New York (NY) – AT&T, the exclusive service provider for the iPhone, is offering a trade-up option to late purchasers of the current version.  Anyone buying a 1st-Gen iPhone on or after May 27th can exchange it for a 3G iPhone from July 11th through August 1st.  Buyers will be refunded the price difference minus a 10% restocking fee.

Some people were plenty mad after Steve Jobs announced the cheaper 3G iPhone during Monday’s WWDC keynote address.  The 8GB version will sell for $199 while the 16GB model retails for $299.  Since the current generation iPhones are about twice as much, you can see how late buyers could be a little ticked off.

But we think their anger was a bit overblown because Apple has a history of taking care of its iPhone customers.  Apple slashed the price of the iPhone by $200 just a few months after it launched.  While there was short-lived outrage amongst early adopters, Apple made nice by offering by offering a $100 store credit to those buyers.

Of course in this instance it isn’t Apple doing the refunding, it will be AT&T, but we can’t help but wonder if there was a little behind the scenes arm twisting on this one.