Apple's Secret Weapon To Influence Industry Pricing 407
Hugh Pickens writes "Nick Wingfield writes in the NY Times that Apple's present pricing strategy is a big change from the 1990s, when consumers regarded Apple as a producer of overpriced tech baubles, unable to compete effectively with its Macintosh family of computers against the far cheaper Windows PCs. Now within the premium product categories where Apple is most at home, comparable devices often do no better than match or slightly undercut Apple's prices. 'They're not cheap, but I don't think they're viewed as high-priced anymore,' says Stewart Alsop. Winfield writes that Apple uses its growing manufacturing scale and logistics prowess to deliver Apple products at far more aggressive prices, which in turn gives it more power to influence pricing industrywide, and one of Apple's pricing secrets has been it's willingness to tap into its huge war chest — $82 billion in cash and marketable securities last quarter — to take big gambles by locking up supplies of parts for years."
True for tablets, not computers (Score:2)
Shyeah...sif (Score:2)
Tablets aren't actually useful, though. (Score:2, Interesting)
The whole tablet phenomenon is a fad. It was basically created via media hype, and the willingness of many of Apple's customers to buy just about anything with an Apple logo on it.
Despite millions upon millions being sold, very few people actually use tablets. Once the novelty wears off, it becomes obvious that they aren't practical at all. They take the worst of smart phones, without any of the benefits, and combine it with the worst of netbooks, without any of the benefits. Sure, the tablets look interest
Re:Tablets aren't actually useful, though. (Score:5, Insightful)
For casual computing, and I mean real casual computing (check your e-mail, browse and maybe reading a book/watching movies), tablets are ideal. Even if you coach something, imagine instead of taking all your student files, the planning and even having the ability to take notes on a single device (instead of a file that weights 3x more).
There is a market for tablets, some might even say it is the real personal computer for people that don't like computers (I don't agree with them, but I see the point).
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I actually thing in 20 years we'll look back at the customizable home PC as the fad. The idea that the average person is the one responsible for securing, maintaining and updating a computer was a pain worth dealing with when the benefits of having the tech was offset by the ability to do something new but as technology evolves the pain just isn't worth what you get out of it.
PCs may survive in business where the flexibility they offer can be supported by IT departments
Re:Tablets aren't actually useful, though. (Score:4)
"Seriously, the reason those things won't replace desktops is the same reason laptops haven't, except much much more so."
You realize, of course, that laptops have in fact replaced desktops for the majority of people?
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How did you come to this conclusion? I can can goto Starbucks, restaurants, supermarkets, and youth sporting events and very commonly see a tablet somewhere. Generally it is the iPad rarely it is something else, if you want you could say tablets aren't useful, just iPads but that isn't true. You have your head in the sand, tablets are here until somebody thinks of something's better and it isn't a laptop.
Here is a prediction by summer of 2012 if iPad 3 is out the total of all iPads plus kindle Fire will sur
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I recently went to vForum in Australia. I'd say every second person had an iPad.
I remember at VMworld 2010, when I bought an iPad to get me through the week after my laptop crapped itself on the Monday (worst case scena
Re:Tablets aren't actually useful, though. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, rarely has there been a post that I disagree with more.
Right now, the tablet market is iPad and people who have them, mostly love them. The iPad is wreaking havoc on the low end PC market and they are still selling more iPads quarter after quarter. Apple is rumored to be dumping part of their desktop line up. There's no indication that the tablet line up is going anywhere.
If this were true, I think you would be seeing a resurgence in netbook sales. The reality is that sales are way down and are stagnant. I think a lot of Slashdotters are really out of touch with how normal people use computers.
Technically equivalent or superior? You must be measuring by clock cycle or memory size. I don't know of any tablet that even comes close to the iPad in areas that matter like build quality, battery life, and software. Apple has figured out that saying no to a feature is a bolder move than adding yet another switch or option and their product is subjectively better for it.
How's that PDA working for you? Netbook sales are way down from their peak and not recovering. And who wants to use their PC? That's their work machine. The iPad is their play machine.
Talk to people who compete in the low end PC market. The iPad has them terrified. It's a huge part of what spurred Apotheker to conclude that the PC business is dead. And have you seen Windows 8? That has me thinking that Microsoft is also turning away from the desktop market. It almost seems like they are splitting Windows into server and tablet versions.
