4 ms·

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished (I jest) But we all know Apple products are severely overpriced per specification

by ProAm 4y ago

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished (I jest) But we all know Apple products are severely overpriced per specification. It's how they sustain their profit margin, and in turn are also not currently laying folks off because of their war chest.

rootusrootus 4y ago
> we all know Apple products are severely overpriced per specification Do we? Every time it comes up, invariably the comparisons are all something "largely similar" but not exactly equivalent, frequently in a meaningful way. It seems like the real truth is that Apple doesn't really make budget configurations in the first place, they only cater to different levels of the premium market. In particular, when it comes to the Mac Pro over the years, it's been repeatedly demonstrated to be a pretty good deal for what you actually get. Another well known example is when you could by the 27 inch 5K iMac for the same price as you could buy just the panel if you were building a PC. Whenever someone makes a really nice laptop, aluminum, great touch pad, great screen, the whole nine yards, it ends up being close to the same price as a macbook.
- wmf 4y ago
  Apple does genuinely overprice RAM and storage. For the rest you're right.
- Applejinx 4y ago
  Not so long ago I got significantly more than the current trade-in for the $52,000 Mac Pro, for a 27 inch 5k iMac Pro also with the mega-Xeon and a ton of RAM, etc. I think they wanted to get them off the market and get those people onto the Apple Silicon, which was going to rapidly eclipse the Xeon iMac Pro for those more 'general prosumer tasks', video editing et al. Not at all the same situation with the top-end Mac Pros with the Xeon: all the outboard stuff is the point there, and you can't as easily eclipse that outboard stuff. Put simply, the $52,000 machine might as well remain in service doing what it's doing, because Apple isn't directly replacing that. They were very much directly replacing what my old Xeon iMac Pro did, so they put more pressure on the trade-in scenario to motivate that happening. They apparently have no interest in pressuring those top-end Mac Pros to get off the market, so the trade-in is completely pathetic: hang onto the thing and keep it in service, they have no special replacement targeted or perhaps even planned.
- ProAm 4y ago
  $999 Monitor stand. I dont want to argue or nitpick each and every product (just like good discussion and it's their company they can charge what they want and people can spend their money as they deem fit). But look at their profit margin, look at their lock-in for accessories, look at their repair prices (they are slowly being clawed away from them legally), they've only recently created good laptops after about 12 years of not good laptops (see keyboards, touchbars, lack of upgrading for years and still charging the same price for tech that was 5 yrs old). But there is a reason they have so much money on hand, for much of the 2000-2010 they were the wealthiest company (public that we know about ignoring nation state oil companies, etc...) in the world.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > $999 Monitor stand. I'm not an Apple fanboy, even if I'm probably starting to sound like one. I thought the stand price was only scandalous because so many of us were unfamiliar with what competing hardware in that market niche normally costs? Wasn't it competitive compared to what the competition was selling? It's been a while, but I vaguely remember that being the outcome of that. I have less opinion on their repair prices in general, though I have to say that what they charge for display replacement is not much more than the cheapest third party. It might be argued that this means the hardware is overpriced, but I don't have a basis for that claim so I won't make it. I do wish they had ditched the unreliable keyboards faster. I actually like the touchbar when I'm using the laptop as a laptop, but I'd prefer it was in addition to the function keys rather than replacing them. Although on my M1 the ESC key and power button are real, so I'm 95% good with it as is. I wish they'd have found a way to keep it, but maybe the PR damage had already been done. For certain use cases it sure is handy.

by ProAm 4y ago

rootusrootus 4y ago

> we all know Apple products are severely overpriced per specification Do we? Every time it comes up, invariably the comparisons are all something "largely similar" but not exactly equivalent, frequently in a meaningful way. It seems like the real truth is that Apple doesn't really make budget configurations in the first place, they only cater to different levels of the premium market. In particular, when it comes to the Mac Pro over the years, it's been repeatedly demonstrated to be a pretty good deal for what you actually get. Another well known example is when you could by the 27 inch 5K iMac for the same price as you could buy just the panel if you were building a PC. Whenever someone makes a really nice laptop, aluminum, great touch pad, great screen, the whole nine yards, it ends up being close to the same price as a macbook.

wmf 4y ago
Apple does genuinely overprice RAM and storage. For the rest you're right.
Applejinx 4y ago
Not so long ago I got significantly more than the current trade-in for the $52,000 Mac Pro, for a 27 inch 5k iMac Pro also with the mega-Xeon and a ton of RAM, etc. I think they wanted to get them off the market and get those people onto the Apple Silicon, which was going to rapidly eclipse the Xeon iMac Pro for those more 'general prosumer tasks', video editing et al. Not at all the same situation with the top-end Mac Pros with the Xeon: all the outboard stuff is the point there, and you can't as easily eclipse that outboard stuff. Put simply, the $52,000 machine might as well remain in service doing what it's doing, because Apple isn't directly replacing that. They were very much directly replacing what my old Xeon iMac Pro did, so they put more pressure on the trade-in scenario to motivate that happening. They apparently have no interest in pressuring those top-end Mac Pros to get off the market, so the trade-in is completely pathetic: hang onto the thing and keep it in service, they have no special replacement targeted or perhaps even planned.
ProAm 4y ago
$999 Monitor stand. I dont want to argue or nitpick each and every product (just like good discussion and it's their company they can charge what they want and people can spend their money as they deem fit). But look at their profit margin, look at their lock-in for accessories, look at their repair prices (they are slowly being clawed away from them legally), they've only recently created good laptops after about 12 years of not good laptops (see keyboards, touchbars, lack of upgrading for years and still charging the same price for tech that was 5 yrs old). But there is a reason they have so much money on hand, for much of the 2000-2010 they were the wealthiest company (public that we know about ignoring nation state oil companies, etc...) in the world.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > $999 Monitor stand. I'm not an Apple fanboy, even if I'm probably starting to sound like one. I thought the stand price was only scandalous because so many of us were unfamiliar with what competing hardware in that market niche normally costs? Wasn't it competitive compared to what the competition was selling? It's been a while, but I vaguely remember that being the outcome of that. I have less opinion on their repair prices in general, though I have to say that what they charge for display replacement is not much more than the cheapest third party. It might be argued that this means the hardware is overpriced, but I don't have a basis for that claim so I won't make it. I do wish they had ditched the unreliable keyboards faster. I actually like the touchbar when I'm using the laptop as a laptop, but I'd prefer it was in addition to the function keys rather than replacing them. Although on my M1 the ESC key and power button are real, so I'm 95% good with it as is. I wish they'd have found a way to keep it, but maybe the PR damage had already been done. For certain use cases it sure is handy.