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This is such a better deal than I had growing up, Apple has to be taking a bath on these. My high school required students to bring their own laptops to school
by Shalomboy 8mo ago
This is such a better deal than I had growing up, Apple has to be taking a bath on these.
My high school required students to bring their own laptops to school when I started in 2010. Their shopping list suggested a MacBook Pro 13" with a case - I looked up "MacBook Pro price" for the first time in my life and just about walked into traffic. I didn't have a laptop to bring, I didn't want to bring the wrong kind of laptop and get double-screwed, so I bit the bullet and brought my car savings to the Apple store at the mall. A tremendously thoughtful sales rep told me "that's crazy, what school requires a MacBook Pro for 9th graders?", led me to the white unibody MacBooks on the side, and showed me that if I was buying it for school, I would get a discount on the laptop, a free inkjet printer (with ink!), and a free iPod Touch. This blew my mind. I thought it was a scam.
If I recall, that model of MacBook compared admirably against the same year's base model MacBook Pro 13 on a stat sheet but felt worse in hand. The MacBook Neo might actually bring up the rear on fit and finish at the expense of I/O and like, the questionable idea of running an A-series chip in a laptop running Tahoe and Chrome. I'm thrilled with this release.
- gandreani 8mo agoWow props to that sales rep. Not many would pass on the opportunity to sell something more expensive. I'm assuming they make some sort of (paltry) commission
- articulatepang 8mo agoI've had a similar experience with Apple Store employees many, many times: I walk in and vaguely describe what I want, and they steer me to the cheapest item they sell that could possibly meet my stated requirements. I've also returned Apple products multiple times, once (recently) without the packaging, and once several days past the return window. They refunded me every time, no questions asked. This makes me wonder if it's part of their training?
- angulardragon03 8mo agoIt is - you’re not trained to upsell, only to give the customer what they need to do what they want. Can be a little annoying (an employee actively tried to downsell my partner, even though they knew what they wanted), but overall it’s a nice practice.
- MagicMoonlight 8mo agoYeah they always try and talk me out of battery replacements, saying it doesn’t need it because it’s on 81% durability rather than 80%.
- newsclues 8mo agoI worked in AppleCare and even we support techs had incentives to sell products. Incentives matter more than training.
- mixdup 8mo agoThat assumption would be wrong, and is why you get that kind of service from them. They may have targets of units sold but the real target is customer satisfaction and part of that is getting the customer into the right product so they're happy with it
- kccqzy 8mo agoTargets of units sold is a better metric than targets of total revenue, if a company is focused on customer satisfaction.
- reilly3000 8mo agoThey are a highly NPS driven operation. It makes sense: if you keep NPS above a certain threshold each sale begets additional sales from other customers. They manage people and places to what customers say in NPS surveys but don’t allow tolerate soliciting ratings. It’s simple, thus scalable.
- tedmiston 8mo agono commission
- newsclues 8mo agoDoes not mean no incentives.
- dghlsakjg 8mo agoApple Store reps don't make commission. My experience is that they are more focused on finding the right product for your needs. I've been there more than once where they happily downsell a customer.
- bdavbdav 8mo agoI’ve found that experience fairly common at our Apple Store. They’ve talked me down.
- goatforce5 8mo agoAt some point in the 2000s I was buying a laptop at an Apple retail store, and just before we processed the transaction the salesperson asked if I was a student. "Umm, I kinda look like a student." "Good enough for me!" I got a student discount.
- alsetmusic 8mo ago> I'm assuming they make some sort of (paltry) commission I worked at an Apple Store in 2010. There was no commission. I was a sales person at the time. A college student had a bad interaction with one of our sales people and asked a manager to be helped by a female employee. We had none available and I was asked to assist her because I wasn't aggressive. An asshole pathological liar, who later got fired, had tried to upsell her for no reason. The MacBooks with Intel processors were plenty fast. A 13" MacBook Pro was more expensive and offered no benefits for her student needs. I don't remember the rest other than she bought the MacBook, which was what she wanted when she came in.
- alwillis 8mo ago> This is such a better deal than I had growing up, Apple has to be taking a bath on these. Apple doesn't sell anything where they're taking a bath; their margins have been high 30's to low 40's for many years. All of the technology in the Neo already existed; they didn't have to create anything new.
- AndriyKunitsyn 8mo agoUSB 2 in a type C form factor is pretty novel.
- hobofan 8mo agoTo me the price seems to be so uncharactaristically low for Apple during a time where hardware prices are rising across the board that this almost feels like an attempt to try and capture the desktop market. During a time where Microsoft is fumbling with Windows on every front, having a competitively priced Macbook even for budget-concious people seems like a smart move that will pay off even without direct high margins.
- aardvarkr 8mo agoCapture the student market 100%. I’d buy one for my kids tomorrow. These machines are made with an iPhone chip so they’re going to be great at browsing the web and studying. I wouldn’t buy one for myself To do actual work on but for light users it’s the perfect device. Start them early and get them hooked in the ecosystem so they’re grow up and keep buying iPhones, Apple Watches, AirPods, and iPads.
- socalgal2 8mo ago> Apple has to be taking a bath on these. Why? Lots of companies sell Windows Laptops for under $200 (a 1/3rd the price of this). Personally I'd expect Apple's costs to be lower. Plus, Apple gets services money (iCloud, AppleTV+, ...)
- einpoklum 8mo ago> My high school required students to bring their own laptops to school when I started in 2010. Their shopping list suggested How could they make you buy your own laptops? What if you didn't have one? ... Was that a private school maybe?
- seb1204 8mo agoPretty common in Australia, public and private schools. If you can't afford it, some schools have loan laptops.
- 716dpl 8mo agoApple Computer had a strong focus on the education market back in the day. I wonder if this is a play to re-enter that market.
- twototango 8mo agoAnecdotally, at universities now, it seems like across domains, iPads are increasingly popular as ways to take notes and study. I wonder what the business model is here given their similar use cases with the neo for the student.