Re:Tablets aren't actually useful, though. (Score:4, Interesting)
I concur with what you're saying, and I have a couple of points to add:
I feel like I've made my point, though I could go on. In the interest of full disclosure, I don't own a tablet (by any definition, or a Netbook). I have used them, I have talked to people who live with them every day. They don't work for me and what I do.
Re:Tablets aren't actually useful, though. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, that comment took me by surprise, but I can't think of a more true statement. I suspect that's why they just don't understand Apple's success. The goto Geek was THE person to talk to about any PC purchase, and now they are the ones out of touch with the mainstream. That's not to say they don't know what's what in the tech world, but they simply don't seem to understand what drives today's computing generation. Even 10 years ago there was still an element of garage tech to PC's. They were mysterious to the general population, hard to learn to the laymen, and generally frightened the old folk.
Now the Geek factor isn't relevant, no one cares about Ghz, spindle speed, bus speed, etc. Unless somehow has a specific niche they need to fill, they typically can just buy what they want without the need to consult with their friendly PC geek. I have to wonder if the advent of these closed boxes (read: not upgradable) like laptop's, Mini's, smart phones, etc, have removed the need to know a geek to get your video card upgraded. No one does that anymore except for those that insist on using a desktop, and lets face it. Desktop's just aren't that mobile.
I also find the comments about 'seeing them everywhere' and arguments to the contrary a bit humorous. 100+ million sold. They are now impacting the netbook, Laptop, Low end Desktop PC, and gaming market and people are still calling them a fad. They have been selling like gang busters for 2 years straight, with no slowdown in sight and they are still a 'fad'. The disconnect here would be scary if it wasn't so funny.
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Apple has finally made the computer appliance viable. Before this trend, you did need a 'Geek' or their therapeutic equivalent to help you run the gauntlet of hardware / software choices needed to get a computer running. And for the best experience you needed someone to strip out the shovelware found on anything but the highest end machines. And someone to help maintain it.
Now you don't. You can be a complete Noob, get an iPad, not even hook it in to a 'real' computer to get it to work. You can go to o
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I don't think the tablet is a laptop replacement, nor is a laptop a good tablet replacement. Lots of people were buying netbooks and other low end laptops because that's all that was available. What they really wanted (even if they didn't know it at the time) was a tablet and when a decent one finally came around, it became a best seller and left the low end of the mobile PC market in a bit of a shambles.
Stop thinking of them as laptop replacements, because that's not what they are.
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Sure, the tablets look interesting, but after you buy one and try to use it you find that you're better off using your smart phone or your netbook.
And which tablet did you buy, that you speak with such authority? Given the smack talk elsewhere in your post it obviously wasn't an iPad.
The fact that there's basically no real demand for tablets is exactly why no other company besides Apple has been able to produce a successful competitor.
The Occam's razor answer is that no other company besides Apple produces a good tablet. Your apparent dissatisfaction with the non-iPad tablet you bought only underlines that.
The tablet fad will likely be over by the summer of 2012, if not completely by early 2013.
Oh really? And how long did you give the iPod fad and the iPhone fad? How wrong were you?
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One really good use I've found for a tablet is to be able to load it up full of PDFs with manuals, schematics, etc. that we need for service calls. All the details of every machine we need to work on in a small form factor, easy to load up and search through. You don't have to lug around a laptop, this is a more natural reference form factor, and you don't have to call back to the office anymore and say "can you look this up for me?"
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Bullshit.
I'm not an Apple fanboy (I sold my only Mac a long time ago, resisted the iPod until the competition went bust and have a general dislike for OSX) but I do have an iPad, which I use every day. Multiple times. In fact I use it more frequently than my main desktop PC (although not for as long at a time).
For quick 5 minute web lookups, playing a game, checking twitter, etc it's perfect. I know my wife also wouldn't part with hers. If I had to pick between an iPad and a PC I'd go with the PC for sure,
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find a laptop with a WUXGA screen... which isn't a macbook pro..
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Find me a laptop that has a big enough screen where that actually matters, at all?
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> You have to keep in mind that Macs used to cost 3x the price of PCs back in the days. It is now a little more expensive, but not by nearly that much.
I regularly check local prices for iMacs compared to a hand-built PC (again from a local supplier) with same or better parts. Last time, a week ago, the iMac (several models) came about 2x the PC price.
