11 ms·
Technichi: Macbook Subscription Service
- ladiesman217 13y agoJust heard of a MacBook rental company Livyy from Khoi Vinh. Looking for something more my price range and came across Technichi. Love the price and the idea, but, are any of you fearful this might still be a joke?
- yjv 13y agosubscribed for beta. a heads up: your glyph-icons are broken in firefox.
- zecho 13y agoThis page really needs to specify the length of the term, otherwise something like $60/month is pretty meaningless when trying to figure out if something like this would be worth the cost of convenience.
- ewang1 13y agoNo Macbook Air?
- akerl_ 13y agoDo I automatically trade it in for a new model when it comes out, or would I have to pay more?
- techwatching 13y agoWhats the advantage over financing such a purchase through any of the other number of means available?
- philmcc 13y agoFirst Guess: Doesn't show up on your credit (or require great credit) Second Guess: There are different tax ramifications for renting something than there are for purchasing/financing. When you purchase a computer I think you can only write of a certain amount (maybe depreciation?) as a business expense, whereas this entire $60/mo is a business expense.
- bsima 13y agoThe repair policy and other services. Same argument goes for leasing a car vs financing a car.
- crawdog 13y agoWhat about cases of loss/theft? Is there a deposit?
- danpalmer 13y agoThis could be great for businesses. To pay $60 for a machine for 2 years (for example) means a total cost of $1440. If this service includes something like an 'instant repair', i.e. they just send you a new one and take care of repairs, so that you aren't ever without a machine, it could be worth the slightly higher cost. Also, most companies will want upgrades/replacements every 2 years anyway, so this way they get that, don't need to worry about what to do with an old machine, which they probably wouldn't sell anyway.
- dwild 13y ago"zrail" said in a comment that Apple already give that sort of offer to businesses: http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/browse/finance/lease http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/browse/finance/lease
- zrail 13y agoApple itself has a Macbook "subscription service", actually. It's called a "Fair Market Value lease" and works basically like a car lease. http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/browse/finance/lease http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/browse/finance/lease
- jyothepro 13y agoYes that was exactly what I was thinking
- nobodyshere 13y agoWow. I wish we had something like that where I live.
- tdaltonc 13y agoI think that Technica could differentiate if it allowed you to quickly scale up and down to match your hardware needs. Long term leases can be hard to escape. They don't emphasise or even mention this as a feature on their site though.
- malbiniak 13y agoThe devil will be in the details. The Apple lease program to me isn't interesting because a) the minimum lease term is 24 months and b) the minimum order is $3,000. If I have an option to subscribe on 6-12 month terms and upgrade my machine on each release cycle, that'd be really interesting.
- tomkarlo 13y agoYou'll pay for a shorter lease term with a much higher monthly payment. Depreciation isn't linear; both a car and a computer will lose value much faster during the first 6 months than during the second 6 months (much less months 12-18.) So if you lease for say, 6 months rather than 24, the rate has to reflect that higher depreciation (plus the risk and cost associated with reselling the item at the end of the lease, spread over a much smaller number of periods.) I could easily see it costing double the rate Apple charges for a 24 month lease to rent for 6 months. Example: $2000 machine that depreciates to $1500 after 6 months, 1200 after 12 months, $800 after 24 (keep in mind much of the value loss happens when you "drive it off the lot" and turn it from new into used). $100 overhead on accepting the return, cleaning it up and reselling it to extract that value. 6 mo lease: ($2000 - $1500 + $100) / 6 mo = $100/mo 12 mo lease: ($2000 - $1200 + $100) / 12 mo = $66/mo 24 mo lease: ($2000 - $800 + $100) / 24 mo = $50/mo (Yes, I"m ignoring interest here. But rates are low.)
- Nk26 13y agoI goto school with a lot of people who would jump all over this. If the credit requirement's aren't crazy and students could easily get approved, this could be a game changer. I'm assuming it's going to be a 1 or 2 year term and they are relying on the high resale value once you send it back to profit or re rent the old systems for a lower price.
