fox drums up to whine like a little baby, on air, over the time-honored custom of getting royally soaked when buying brand-new technology.

After reading Tuesday's post on Apple unresponsive PR department, a tipster sent us the following juicy tidbit about the miserable life of Apple's PR staff. Apparently, they're kept almost as unenlightened as the press they work so hard to keep away. And a social life? Forget about it. More after the jump:

NBC is hurt, stunned and confused by Apple's recent bitchslap. Apparently the broadcaster didn't think Apple would call its bluff, and refuse to sell its new fall season on the iTunes Store. Initially balking at iTunes's rigid pricing structure — NBC executives have deluded themselves into thinking consumers will pay up to $5 per episode — and allowing its contract to expire, NBC is now "hopeful that we can reach a resolution before the existing contract expires," says spokesperson Cory Shields. Is that like trying to make up with your girlfriend before she moves out?

In an open letter to iPhone buyers, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has promised a $100 store credit to all the suckers who bought an iPhone early, before the price dropped by a third to $399. Steve, Steve, Steve. Why are you caving, after talking so tough? How are these foolish early adopters ever going to learn if you coddle them? Sure, you're not going to take a huge financial hit; after all, it's not like you're really giving the money back.

CNBC is reporting that anyone dumb enough to have bought an iPhone before yesterday's $200 price reduction will receive a $100 rebate from Apple. Of course, that's in the form of a credit, but even so, pat yourselves on the back, you trend-sucking morons: Now you're only half retarded!

· The trades mourn the recent silencing of their favorite of the Three Tenors. [Variety, THR] [THR]
· Scott Rudin beats out Warner Bros, Universal, Sony, and New Line for the movie rights to the historical novel I, Claudius, with Leo DiCaprio and his The Departed screenwriter William Monahan expected to jump ship from their failed WB bid to join the winning Rudin team. [Variety]
· The Agent Dance, East Coast Edition: NY-based CAA bigshot Bart Walker leaves the evil agenting monolith to form a talent management division at indie film powerhouse Cinetic. We expect reports of the mysterious torching of Walker's apartment to emerge shortly. [THR]
· Apple and Hollywood still can't decide whether to fuck or fight. [Variety]
· Studio execs head into the Toronto Film Festival with "fat wallets and a healthy appetite for product," ready to snap up any movie they think might make a buck during a possible strike by the guilds. [Variety]

Early adopter? Late adopter? Surly adopter? Nokia and Apple (or rather, an opportunistic Apple retailer) are vying for your affections. When you Googled "iPhone" earlier today, targeted ads for Nokia's Mosh social network showed up, taunting iPhone buyers for having overpaid. In response, Apple an Apple e-commerce affiliate placed ads telling "late adopters" that they could get "all the iPhone" for two-thirds the price. The ads no longer appear on Google, but we suspect this was more of a competitive tweak than a long-term marketing strategy. Update: Turns out the Apple ad was a fake, placed by a third-party affiliate. (Screenshot by Search Engine Land)

Maybe New York magazine had it right: Could Apple CEO Steve Jobs be getting too cocky for his own good? In an interview with USA Today, Jobs tells people who shelled out $599 for an iPhone that's now selling for $200 less, "That's technology." In other words, tough titty. It's a heck of a marketing strategy, if you can call it that. Never mind that we basically agree with Jobs, and think smug iPhone buyers got what they deserved — Jobs could certainly have delivered the message with more tact. Another sign of how out of touch Jobs has become. In the interview, he reveals that he buys songs through the iTunes Store, even when he already owns the CD, out of sheer laziness. Life is rough when you're the billionaire CEO of Apple.

Oh neat oh neat oh HOLY CRAP! Wait, really? I didn't expect that. The iPod touch looks pretty sweet, but won't I just feel stupid when I have to pull out my other phone? I'm all "whee, I'm surfing the Internet in a cafe on my iPod," or I'm all listening to music, and then ring, there's my phone, just like always, only this time I also have a big-ass minicomputer in my pocket. And there's no camera. Actually this looks like a raw deal. Okay, how about the iPhone? What's new there? Hrm. Not much, I guess.

