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Apple’s “Pro”-products are certainly moving upwards in price. Despite being a pretty wealthy software engineer, I find myself less and less willing to pay for t

by mikl 7y ago

Apple’s “Pro”-products are certainly moving upwards in price. Despite being a pretty wealthy software engineer, I find myself less and less willing to pay for the Pro upgrade. I don’t use iPhone or iPad enough to really enjoy the benefits of “Pro”. For programming, a regular iMac is more than adequate. Only in the MacBook line is “Pro” really worth it for most people who use the device professionally. Tim Cook has become a slave to the stock price, they keep increasing the profit margin to boost their stock price, despite already being ludicrously profitable and having billions in the bank. If that trend continues, they will eventually price themselves out of business.

scarface74 7y ago
Why is this a complaint? If you get all of the value you need out of the non Pro products, why is it a big deal that they make more expensive products for people who want/need them? I have no need for the 12.9 inch iPad Pro. The $329 iPad fulfills all of my needs - but I did upgrade to the cellular model.
kunai 7y ago
I feel like this is where the "Apple in California" way of thinking really shows itself. If you think about it, Apple really exclusively makes products for the normal consumer market, and then their pro products are exclusively aimed towards the two largest economic sectors in the state: Silicon Valley and Hollywood. The Mac Pro isn't the Mac Pro, it's the Mac Los Angeles. And the iMac Pro isn't the iMac Pro, it's the iMac San Jose. In Tim Cook, Phil Schiller's, and the rest of the exec team's heads the rest of the country needing pro might as well get fucked. All the scientists, all the artists, all the people who would love a Surface-type product you can ink with, all the music producers (including me) using iPads who bristled at them removing the headphone jack from that product, all the people doing business work, all the people needing machines for power users, all the starving professionals who need a machine they can upgrade: Apple thinks you can get fucked.
ncmncm 7y ago
Apple's claims of better quality for the higher price seem plausible until you see the growth rate of their cash hoard. They have the opportunity, every day, to do better by the customers by spending more to make products better, but every day they choose to pocket the extra money, instead. What customers are left with is just price-signaling, which, while it has value of its own in customer circles, competes with the always-hovering sucker-signaling. Once the latter pops to the top, momentarily, all the price-signaling for new products instantly transmutes into sucker-signaling, and only people with older machines will have any left. High prices and sucker-signaling do not make a strong brand. Flirting with sucker-signaling is a dangerous game.
- kiddico 7y ago
  My mind instantly went to Beats products, which, ironically, was purchased by Apple...
- scarface74 7y ago
  You realize that Apple products have costs much more than competitors for well over 30 years? If Apple’s business model was a fad, they would have been dead decades ago.
  - ncmncm 7y ago
    I am quite a lot older than Apple. And, probably, you. Absurdity is new terrain for them, iMacs notwithstanding.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Well, in the context of the discussion about Apple, what does that matter? I’m older than Apple and I’ve owned: - their first mainstream computer - the Apple //e - one of the first “consumer Mac” - the LCII (with a //e card) - one of the first PPC Macs - a 6100/60 (with a 486Dx/2 card) - one of the first Intel Macs - the Core Duo Mac Mini. And they’ve all been “overpriced” compared to their competitors. As far as absurdity. The $329 10.2 inch iPad is a great value by any measurement and the cellular Apple Watch is smaller, faster, with more features than any of its competitors. The Series 3 Cellular at $330 is a great deal. The “74” in my name should give you a clue that I am not exactly a spring chicken.
  - mikl 7y ago
    Yeah, many of us have been happy Apple customers for over a decade. I’ve historically been happy to pay extra for Apple’s stuff because it was in many ways better than the competitors. For years, the only laptops you could get that had build quality were the ThinkPad and the MacBook Pro, and a ThinkPad wasn’t much cheaper than a Mac. And the software was better. Trying to get Unix-based software working on Windows used to be hell, and Linux on the desktop was a lacklustre experience, struggling with the lack of drivers for petty much everything, as well the dearth of quality software. Today, those advantages are much less strong. The competition has closed the distance on hardware quality and both Windows and Linux as desktop OSes have improved a lot. Even now, I’d still much rather use macOS than anything else. But I’m a lot less happy being an Apple customer than I used to be. If they lean too much of the goodwill of their fans, they will eventually wear it out. The talk a big game about software developers being their biggest “Pro” audience, but on the other hand they released one laptop after another with crappy keyboards for years, and they don’t put much effort into making the common work flow of a software developer easier. Every developer I know spend most of their working time at a desk, with a laptop, but they’ve done a lot in the latest years to make that work flow more annoying by removing ports, ending the production of good, affordable monitors and forcing us to rely on expensive third-party pseudo-docking stations because they, unlike every other laptop producer out there, refuse to engineer their own docking stations.

