6 ms·

Note that these are mostly benefits for Apple, not for the consumer. As a consumer, I need a 256GB SSD and 16GB ram. My only choice is to spend $2000 on other

Note that these are mostly benefits for Apple, not for the consumer. As a consumer, I need a 256GB SSD and 16GB ram. My only choice is to spend $2000 on other macbook pro features I don't need. When I went with a custom PC builder instead (lots of choices - first pick the chassis, then pick the CPU, then pick the RAM, then pick the disk), I got what I needed for $1300. I don't often bill out at $700/hour (probably the total time I spent on this choice), so Apple's lack of choice certainly wouldn't have helped me.

cobweb 11y ago
Other companies swamp you with choice. Hotpoint washing machines come in loads of different forms. And I'm sure for most people, they don't really care. I'm not quite sure about the logic behind this. Have you a better chance of getting more products on the shop floor?
- jameshart 11y ago
  A complicating factor is big box retailers' wish to offer a 'price match guarantee' (particularly to persuade you to bother to come in rather than to buy from Amazon), but never have to pay up on it, which leads them to carry 'retailer exclusive' models from each manufacturer, which might have a suspiciously similar specification to a model sold elsewhere, but in fact have a different model number.
sweetdreamerit 11y ago
Chernev 2003 distinguishes 3 types of consumers - Consumer A already chose what she wants, and she just needs to find it out. - Consumer B knows her preferences, but she needs to make the choice. - Consumer C is not aware of which attributes are important in the decision process. You are a consumer A, so this simplification did not help YOU. It did help consumers B and consumer C. http://www.hyperlabs.net/ergonomia/presentazioni/euroia11/ http://www.hyperlabs.net/ergonomia/presentazioni/euroia11/ the slides of my presentation at Euro IA 2011: Designing Interactions that Help Customers in Decision Making
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Did it help B and C? Or did it simply funnel B and C into buying a lot more computer than they needed?
  - roc 11y ago
    It did when the alternative was the entire educational process behind knowing what they need, what tradeoffs are inherent, what the price should be, what vendors provide it at the acceptable price, what drawbacks come with those other vendors, living with those drawbacks, etc. Technical people like to pretend it's the easiest thing in the world to "know" how much computer someone needs and to buy it. But if you're non-technical, all you hear is technical people saying "trust me". Which is precisely the same thing Apple is saying. And, yes, we show them lower sticker prices. But Apple has a far better track record of delivering customer satisfaction than technical people recommending beige boxes. So, for anyone with the money, why in the world would they care for two seconds about "too much computer"? "Aww shucks. I bought too much computer and loved it, instead of listening to the geeks, getting just enough, and hating it."
  - scott_karana 11y ago
    I'm sure that some of that is true, but part of B and C's problem is that they might underestimate their own needs, too. There's also a bit of Dunner-Kruger effect there. The difference between a $500 laptop and a $1000 laptop can be astounding. I suspect many purchasers of the cheaper laptop will regret it, where the purchasers of a $1000 laptop will have a more powerful, better built computer that might last them longer. (And in fact, with laptops at least, some cheaper laptops are "more powerful" because they're thicker and heavier; and the expense of the faster components further contributes to their poor build quality. Many more-expensive laptops put more money into thoughtful design, rather than "Spec competitions" and you get a slightly-slower, longer-lasting one. Compare cheap Android phones to flagship ones, for example. ------------------------- "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness." http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-rich-were-so-rich-vimes-reasoned http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-ri...
jmount 11y ago
Not to defend Apple, but the flip side is trying to figure out which of Dell's 30 or so monitors are current (and which have which connectors). Apple has one monitor (a bit obsolete and a bit overpriced), but you can quickly decide for or against it.
- xlm1717 11y ago
  Too many choices may be stressing, but I think you lose out with too few choices too. If you need a specific size monitor to fit a space and the one monitor Apple has does not fit that space, you are SOL. As other commenters have noted, this benefits Apple more than the average consumer. They can offer one or a couple of options, overprice them, and make a lot of money. Ideally, on such a big purchase (although for mobile devices a lot of the cost is not immediately apparent because you pay comparatively little upfront), someone would seek to reduce their choices by doing research on the various options available and deciding which would work best for them. For the monitor example, first filter by screen size, then filter by resolution, then connectors available, etc. for all the features that are important in that case. The options that are left are the best options available in the judgement of the person making the purchase, and then the decision between a handful of options becomes much easier. They can save money by getting only what they want. Quickly deciding for or against just the one option benefits Apple the most. You end up trading money for ease of choice. I for one would rather keep my money in exchange for extra research, but it seems today's culture has an extreme phobia of stress (which is a whole other dicussion in itself).
  - 91bananas 11y ago
    Sorry to pick out one tiny point from your post, but, I truly don't think that much of anything they sell is "overpriced". It's more expensive than competitors stuff, but their stuff...sucks. When I think about the quality of a shitty Dell, HP, ASUS (enter your choice of brand here) laptop computer that can be bought at 1/2 the price of an Apple product, and how it will probably have a totally dead battery in a year. And that half the keys on the keyboard won't work. And the hinges for the monitor will be close to severing. And that I will have had to hack together a *NIX environment that sort of functions 50% of the time. And that the trackpad will suck. And it goes on. I will gladly pay for Apple doing the work for me, giving me a machine that will last for literally years without fail, getting me a solid dev environment from day 1 with little to none of my time and effort spent.