Add another layer of losers to Apple's iPhone price reduction announcement — the hordes of eBay resellers trying to profit from the no longer quite so divine Jesusphone. [eBay]

AllThingsD blogger John Paczkowzki, he of the hypnotic eyebrows, outdid the rest of the geek press corps at today's Apple iPod event. While others used souped-up EVDO-equipped laptops, Paczkowzki liveblogged the event entirely on his now-outdated, overpriced iPhone. [AllThingsD]

Over at the Apple keynote, head jerk Steve Jobs just announced they've cut the 8 gig iPhone cost to $399 from $599, making tools of everyone who already bought one of the stupid devices. [Gizmodo]

Did you rush out and buy an iPhone the moment they went on sale? Then there's a word for you: SUCKER. After rolling out a new line of iPods, including touchscreen models that do everything an iPhone does but make calls, Apple has dropped the price on the most expensive iPhone to $399, a 33-percent slashing. Of course, Apple's iPhone is competing with heavily subsidized cell-phone models, which rapidly drop in price after soaking the early adopters for everything they're worth. It should come as no surprise to the technically adept, gadget-lusting geeks who splashed out for an iPhone early on. We just hope that paying $200 for two months of insufferable smugness was worth it.

The fanboys are amazed by Apple's completely new iPod lineup. Wall Street? Not so much. Apple shares are down almost 3 percent. [Yahoo Finance]

The Apple-NBC Universal spat continues. Shortly after NBC announced it wouldn't renew its iTunes contract, Apple decided to kick the upcoming NBC season off its digital shelves. In a counterstrike, NBC has announced its shows will appear on Amazon Unbox as soon as next week. Burnnnnn. [Ars Technica]

An article in Ad Age purports to expose something that every Valley reporter has long known, but never come out and said: Apple's PR department is the biggest group of slackers to grace the tech world. What, exactly, do they do all day long? It's a mystery. For the uninitiated reporter looking to get a quote, the list of Apple PR contacts, complete with direct-dial numbers, seems heaven-sent. But don't get too excited. Every call goes straight to voicemail, like the entire PR department paid its credit card bill late and is now ducking the collection agency. If you leave a voicemail, reporters say, it more often than not disappears into the ether, never to be returned.

Apple is not content to let NBC hog all the drama after NBC's TV shows dropped off iTunes. In a "I broke up with you" move, Apple's iTunes store will not host NBC's upcoming fall season, even though the companies' contract runs through December. Why? Because after December, shows would be withdrawn from the store midseason. According to Apple, NBC was trying to rip consumers off by jacking episode prices from $1.99 to $4.99. Hopefully that's not the price NBC's hoping to charge on its Hulu online-video site. Who would be silly enough to pay the cost of a full DVD box set for just half a season? If so, expect rampant piracy.

· We're impressed with Variety's show of headline-pun restraint with this one: The plug has been pulled on Stopping Power, Jan De Bont's planned action thriller starring John Cusack, after funding fell through at the last minute. [Variety]
· Conflicting with other reports, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution "thrilled" Venice audiences. One journalist asked if the graphic sexual sequences were real, to which the director responded, "Have you seen the film?" Funny—we always felt what The Hulk could have used were some Brown Bunnyesque elements. [Variety]
· ABC orders a script for The Fixer, about "the most powerful woman in New York." We knew it was only a matter of time before Leona Helmsley's dogwalker had her own show. [Variety]
· NBC and Apple have a parting of the ways, with NBC's content disappearing from iTunes as soon as December. Why can't Steve Jobs and Ben Silverman just iron this bullshit out over a couple of primo bong hits? [THR]
· Giovanni Ribisi is pulled in by the CAA Death Star's tractor beams. Run, Giovanni! They're nothing but a greedy and secretive institution that want to have undue influence over your life decisions! [THR]