(And yes, my hand-built PCs are generally from superior parts from vendor PCs, including box, cooling, PSU ...)
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There is more to a computer than CPU and ram. iMacs have very expensive monitors.
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I'd say that there are good reasons for the iMac to be a bit more expensive. You pay a premium on the iMac for the all-in-one enclosure, the form factor, the custom parts, the proprietary OS... if you were to try and custom-build a PC with the same form factor as an iMac, as well as various things like having an HD webcam built into the monitor, the touch-sensitive mouse, the aluminium keyboard etc it would most likely cost you more. My home-build PC cost me about a third less than the equivalent/worse-spec
Re:True for tablets, not computers (Score:5, Informative)
Really? The iMac is reaching end of release cycle, so isn't at its peak of value, but...
27" iMac built from scratch (prices from newegg):
27" 2560x1440 S-IPS monitor including camera: $999 (from apple, 1099 if you buy it from dell)
i5 2300: $179.99
DH67GD: $102.99
2x2GB DDR3 1333: $22.99
1TB 7200rpm HDD: $139.99
Radeon 6670 (aproximating the speed of the 6770m here): $79.99
Corsair CX430 PSU: $44.99
Antec 300: $69.99
Total: $1639.93
Apple's price: $1699
That really doesn't look like too bad to me. Were you by any chance ignoring the price of a 2560x1440 S-IPS monitor when you were finding they cost twice the price?
Aside –the system built here will be significantly louder than an iMac too, and significantly bulkier. Factoring that in, I'm sure we can forgive apple $60 at the end of their release cycle ;)
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Oops, sorry to self reply, but I forgot to include a keyboard and mouse ($30 given that the ones apple includes are pretty crappy), and an OS for over $100 if you're going the windows route (though I apreciate you may not be if you're on /.)
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You're kidding right? I've tried this thing on the desktop, and it sucks. Give me a mouse any day - it's much more precise, especially for doing simple things like click and drag.
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Re:True for tablets, not computers (Score:5, Insightful)
Also there is no need to follow the specs exactly.
Sure there is, if you're saying that buying a computer from Apple is more expensive than buying the equivalent computer from someone else or building it yourself. Nobody disputes that you can buy a computer with worse parts than a Mac for much cheaper than a Mac. Similarly, nobody disputes that the high quality parts are superfluous for some (possibly large) segment of the population, so you can make some substitutions of worse parts without affecting the value to that consumer. The question is whether a computer with the same specs built by Apple is more expensive than one obtained some other way.
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Yes –the point of this article being that they're not actually over priced –they're just not cheap crap ;)
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Really? Did you ever check what is the price of a 27" IPS screen? A bit more expensive, sure, but not by much, at least not the iMacs. You can argue that you don't need an IPS panel, and that's ok, but if you factor in all the separate pieces plus the price of actually buying windows and subsequent upgrades, in the end of your computer's lifetime you haven't payed that much more.
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(And yes, my hand-built PCs are generally from superior parts from vendor PCs, including box, cooling, PSU ...)
And of a completely different form factor. You can have an iMac on a table with literally one cable running up into it, did you calculate that into your price?
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All the same = not perfect for anybody (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes having little variation in the range results in economies for the manufacturer, but the "one size fits all" approach combined with Apple's resistance to letting the people who buy their stuff do any changes to it means that very few people are perfectly served by the model range . The more choices you have in choosing a device and what you run on it the more like is the result you end up with something that severs your needs, rather that the needs the manufacturer feels you should have.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice [wikipedia.org]
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On the other hand, it also means that there is a healthy resale market, It's actually plausible to sell your machine after two years and have the proceeds make a significant dent in buying a current one.
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"Samsung may be ahead of Apple in terms of phones sold, but they have probably 25 SKUs where Apple only has 3 of them (4S, 4 and 3GS)."
An SKU is a distinct, unique entity. The iPhone is a product line. The 4S is a product.
Hence your statement is incorrect. Apple has 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB 4Ss in both black and white. That's 6 distinct SKUs, not 1. The 4 was worse, in that you had 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB, white and black, and GSM vs CDMA, or 12 SKUs.
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Incidentally, how well are Macs selling these days? Has Apple gained marketshare @ the expense of PCs?
