Price drops are good, right? Not if you already own an iPhone and found out yesterday that Apple would be knocking $200 off the price of the 8 GB model and dropping the 4 GB model completely, in which case you might be a little angry. Upset iPhone owners flooded online message boards and Steve Jobs’ own inbox. Today, Jobs wrote an open letter to iPhone owners, offering them an olive branch:

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

As a result of the outcry from iPhone owners, Apple will offer everyone who bought an iPhone a $100 credit for Apple’s online and retail stores. More information will be available from Apple’s web site next week. Stay tuned.