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Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail
- lelf 7y agoPR fail? Everybody is talking about it.
- maitredusoi 7y agoyou've got the point !!!!
- ab071c41 7y agoEverybody and their mother knows that Apple has a new monitor by now. You can't buy that much publicity.
- tomglynch 7y agoIt's generated so much extra exposure for WWDC and their other announcements. Although they aren't pronouncing it, I'm sure their marketing department disagree.
- happytoexplain 7y agoI know any press is good press, but come on. You can't just excuse any too-expensive product this way.
- spbyrne 7y agoHas that not been in Apple's playbook for years? Those in the industry know the $5k monitor is a good deal and they also know they don't need the stand (get the VESA adaptor) since they already probably have a multi-monitor stand. So for their actual target audience no one will bat an eye. But for those of us not interested in an expensive monitor the overpriced stand gives us something to talk about and keeps them in the news cycle.
- toyg 7y agoDoes anybody have to "excuse" the sticker price on luxury cars? You can obviously get cheaper (and likely more comfortable) 4-wheeled transportation instruments elsewhere, but that's hardly the point.
- theelous3 7y agothere is nothing luxury avout the stand, it's essentially identical to any other stand, which is not the point of the cars in your analogy.
- toyg 7y agoA lot of luxury-priced cars also have little particularly luxurious about them. The expression "you pay for the badge" comes to mind, which is precisely what luxury branding is about: the value of a $1k stand is that you paid $1k for it regardless of practical considerations, just because you could.
- walterstucco 7y agoNot at all. When you buy a luxury car you don't pay a lot just because you can, you pay a lot just because you can afford the kind of leather they use for the interiors, which would be too expensive for regular people.
- freetime2 7y ago> there is nothing luxury avout the stand, it's essentially identical to any other stand Some of the features that make it "luxury" in my mind are: * Build materials / quality * Small footprint * Magnetic connector (no screws) * Ease of adjusting height / rotating (according to Apple) For a 32-inch, 16 lb monitor that may need to be moved around a lot and shared amongst multiple people, I can see how those qualities might be important enough to justify the price for some. And if it's really identical to any other stand out there, can you show something comparable at a lower price?
- zeroimpl 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- sametmax 7y agoExcatly. I never heard hate. Only laughts. "apple is doing a stupid apple thing" It's actually good PR: everybody talk about it, but they also they it's a good quality monitor, just that apple is over pricing an accessory, which is a cheap way of making the luxury brand perceptuon stronger... Huge com win for very little effet.
- ianai 7y agoCall it what you like. But I’m pretty sick of having to have the apple is stupid conversation at work. I get it, but it comes up far too often. It’s severely impacted my professional career due to prejudice from the wintel guys...who I also run circles around within Windows and Unix/Linux. But because apple released yet another expensive shiny I’ve got to take time out of my day to deal with this crap.
- paulryanrogers 7y agoWhy? Does their opinion of Apple (accurate or not) impact your work in any way?
- ianai 7y agoIt was held by everyone in the department including management.
- Jotra7 7y ago"run circles around" What do you even mean? You fan boys are hilarious.
- sametmax 7y agoI just ignore it and use ubuntu. It's not difficult.
- seibelj 7y agoI don’t understand why they announced the stand during the keynote at all. It’s not something to be proud of and it isn’t cutting-edge technology. They could have just put it for sale quietly and the outrage would have been far less.
- bredren 7y agoApparently decent pivoting, weighted stands are $400. So this is still not outrageously expensive if you are in the market for this type of thing. Perhaps Apple figured it would be seen through the same eyes as those considering a $12k Mac Pro workstation, and appreciated in a similar way. Another note: contra-wise, Apple did flirt with “luxury” watches for a time. Though I think they gave up on that direction.
- wongarsu 7y agoMy $200 pivoting stand came with an entire screen for free. Granted, it's not nearly as nice as Apple's stand. But I suspect the reception would have been a lot better if the narrative was "the $5000 screen comes with an ok stand, the great one is $1000 extra" instead of "lol, the $5000 screen is useless unless you buy a $120 Vesa mount plus some off-brand stand, or the $1000 official stand"
- falcolas 7y agoMy $200, 6 year old stand came with one too, and it even includes the ability to raise and lower the screen, plus the 90° rotation. And wait, there’s more! It also pivots. Underwhelming indeed.
- bredren 7y agoMy Dell P2715Q also came with its own stand, and it is sufficient for me. But if you are using a six year old, $200 monitor you're not the market for a display like this. Counterbalanced, Humanscale stands go for $400+ Nice equipment is expensive--it is the whole point of this release. https://www.humanscale.com/products/product.cfm?group=m10 https://www.humanscale.com/products/product.cfm?group=m10
- CPLX 7y agoThis is a silly criticism, it’s not a PR fail. The monitor stand is like a $99 hamburger on the menu. For the people rich enough to never care about the cost of a restaurant meal it’s a purchase, and for everyone else it’s a cue that this brand is absolutely top end prestigious and expensive. Im counting the days until I see one in a rap video or all over rich kid Instagram.