Apple is strongest in the USA, so world wide numbers are weaker. If you look at world wide numbers, Apple has grown in the last quarter to slightly more than 5% of unit sales in the category of "workstation, desktop, laptop and netbook". However, Apple has about 12.5% of the total revenue in that category. iPads are not counted in this category by most people, but Apple's iPad revenue is again about 11% to 12% of that number.
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Incidentally, how well are Macs selling these days? Has Apple gained marketshare @ the expense of PCs?
In the US, Apple's marketshare went down to something like 1.5% at it's lowest. Mac has 12.9% now according to the latest Gartner study.
Elsewhere in the world, Apple's marketshare is lower, and Gartner only publicly publishes the top 5, so one would have to look elsewhere to get a estimate on how that's been growing.
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1 [gartner.com]
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Screen size/resolution lock? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've heard that the reason you see so few 9.5" "ipad size" tablet displays is that Apple bought up the entire stock. This is also why the iPad 2 had the same resolution as the ipad 1, and why the Android tablets are mostly stuck at 7". Can anyone confirm/deny this? Or explain that better. My knowledge of LCD manufacturing plants and capability is minimal, to say the least.
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Re:Screen size/resolution lock? (Score:4, Insightful)
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There is also the theory that 7" is a better size than 9.5" for this market.
Call me cynical but that sounds like a theory borne out of sour grapes to me.
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Actually, I upgraded my 10" Touchpad to a 7" Nook, and I'm much happier with it. The 7" Nook
- fits in a single hand,
- and in my man-purse.
- It's also a lot lighter and easier to hold in bed, while walking...
- and can charge from a PC USB port, without a dedicated charger.
- all the rest feels the same: videos, mail, rss, ereading. I know the 10" is much bigger, but it's not noticeable for those uses.
The screen still allows me to read comics and web page without zooming, though only in scroll-heavy landscape
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The "mobile" stuff I own are a prepaid flip phone from Motorola, and an iPod Nano 3G. Nothing touch screen and no "smart" devices at all.
But if I were to get one of these mobile devices, I would definitely not be teetering on the "almost too big to be considered mobile" edge like the iPad is.
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There is also the theory that 7" is a better size than 9.5" for this market.
There was once also the theory that the world was flat. Thankfully, theories often turn out to be wrong.
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Re:Screen size/resolution lock? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is also the theory that 7" is a better size than 9.5" for this market. Beyond a certain size bigger is certainly better, but I dont think this market is in that zone. People want something that they can hold comfortably in one hand for a long period of time.
Smartphones already fill the "comfortable to hold in one hand for a long period of time" market. Tablets are a different market. A 7" is a compromise between tablet and phone, not being ideal for either.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
What is certainly true (Score:3)
What is a certainty is that Apple does volume buying at a scale nobody else can or is willing to match. It is a huge gamble for Apple. They got a lot of money but it is still a publicly traded company so if they screw up they can loose their value really quickly.
You said it yourself, the iPad2 is very conspicious in the its screen usage. Maybe they bought a little bit to many? Remember HP and the dump of its tablet? That wasn't just done to upset the market. Grinding up old stock is costly in itself. If sa
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You said it yourself, the iPad2 is very conspicious in the its screen usage. Maybe they bought a little bit to many?
iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS all used the same size and DPI screens. Then the iPhone 4 doubled the DPI. 3 years before a change.
Apple released the iPad 2 eleven months after the iPad 1. Why on earth would you expect it to have a different size or DPI?
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Apple is also making a LOT of enemies.
Lets see now. Consumers love Apple. Media companies, Carriers, OEMs. They all want to work with Apple. Developers are flocking to Apple. ( http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/paperinfo/tpci/Objective-C.html [tiobe.com])
Who are these enemies you speak of? Competitors and freetards on Slashdot. That's about it.
MS did the same once and those who thought that in business their is no room for hard feelings and rancor were ignoring moves by old MS rivals that didn't benefit the rivals as much as screw MS over.
MS hasn't been coasting for the last decade because it has enemies. It's because because it's only managed to be successful in one new market since they established the Windows and Office monopolies in the 1990s. Tha
Re:What is certainly true (Score:4, Insightful)
The strategy is pretty sound if you make a few assumptions:
- Most manufacturers of components want Apple's business because they know it's *safe* and reasonably profitable
- Most manufacturers of these kinds of components are willing to share with Apple (and their other big customers) what kinds of things are coming down the pipeline in the next 1-2-3 years
- There won't be something that appears out of nowhere that's mindbogglingly amazing and ready to be manufactured without at least some advance notice.