by mikl 7y ago

scarface74 7y ago

Why is this a complaint? If you get all of the value you need out of the non Pro products, why is it a big deal that they make more expensive products for people who want/need them? I have no need for the 12.9 inch iPad Pro. The $329 iPad fulfills all of my needs - but I did upgrade to the cellular model.

kunai 7y ago

I feel like this is where the "Apple in California" way of thinking really shows itself. If you think about it, Apple really exclusively makes products for the normal consumer market, and then their pro products are exclusively aimed towards the two largest economic sectors in the state: Silicon Valley and Hollywood. The Mac Pro isn't the Mac Pro, it's the Mac Los Angeles. And the iMac Pro isn't the iMac Pro, it's the iMac San Jose. In Tim Cook, Phil Schiller's, and the rest of the exec team's heads the rest of the country needing pro might as well get fucked. All the scientists, all the artists, all the people who would love a Surface-type product you can ink with, all the music producers (including me) using iPads who bristled at them removing the headphone jack from that product, all the people doing business work, all the people needing machines for power users, all the starving professionals who need a machine they can upgrade: Apple thinks you can get fucked.

ncmncm 7y ago

Apple's claims of better quality for the higher price seem plausible until you see the growth rate of their cash hoard. They have the opportunity, every day, to do better by the customers by spending more to make products better, but every day they choose to pocket the extra money, instead. What customers are left with is just price-signaling, which, while it has value of its own in customer circles, competes with the always-hovering sucker-signaling. Once the latter pops to the top, momentarily, all the price-signaling for new products instantly transmutes into sucker-signaling, and only people with older machines will have any left. High prices and sucker-signaling do not make a strong brand. Flirting with sucker-signaling is a dangerous game.

kiddico 7y ago
My mind instantly went to Beats products, which, ironically, was purchased by Apple...
scarface74 7y ago
You realize that Apple products have costs much more than competitors for well over 30 years? If Apple’s business model was a fad, they would have been dead decades ago.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  I am quite a lot older than Apple. And, probably, you. Absurdity is new terrain for them, iMacs notwithstanding.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Well, in the context of the discussion about Apple, what does that matter? I’m older than Apple and I’ve owned: - their first mainstream computer - the Apple //e - one of the first “consumer Mac” - the LCII (with a //e card) - one of the first PPC Macs - a 6100/60 (with a 486Dx/2 card) - one of the first Intel Macs - the Core Duo Mac Mini. And they’ve all been “overpriced” compared to their competitors. As far as absurdity. The $329 10.2 inch iPad is a great value by any measurement and the cellular Apple Watch is smaller, faster, with more features than any of its competitors. The Series 3 Cellular at $330 is a great deal. The “74” in my name should give you a clue that I am not exactly a spring chicken.
- mikl 7y ago
  Yeah, many of us have been happy Apple customers for over a decade. I’ve historically been happy to pay extra for Apple’s stuff because it was in many ways better than the competitors. For years, the only laptops you could get that had build quality were the ThinkPad and the MacBook Pro, and a ThinkPad wasn’t much cheaper than a Mac. And the software was better. Trying to get Unix-based software working on Windows used to be hell, and Linux on the desktop was a lacklustre experience, struggling with the lack of drivers for petty much everything, as well the dearth of quality software. Today, those advantages are much less strong. The competition has closed the distance on hardware quality and both Windows and Linux as desktop OSes have improved a lot. Even now, I’d still much rather use macOS than anything else. But I’m a lot less happy being an Apple customer than I used to be. If they lean too much of the goodwill of their fans, they will eventually wear it out. The talk a big game about software developers being their biggest “Pro” audience, but on the other hand they released one laptop after another with crappy keyboards for years, and they don’t put much effort into making the common work flow of a software developer easier. Every developer I know spend most of their working time at a desk, with a laptop, but they’ve done a lot in the latest years to make that work flow more annoying by removing ports, ending the production of good, affordable monitors and forcing us to rely on expensive third-party pseudo-docking stations because they, unlike every other laptop producer out there, refuse to engineer their own docking stations.