- bubblethink 7y agoBut the pricing needs to be internally consistent for the brand to be taken seriously, whether as a luxury brand or otherwise. In other words, a $1k piece of metal with a couple of moving parts undermines the rest of their portfolio. It's one thing to have a uniformly expensive lineup like a watchmaker, and entirely different thing to price your most complicated offering (phone) and the dumbest one (metal piece) the same. Like what's the message here ?
- CPLX 7y ago> Like what's the message here? The message is that Apple shit is so top of the line that even our monitor stand is an uncompromising work of art. It’s really not that complicated, it’s a textbook luxury branding and pricing strategy. Ever seen a Restoration Hardware catalog? They sell painted tree stumps for $1000.
- cynix 7y ago> it’s a textbook luxury branding and pricing strategy. The problem is that this 10x overpricing strategy doesn't apply to their entire lineup, but that's not made explicit. As a result, people might mistakenly generalise it to their other products such as iPhones, leading people to think that their phones are also 10x overpriced and are actually only worth $100, thus diminishing its value.
- onebyteman 7y agoHaha, no. The average person does not think that deeply or use that much math.
- jerzyt 7y agoBy itemizing the stand, they inadvertently(?) exposed how much they're fleecing the consumer.
- floor_ 7y agoWhat's up with Apple's ascetic? It reminds me of the time I raked my hand down the back of an air conditioner radiator. That cheese grater look is only something a brutalist architecture loving nazi would want sitting on a desk.
- Bakary 7y agoYour typo is quite amusing considering how far from asceticism Apple is.
- itronitron 7y ago>> That cheese grater look... or someone who really likes nachos.
- toyg 7y agoIf you care about aesthetic in a desktop, you buy an iMac. This is for hardcore Apple customers who fondly remember the original G4/G5 "cheesegraters". It takes an old joke and brings it to its extreme consequences. "So you like cheesegraters, uh? Yo dawg..." Btw, it's not for sitting on desks but under them; it even has wheels.
- pier25 7y agoThe first few seconds during the announcement I actually thought it was a joke like what they did with iTunes.
- jessaustin 7y agoThe $200 VESA adapter seems worse to me.
- maitredusoi 7y agoFor those who never saw a NeXT computer, they effectively can't understand why their is a stand looking like this... For me it is a A glimpse of rememberance from Steve original NeXT MegaPixel Display ...
- toyg 7y agoITT: people who don't know how luxury branding works. Without the stand, all headlines would have been on how Apple finally listened and produced a great MacPro - something only us geeks care about. Whereas this $1k-stand trolling generates mainstream headlines which reinforce the luxury-brand image that actually makes them the big money. It's entirely possible that people will now buy this monitor even if they don't need it simply so that they can flaunt the "famous" $1k stand.
- happytoexplain 7y agoThe articles are about how this hurts their PR. The threads may be full of people who "don't get it", but the key point is that the threads are full of them, providing strong evidence for the thesis. Your assertion is a little like Skinner blaming the children.
- toyg 7y ago“People writing angry posts on the internet” is not Apple’s target market, it never has been. People like us are like a bull to Apple marketing’s matador: we run after the red flag so that the matador can do his job for public enjoyment.
- momokoko 7y agoThe PR was intention. Apple is the greatest marketing company in modern history. That stand and the entire Mac Pro now has a perception of super high end. Where it has no compromises on quality and price. Genius yet again from Apple. Look at how much press it is generating for them. Right when iPhone was getting a bit stale in public mindshare.
- dwighttk 7y agoApple isn’t going to sell a cheap display. If you want a cheap display go somewhere else. From their page about the display[1] a use case for this stand is to have “one on set and one in the studio” and move your display back and forth. Additionally Apple sells a VESA mount adapter for people who have “unique mounting setups for their displays” There is almost certainly no one who might actually buy this display who is complaining about the price. [1]https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/ https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/
- FakeComments 7y agoI completely disagree. There’s no one who would buy this display who thinks that’s an appropriate stand: 1. People who are going to buy it professionally are going to buy the more functional stands at the same price point. No, I don’t mean more utilitarian — they’re either way more functional or nicer and more functional. Apple missed the price curve for high end stands. They’re also not going to move the $5k TV stand to stand — they’ll just buy two. 2. The people who buy $5k TVs for personal use generally are price sensitive enough that an extra $1k is worth considering — and will either get one of the nicer stands, eg cabinets, or will get a cheaper option. I think they have the Tesla problem: they’re off the cost curve, in that they deliver subpar quality for the price — but unlike Tesla, they’re relying fully on brand to justify that. Tesla at least was selling a relatively new kind of car.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoMight as well buy some Tellurium Q Silver Diamond Digital Streaming Ethernet Cables to go along with it. A snip at only £1200.00 per metre. https://telluriumq.com/silver-diamond-digital-streaming-cable/ https://telluriumq.com/silver-diamond-digital-streaming-cabl...