- Apple has enough cash on hand, brand cachet, and momentum that if they were to release something that was "good but not insanely great" they could survive it relatively unscathed (as long as they didn't keep doing that) because people would still buy it.
These assumptions seem pretty reasonable to me. The Apple strategy also protects them against things like the quake + tsunami in Japan, the flooding of Thailand, and other issues that will come up and force competitors to raise prices.
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They'd be really stupid to source from Samsung,
Really? [ibtimes.com]
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The iPad 2 has the same resolution as the iPad 1 because iPad apps are designed for a fixed resolution and DPI. The resolution will only change when it's feasible to double it, as then all the apps will still work fine without scaling.
That's exactly the same as happened with the iPhone.
Android gives few guarantees as to resolution and DPI. Manufacturers can do what they like. Developers have to cope with that by scaling and/or stretching and/or relaying out their app UIs.
The Android approach gives a greater
can these posts be proofread, please? (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's even more amusing when the correct form was used two lines higher in the summary.
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As a native speaker, I also find the inappropriate usage of its/it's painful.
They're/their/there and your/you're are also sources of unreasoning rage.
The affect vs effect issue was apparently enough to make someone make an entire domain [affectvseffect.org] about it.
Language is a funny thing. "Funny" as in, you have to laugh, or it'll make you cry.
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Language is a funny thing. "Funny" as in, you have to laugh, or it'll make you cry.
I am a firm believer in the theory that spelling/grammar skills of readers are more strongly influenced by such casually read texts than one would think. The "it's" vs. "its" problem is a real epidemic, especially among people with IT background/interests (coincidence?). So we have to fight it aggressively, even though it gets boring to post 'it's "its", not "it's"' every time this happens.
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Or just go with the flow, and get used to it.
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The affect vs effect issue was apparently enough to make someone make an entire domain [affectvseffect.org] about it.
Sadly that site gets it very wrong. It claims that "affect" is a verb whereas "effect" is a noun. In reality, there is also a noun "affect", mostly used in psychology (love/hate, joy/sorrow, wonder/desire are affects), and there is also the verb "effect" with the meaning "cause something to happen".
Example: The good news effected an affect of joy.
Re:can these posts be proofread, please? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet you don't find the lack of capital letters at the beginning of sentences to be a problem. If you're going to be a grammar nazi, it's probably a good idea to use correct grammar yourself.
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Turn in your grammar nazi credentials, you are wildly incorrect.
its == possesive pronoun
it's == contraction for "it is" or "it has"
Gambling (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of what you think of Apple - love 'em or hate 'em - it's simply inaccurate to describe their moves as "big gambles". They are making bold business decisions.
Now, admittedly, that doesn't sound impressive but it actually is - too few companies are able to come up with a well thought out plan and to boldly follow it, sadly...
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On the other hand, every time Steve Jobs has left Apple, they've tanked until he came back... and this time, they can beg and plead all they want and he won't be able to take the helm again.
Re:Gambling (Score:5, Funny)
On the other other hand, if he does come back again and take control of Apple, I suspect their success will skyrocket....
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'Every time' was that one time.
Second, Tim Cook was brought in with Steve when he came back and its likely that Tim Cook was Steve's right hand man till the day he died for a reason.
I agree, Steve WAS the driving factor, but Tim Cook deserves his spot to shine, this is the go who Steve said 'go do this' and Tim Cook made it happen. Not sure if he'll be as good at his new roll in Steve's spot, but Tim Cook is a BIG reason why Apple is where it is today.
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it's not really gambling when you've got 89 billion to spare. I'm sure any company would like to enter into similar antitrust practices if they had 89 billion.
So they have a reasonably priced product... (Score:2)
Apple isn't leveraging anything. They are competing and setting the price where appropriate for the market, and as high as they possibly can.
- In the mobile phone market where users switch brands as they please with disposable products that last maybe 1-2 years under contract they price quite aggressively. The iPhone really is a good deal. It also needs to be. With a large number of other smart phones on the market that also present excellent value the iPhone no longer has the unique benefits it did when it
Re:So they have a reasonably priced product... (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure that is a fair comparison given that Dell laptop is reported to have poor build quality, poor battery life (some people report 2 hours), a poor quality screen, and I'm not even sure Dell sell it anymore. Also, the Apple laptop in question has Thunderbolt, backlit keyboard, firewire 800, 7 hour battery, solid aluminium (not plastic) and magsafe power connector. Not to mention a better operating system. It is clearly a better designed and engineered machine than the Dell.