- jareds 13y agoAm I the only one who thought April fools? I could actually see this being useful if I was considering buying a new Mac as a way to test out different models for an extended period of time assuming I could get a one month lease.
- nickconfer 13y agoha, could be :)
- chrisrhoden 13y agohttps://twitter.com/TechnichiLLC https://twitter.com/TechnichiLLC It's real.
- bsima 13y agoI thought april fools also, but I'm really hoping it's true. My 4-year-old MBP has finally been outpaced by software speed needs.
- auctiontheory 13y agoI occasionally wonder whether to replace my 2009 MBP (upgraded to SSD and 8GB, naturally). What software finally vanquished your laptop?
- te_chris 13y agoFor me it was the 15' haswell rMBP's that did it. Quad core i7, pciX ssd, that screen, amazing battery life. Literally the best laptop ever made. I just wait for nothing now. CS and Xcode were super annoying on my old machine
- bsima 13y agoHonestly Chrome is the worst. I'll have 10-12 tabs open (including apps like Asana and Gmail, plus a few extensions) and it takes a while to switch tabs, especially when I'm also doing development work, with Atom open, a few iTerm tabs, Activity Monitor, Finder windows, Messenger, Telegram, and Mail. Add a few daemons for servers or databases running in the background it just locks my system up. Plus I work with data sets, and my HDD is filling up fast...
- nickconfer 13y agoThis seems like a difficult business to execute on. 1) You need capital to buy the machines to give out and slowly collect $60 on. Once the capital runs out, more is needed, but without getting capital quick enough, new customers have to be turned down, growth slows, and capital becomes even more difficult to acquire. 2) Since the tech and product can be easily purchased by anyone, there is room for other businesses to enter the space quickly and drive a pricing war. If large chains got involved they could offer a lower price and push local same day service. 3) Machines break. Without a hassle-free return / warranty, customers will likely get frustrated, refuse to pay, and make collections very difficult. Not to say it can't be done, the leasing industry is fairly large, but I'd thought I'd share my thoughts on the problems that might arise. Reminds me of when they did PCs for 19.95 a month plus internet for a contract term.
- dman 13y agoIn your opinion what is the difference between leasing a computer and leasing a car?
- al2o3cr 13y agoOff the cuff, cars cost 10x as much and aren't obsoleted by better cars that drive 3x as fast after two years...
- silverlake 13y agoNor do laptops anymore.
- dragontamer 13y agoA $300 Dell Venue 8 Pro Intel Atom tablet is faster than a Macbook Pro of 4 years ago. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7263/intel-teases-baytrail-performance-with-atom-z3770-cinebench-score http://www.anandtech.com/show/7263/intel-teases-baytrail-per...
- 13y ago
- warrenmcwin 13y agois "How about them Apples" not enough of a clue that this is a joke?
- adamnemecek 13y agoFor everyone in this thread: I'm pretty sure it's a joke.
- askbill 13y agoThe 30 seconds I spent thinking about the possibilities of laptop as a service were perhaps the happiest seconds of my day.
- chrisrhoden 13y agohttps://twitter.com/TechnichiLLC https://twitter.com/TechnichiLLC It's real.
- adamnemecek 13y agoAll tweets are from today. How does that prove anything?
- chrisrhoden 13y agoI guess that I just assume that people are quick to congratulate themselves on a joke well pulled.
- codezero 13y agoIt's real because of the Twitter account?
- Dirlewanger 13y agoThe Facebook account was registered last June. Would have to be quite the elaborate April's Fool joke.
- rebelidealist 13y agoThis would be really useful if you macbook is being repaired.
- steele 13y agorent-a-center business model hits startup land
- Aloha 13y agoI like this! Laptop as a service :-D
- callesgg 13y agoWould one get new stuff when the old gets outdated? If yes, what would you do with the old hardware? Who want's the old stuff then? If not, is there any point other than your support for the consumer?
- erikj 13y agoIs it going to work outside United States?