cobweb 11y ago

Other companies swamp you with choice. Hotpoint washing machines come in loads of different forms. And I'm sure for most people, they don't really care. I'm not quite sure about the logic behind this. Have you a better chance of getting more products on the shop floor?

jameshart 11y ago
A complicating factor is big box retailers' wish to offer a 'price match guarantee' (particularly to persuade you to bother to come in rather than to buy from Amazon), but never have to pay up on it, which leads them to carry 'retailer exclusive' models from each manufacturer, which might have a suspiciously similar specification to a model sold elsewhere, but in fact have a different model number.

sweetdreamerit 11y ago

Chernev 2003 distinguishes 3 types of consumers - Consumer A already chose what she wants, and she just needs to find it out. - Consumer B knows her preferences, but she needs to make the choice. - Consumer C is not aware of which attributes are important in the decision process. You are a consumer A, so this simplification did not help YOU. It did help consumers B and consumer C. http://www.hyperlabs.net/ergonomia/presentazioni/euroia11/ http://www.hyperlabs.net/ergonomia/presentazioni/euroia11/ the slides of my presentation at Euro IA 2011: Designing Interactions that Help Customers in Decision Making

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Did it help B and C? Or did it simply funnel B and C into buying a lot more computer than they needed?
- roc 11y ago
  It did when the alternative was the entire educational process behind knowing what they need, what tradeoffs are inherent, what the price should be, what vendors provide it at the acceptable price, what drawbacks come with those other vendors, living with those drawbacks, etc. Technical people like to pretend it's the easiest thing in the world to "know" how much computer someone needs and to buy it. But if you're non-technical, all you hear is technical people saying "trust me". Which is precisely the same thing Apple is saying. And, yes, we show them lower sticker prices. But Apple has a far better track record of delivering customer satisfaction than technical people recommending beige boxes. So, for anyone with the money, why in the world would they care for two seconds about "too much computer"? "Aww shucks. I bought too much computer and loved it, instead of listening to the geeks, getting just enough, and hating it."
- scott_karana 11y ago
  I'm sure that some of that is true, but part of B and C's problem is that they might underestimate their own needs, too. There's also a bit of Dunner-Kruger effect there. The difference between a $500 laptop and a $1000 laptop can be astounding. I suspect many purchasers of the cheaper laptop will regret it, where the purchasers of a $1000 laptop will have a more powerful, better built computer that might last them longer. (And in fact, with laptops at least, some cheaper laptops are "more powerful" because they're thicker and heavier; and the expense of the faster components further contributes to their poor build quality. Many more-expensive laptops put more money into thoughtful design, rather than "Spec competitions" and you get a slightly-slower, longer-lasting one. Compare cheap Android phones to flagship ones, for example. ------------------------- "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness." http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-rich-were-so-rich-vimes-reasoned http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-ri...

jmount 11y ago

Not to defend Apple, but the flip side is trying to figure out which of Dell's 30 or so monitors are current (and which have which connectors). Apple has one monitor (a bit obsolete and a bit overpriced), but you can quickly decide for or against it.

xlm1717 11y ago
Too many choices may be stressing, but I think you lose out with too few choices too. If you need a specific size monitor to fit a space and the one monitor Apple has does not fit that space, you are SOL. As other commenters have noted, this benefits Apple more than the average consumer. They can offer one or a couple of options, overprice them, and make a lot of money. Ideally, on such a big purchase (although for mobile devices a lot of the cost is not immediately apparent because you pay comparatively little upfront), someone would seek to reduce their choices by doing research on the various options available and deciding which would work best for them. For the monitor example, first filter by screen size, then filter by resolution, then connectors available, etc. for all the features that are important in that case. The options that are left are the best options available in the judgement of the person making the purchase, and then the decision between a handful of options becomes much easier. They can save money by getting only what they want. Quickly deciding for or against just the one option benefits Apple the most. You end up trading money for ease of choice. I for one would rather keep my money in exchange for extra research, but it seems today's culture has an extreme phobia of stress (which is a whole other dicussion in itself).
- 91bananas 11y ago
  Sorry to pick out one tiny point from your post, but, I truly don't think that much of anything they sell is "overpriced". It's more expensive than competitors stuff, but their stuff...sucks. When I think about the quality of a shitty Dell, HP, ASUS (enter your choice of brand here) laptop computer that can be bought at 1/2 the price of an Apple product, and how it will probably have a totally dead battery in a year. And that half the keys on the keyboard won't work. And the hinges for the monitor will be close to severing. And that I will have had to hack together a *NIX environment that sort of functions 50% of the time. And that the trackpad will suck. And it goes on. I will gladly pay for Apple doing the work for me, giving me a machine that will last for literally years without fail, getting me a solid dev environment from day 1 with little to none of my time and effort spent.