You'll always find laptops that are cheaper than Apple. But you get what you pay for.
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Interestingly the Dell 13" version of your example is the same price, with lesser specs (notably, i3).
But AFAIK the Inspiron is Dell's "cheap" brand. Apple don't do cheap. So you might be better off comparing with Alienware or Latitude. Both of which cost more than a similar spec MBP.
Apple (and most companies) do rip off us Aussies, but remember that in the USA prices are advertised without tax, so you have to add 10% GST. Still higher, but not the full $200. One thing that really annoys me is they charge u
IPad's competitors are about the same price (Score:3)
Only recently have they started getting cheaper, but not by much. Those that are noticeably cheaper are also of noticeably worse quality.
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Antitrust? (Score:2)
This business of locking up the supply of parts ought to pique the interest of antitrust regulators (if any still exist.)
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It would be hard to creat an anti-trust case when there are many other large companies bringing similar products to the table that consumers could buy.
Mossberg interview leak (Score:5, Funny)
Here's a leaked excerpt from the next edition of Walt Mossberg's Wall Street Journal column, where he reports on a recent interview with Tim Cook, Apple's newly ascended CEO:
I asked Cook what he thought his biggest challenges were. "Clearly," he replied, "China is our next big challenge. After the U.S. it's our second-largest market. But we're doing well there. We have 6 Apple Stores in China now."
And after China? "Our biggest challenge in the U.S. is the Slashdot market," he said without hesitation. "We haven't executed successfully in that market. But it's a big market, vital to our success, and we're going to aggressively pursue it. I've asked Phil (Phil Schiller, Apples Senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing) to sit down with John Frazier and figure out a way to get our products onto the ThinkGeek web site."
Cook can't explain why the Slashdot crowd won't buy Apple products. "I don't understand it. OS X is based on Unix. We've been big contributors to the open source movement. But they persist in calling our customers 'Appletards' and 'fanbois.'"
Cook is normally a low-key guy, but the more he thought about all the lost Slashdot sales the more agitated he got. "I want the Slashdot market. I will have it. Once I have the Slashdotters, the world will be mine! MINE I TELL YOU!"
At this point I had to terminate the interview.
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lol "Big contributors to the open source movement" From the most anti open source group out there...
I don't understand how they are anti-open source? They're OS is built from an open source OS and includes a massive amount of open source code. They contribute to a multitude of open source projects.
Secret weapon? (Score:5, Insightful)
So their 'secret weapon' is that they think ahead, price aggressively in shrewdly chosen market segments, and take carefully measured strategic risks with their resources?
Does it strike anyone as ironic that it's so unusual for a company to act the way a capitalist company is *supposed* to act that it's called a 'secret weapon'?
Re:Secret weapon? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Does it strike anyone as ironic that it's so unusual for a company to act the way a capitalist company is *supposed* to act that it's called a 'secret weapon'?
Wait, thought that involved making bad business decisions, giving everybody huge bonuses and then going to the government for a hand-out?
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It actually strengthens your argument, "Apple could do more manufacturing in USA and
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China is complaining that it is not getting a fair share of the profits/prices. It claims more than 90% of the profits and 60% of the expenses happen outside China. Design jobs, liability insurance, warehousing, IP protection, software creation etc happen outside China. Only the brute manufacturing happens in India and China. (Surprised to learn Foxconn factory in my hometown in India is making the glass for all iPhones).
It actually strengthens your argument, "Apple could do more manufacturing in USA and still not have a huge impact on the cost of the product or bottom line". It probably will have more reliable protection of key technologies if made where trade secrets and manufacturing IP could be protected. But still it chooses to make it China.
They manufacture there because labor costs are much cheaper and they have none of the other costs associated with manufacturing in the US (payroll taxes, environmental laws, etc) that add to the costs. bringing that manufacturing here would add a lot to the costs - resulting in either a significant hit to the bottom line or much higher prices.
China is whining because they realize that they need to get more of the higher value work if they way to continue to grow their economy. At some point, someone else w
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But people line up for days for these products when marginally incremental versions come out. Truly this is a sign of credit and access to money being way, way too easy.