- berbec 7y agoHow can I NOT buy a ethernet cable that give me "an audibly better performance". I alway have been complain that my 10GbE is fast, but the audio fidelity is garbage. I am so thankful this exists.
- mathieubordere 7y agothe HiFi world really is something else
- inflatableDodo 7y agoIn my darker moments I have considered designing things for it. Insulating layers made from woven hemp flax impregnated with powdered crystal, to avoid orgone buildup interfering with the latency, that kind of thing. Thankfully, I have avoided this impulse so far.
- Bakary 7y agoI predict something similar to the debacle with the AirPods and the lack of a 3.5mm jack in the iPhone. Everyone made fun of the decision at the time but the Veblen good effect asserted itself anyway and now it's a standard to be emulated and a product that insipres envy in many. Likewise, this product will be hailed as a status symbol in a few months precisely because of its absurdity. Apple will continue to be contemptuous of its consumers because it keeps being richly rewarded for it. I am not trying to be edgy by making this claim: it was all laid out more than a century ago by a cheeky Norwegian-American, and more recently by patio11.
- zzzcpan 7y agoStatus symbols have to be visible to others, not hiding behind the monitor in private. It cannot be a status symbol.
- mortenjorck 7y agoWWDC was the wrong place to announce the 2019 Mac Pro, period. It’s not a developer machine, at least for people developing iOS and Mac apps. A more appropriate venue would have been a special media event in, say, Los Angeles, amid all the high-end post houses and VFX shops that can actually justify investing in both the Mac Pro’s pixel throughput and the Pro Display’s reference accuracy.
- aloer 7y agomy personal take on this: Apple did not want people to talk about other things introduced or not introduced at WWDC. With so much attention from non-developers for a developer event, they need to carefully handle expectations until the hardware event in fall, with its focus on the general public, will hopefully introduce the amazing new things everyone always expects. This year was not a disappointment for sure but the things shown are incremental improvements at best. Putting that stand out there will give the public something largely irrelevant to complain about and at the same time generate more attention for a specific niche product: the new mac pro. And in doing so they avoid real criticism for all the other products that are so much more important for their success. Apple does not lose anything here side note: anyone else remember when Tim Cook thanked everyone involved in the end and emphasized the overtime and weekends they worked through? No idea what to make of this, does not sound like a normal thing to admit tbh as CEO. To me that sounded like a plea for something, perhaps to be more understanding and to wait until fall to see how everything plays out? (timestamp 2:15:56 at https://www.apple.com/apple-events/june-2019/ https://www.apple.com/apple-events/june-2019/) > these guys have given up their nights and weekends from their families
- toyg 7y agoTo me that sounded more of a message to his own workers, to be honest: “I know you work unhealthy hours, but you get to be a part of this! Take a bow!” Which is a troubling message, normalizing exploitation, but is perfectly in line with contemporary executive-think.
- drexlspivey 7y ago> Veblen goods are types of luxury goods for which the quantity demanded increases as the price increases, an apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. A higher price may make a product desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
- jamexcb 7y agoAll of you are seeing this from the wrong side! Apple is opening a new market. Premium monitor stands. ;)
- wongarsu 7y agoI know you are joking, but this already exists. I can get a cheap table mount for two monitors for $40 from Amazon, or I can get a really nice one for anything from $500 to $2000 (HumanScale's configurator has some great options [1]) 1: https://www.humanscale.com/products/mflex-m10-monitor-arm-configurator.cfm?configuration=X1BCMSQTBPHN---12------------------- https://www.humanscale.com/products/mflex-m10-monitor-arm-co...
- heavymark 7y agoI imagine many will be using the Vesa mount in this market, so if they did what you recommend, then I imagine people would have been much more upset that they are paying for a 1K stand they will never use, which would have been even worse. From a PR perspective people might not have made that connection right away, but shortly after the event still would have been horrible reaction, since its one thing it itemized its another thing to charge 1K more for no extra value. Now what they should do is the same thing they do with iMac, is sell a version with the stand for 6K and one with vesa for 5200. Problem solved, no PR issue. The reason they didnt presumably is they have no idea how many want vesa vs not vesa so they may end up with a lot of unused inventory or not enough of one. And of course makes logistics for making and selling harder, etc, but I think had they known the reaction they may have considered it. They will probably ride it out but if it continues they will simply switch to that iMac method of selling it.
- buchanan 7y agoFor that situation, i think they can market it as $6k monitor. For vesa, get the addon mount for $200. Basically, don't separately price the stand. The way that its currently broken out is quite puzzling. As a fun conjecture, perhaps they are planning a range lower spec monitors and want to upsell the stand.
- Simulacra 7y agoIt’s like the Apple version of the Juicero.