- northernmonkey 13y agoIf the cost remains the same then it'll probably do really well.
- killion 13y agoVery interesting service, given that MacBooks have such high resale value it may work out for them. I do hope they offer the high-end 15" Retina config even though it is not mentioned on the homepage.
- te_chris 13y agoCongratulations, you've disrupted leasing by starting a leasing company.
- aaronbrethorst 13y agoI really hope this is real. There have been a couple of occasions where I've been waiting for a 'big leap' in Apple's annual hardware refresh, but circumstances have dictated that I need a new computer right now[1]. Being able to simply rent a laptop for a couple months would be killer. [1] Specifically what's happened to me in the past is that I left a job and had to return my work laptop, and in another instance someone dropped a pint of beer onto my laptop.
- cschmidt 13y agoI hope that they offer next day replacement machines. As it is now, when my laptop dies, I go to the Apple store, they say it will take a week to repair so I buy a new one on the spot. I later get the old one fixed and give it to my son as a hand-me-down. I've done that twice now, but it isn't the most predictable way to always have a Macbook. It would be kind of cool to be able to get a replacement machine by FedEx the next day, and stay current on my hardware. (They tend to last a bit longer than 2 years).
- edraferi 13y agoThat would be especially compelling if they integrated backups as well. You get your laptop back, including all the data from the last full-disk backup. Of course, security. Perhaps encrypt the drives by default, then backup snapshots of the encrypted data? Then you get the benefit of the backup without the privacy hole.
- veritas20 13y agomaybe a good option for start ups until they prove out their business model and start to make money
- joshjdr 13y agoWhy not just use a credit card if you want to pay over time?
- Karunamon 13y agoLow credit limit? Credit's not that great? Incremental hardware upgrades? (60/month for a year is $720 and I can upgrade to the latest and greatest machine for the same price)
- joshjdr 13y agoNothing to argue with there. I was primarily pointing out that this company is addressing a problem that doesn't really exist in the first place. Financing for consumer purchases is readily available, and if you have bad credit you probably shouldn't be leasing a Mac for "less than your monthly cell phone bill" (nor should you likely have a cell phone bill over $60 per month...)
- Karunamon 13y ago>if you have bad credit you probably shouldn't be leasing a Mac for "less than your monthly cell phone bill" (nor should you likely have a cell phone bill over $60 per month...) That doesn't necessarily follow. This is actually the boat I'm in right now. Medical bills + no real work for 1.5 years = Credit history is garbage for at least 4 more years until it falls off my report. Sure, it's paid off now, and the report reflects that, but the people and algorithms who just look at the number don't know and don't care how or why. Practically, I could either stack up the roughly $1500 necessary to outright buy a machine and have only AppleCare, or I could just pay $60/month and have a fully covered machine that's functionally immune to both breakage and hardware updates. (Or I could pay $200 a month to a sketchy "we rent to people with shit credit" outfit and gain all of the headache with none of the benefit) I know which particular equation I like more... Aside, People really need to stop basing assumptions of people's behavior on their credit score, and that goes double with the economic downturn of the past few years.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tomkarlo 13y agoHere's a question: when you return the computer, will they review its condition for damage / mileage, the way a car dealer would for a lease return? And if not, what's the incentive to take care of it?
- bertil 13y agoThis service has been existing in Europe for a while. It’s not nearly as polished, though. Yes, it requires a initial investment, but with a big insurance (fraud is rampant and breakage astounding) a bank would be happy to pay against easily re-sold inventory. The key differentiating factor is the minimum rental time: you can offer any period, but One-day rentals require a different logistic than a year. I would personally love to see a meaningful One-week option because my MBAir needs new batteries, and I can’t imagine stepping away from it more than a day. If Apple could afford that through its Official Repair Partner, I’d be a happy man.
- mehrdada 13y agoI call April fools: none of the models they advertise support the "upgrade" to 1TB magnetic hard drive, which they list in optional upgrades. When was the last time you saw a magnetic hard drive with PCI Express interface? :-)