Actually, it's my opinion that this is a sign of the late Steve Jobs being one helluva salesman.
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It scares me. One thing going through my head is if the microsoft secureboot lookout thing happens, rather than paying the microsoft tax to get a linux laptop, I fear I may one day have to pay the apple tax, which is a lot more and I've been saying apple are worse than microsoft since itunes.
Re:No, they couldn't build it in the US (Score:5, Informative)
Look at the report to the President on Ensuring American Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/pcast-advanced-manufacturing-june2011.pdf [whitehouse.gov])
Laptops, semiconductor memory device, flat panel displays, and lithium-ion batteries are all technologies that America has lost the capability to manufacture. Apple could not manufacture their products in the US anymore.
Reposted to help get this AC's point out where people who ignore ACs will see it, and also to add an anchor tag to the "linked" document, so those of us who hate seeing URLs without links can just click the darn thing.
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Of course, if US corps hadn't systematically off-shored and mis-managed so much of the US economy, the US could still have that capability... bit of a vicious circle there....
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They only off-shored because it was cheaper, and it was cheaper because American workers were not competitive enough.
Re:I'm having trouble (Score:5, Interesting)
If I read your point further, you are saying that Apple should be forced to build their phones in the US.
I never said they should be forced to do anything. I said they probably could make them in the US. What gets me is that most consumers think they are "buying American" when they buy Apple, when in actual fact there is not much here in America apart from some offices in Cupertino and pimply teenagers at Apple stores. What I don't get is that Japan - with incredibly high labor costs and costs of living - manages to continue to be a manufacturer. As does Germany. Yet the US seems to be completely incapable of doing this. At one point buy the damned robots and upgrade your plants, you know?
Re:I'm having trouble (Score:5, Insightful)
"some offices in Cupertino and pimply teenagers at Apple stores", huh?
Apple employ ~60,000 people now [cnn.com], with very very few (if any) of those being in China...
It's not Apple's job to make your country a better place or more biased towards manufacture than design, that's your governments job. Unfortunately your government prefers to play with its dangerous toys, declare war left, right, and centre, try to make its rich richer at the expense of everyone else, ignore the healthcare requirements of its populace (seriously? No single-payer system in this day and age?), destroy human rights in the name of 'the war on terror', and generally have its two parties more involved with acting like dicks to each other than actually, you know, running the country.
When you can vote the government in and out of office, you get the government you deserve. I can only assume a majority of Americans are seriously screwed up. Or masochists. Or something!
Simon
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You might build computers comparable to the Mac Pro, but I'm willing to bet you're not building computers comparable to an iMac or Mac Mini. Or are you really building i5 machines the size of 4 CD jewel cases?
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I think Macs are priced too high, but to the average consumer their normal choices are Mac which is over priced but comes with a high quality parts and good support or buy Acer, HP, or Dell which will be cheap but probably won't have as long of life span and has questionable support. I'll tell you one thing my wife has a apple laptop and it's battery performance exceeds any Windows laptop I've had for personal or work use. Not just in how long a charge lasts when she first got it but also in the lifespan
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...nobody on earth is out shopping for an Apple Server...
You'd be surprised...
Apple is at the crest of a wave but the iPod/iPhone/iPad is not going to be the must-have christmas item forever.
I've been hearing people say that for ten years.
Apple hit it out of the park with the iPad because everyone has been looking for a way for the last 30 years to sell more computers to women and women buy them.
For the last 30 years people have been loading a Microsoft PC operating system whose UI was designed for a mouse and keyboard onto tablets and then wondering why hardly anybody wants to use it. Apple hit it out of the park with the iPad because they designed a handy tablet that came with a proper tablet UI.
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I mean, they make like a billion dollars a month on iTunes...
I'd like to see a source for that. On the App Store, Apple claims that they have paid out 2.5 billion dollars to developers. Since the cut is 30% / 70%, that would be about one billion attributed to Apple in total since the store has been started. However, when you start taking off things like credit card cost, gift card rebates (when you buy a $50 gift card in a store and use it to buy $50 worth of software or music, Apple doesn't get $50), plus Apple has all the cost of running the store, Apple doesn't ma
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Not really. If you gear your marketing campaigns towards people who shouldn't even be let near a calculator you better factor in a large safety buffer for future customer service costs.