Hmm. In the Dutch store some items are now cheaper (the iPad for instance is now 20 Euros less).
However, a lot of items haven't changed in price at all.
However, a lot of items haven't changed in price at all.
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Apple Adjusts International App Store Prices
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And there's no need for Norway to "accept" it too - better to have a currency backed up by oil than one backed up by Germany and pulled down by the rest of the eurozone!
This is fantastic...
From my perspective of course...
Tough gig for those who got the increase..
From my perspective of course...
Tough gig for those who got the increase..
Shipping? Who cares about shipping? That makes no difference to prices.
All that matters is the exchange rate. Right?
Because by the time I had a Macbook shipped over to the UK and brought a UK spec PSU then the money I would have saved due to the interest rate would be practically nothing.
If interest rates went up substantially it would make a difference. It would also have a huge impact on the housing market, which has been used to artificially prop up the UK consumer driven economy for the last few years. Which is why Mervyn & co are unwilling to raise interest rates to where they need to be to tackle inflation and stop erosion of the currency.
Their best bet now is to leave inflation high, devalue the currency, and erode the UK's massive personal and national debt that way. Unfortunately that will mean more expensive imports. And higher prices on the Apple Store.
The problem with making the UK housing market collapse is that it would also make the UK banking system collapse, taking your deposit with it!
This forum is not a Belgianese forum. It is conducted in English. Please reply after re-reading the rules.
Being as you obviously cannot speak four languages without errors, why should I only reply when I can?
I speak Japanese, which doesn't even use Roman characters (as all the languages you list do).
For your information it's Belgian instead of belgianese. Now I hope we can settle this, I concur "its" was correct, but now you know how annoying it is when somebody corrects you on something you already know. Even Englishmen will make mistakes against their language, so why should I be able to write perfectly? As it is literally the fourth language I had to learn.(In only 6 years). Now, we can begin posting about language(which I admit I started) But let's focus on the discussion at hand, which is the in my view fair [price changes apple made(naturally the people negatively affected by this aren't happy, but I still think the changes are fair)
Erm??
So, yeap, your argument is totally and utterly flawed.
You think that all data in the UK comes from the US? Just all sitting on one big server that serves the entire world so that Apple have to pay millions more to companies like Cogent for even bigger oceanic backbones when they could just open an office closer to the country they work in and use local lines?
And again, this argument goes back to everything Apple sells that generates the same misinformed complaints.
Apple operate a business in the UK. Apple pay the government for that privilege and the consumers pay Apple whatever they have to, to offset that.
Well it's French and Dutch isn't it, he was referring to your language, not your nationality!
Apple are seriously going to price themselves out of the market soon here when it comes to their computers.
I know that most people here (myself included) treat their macs like a loved one but there comes a point where this "relationship" becomes too expensive to maintain.
Seriously, to you Americans, come and live here for a couple of years on a mid-level wage/student etc and you will cry at how quickly your wallet gets empty. Fuel, Electricity/Gas, Tax, Rail Fares all at silly prices and are going up.
Oh well at least your internet in general (price/speed) compared to us ****ing sucks!
I know that most people here (myself included) treat their macs like a loved one but there comes a point where this "relationship" becomes too expensive to maintain.
Seriously, to you Americans, come and live here for a couple of years on a mid-level wage/student etc and you will cry at how quickly your wallet gets empty. Fuel, Electricity/Gas, Tax, Rail Fares all at silly prices and are going up.
Oh well at least your internet in general (price/speed) compared to us ****ing sucks!
Off topic, but you know you don't need to get a UK spec PSU, you can plug a usual UK two pin electrical cable into a US macbook PSU block... I do it all the time when travelling to the UK
Nah, UK government would step in again, passing more of the losses on to the British taxpayer
By and large, the UK hardware isn't all that badly priced. People forget that our price includes 20% VAT while the US list price DOESN'T include their state sales tax. Yes, we pay more but it's well within reason for a foreign company.
Aw, humor the poor fella, won't you? He needs it, as his own country has been struggling for over a year to form a decent government without any results so far and some analysts are predicting Belgium will be the next downrated country after Italy.
Indeed it's French, Dutch and German. English is the last language we have to learn to graduate high school, but that's for a competitive edge in the world. Belgianese isn't even a word if I am correct
Wow interesting, that's the first I heard about this. Because the latest news I read was belgium releasing figures which were better then predicted. And your quote is incorrect as we have a government. Een overheid van lopende zaken. Loosely translated, a government of running affairs
Norwegian prices
The bulk of the change for the Norwegian price hike is rooted in that our dear (not!) government has decided that all foreign electronic stores must now collect 25% sales tax og all sales to Norwegian persons.
Still; Apple is still scr*wing us on the fx-rate. The USD/NOK is now at 1USD=5,5NOK, and corrected for sales tax it should be 6,78, not 7 as Apple charges. I presume they only "support" integer values ;-) (as long as it gains Apple that is ;-).
Regarding EUR/NOK; 3-4 months pay in Norway now buys you a nice, decent house in Spain, so I´m fairly happy that were not part of the EU/hasn´t converted to Euro...
The bulk of the change for the Norwegian price hike is rooted in that our dear (not!) government has decided that all foreign electronic stores must now collect 25% sales tax og all sales to Norwegian persons.
Still; Apple is still scr*wing us on the fx-rate. The USD/NOK is now at 1USD=5,5NOK, and corrected for sales tax it should be 6,78, not 7 as Apple charges. I presume they only "support" integer values ;-) (as long as it gains Apple that is ;-).
Regarding EUR/NOK; 3-4 months pay in Norway now buys you a nice, decent house in Spain, so I´m fairly happy that were not part of the EU/hasn´t converted to Euro...
Wasn't it once true that all iTunes files were served via the datacenter at the santa monica end of wilshire boulevard? Might be an urban legend...
But anyway, regarding the cost of doing business in the UK... agreed. But note that the cost of doing business in the UK hasn't changed per se - except if your parent company counts its beans in US dollars (and is not particularly well physically hedged, er... Apple)
Apps have not maintained pricing parity in the Uk, they have increased above wage inflation, and hence have become more expensive for Britons.
This change in pricing is not about fairness for customers, but about preserving and smoothing Apple's revenues (which, of course, is understandable).
What it costs to Apple depends on many factors, and exchange rates are only part of the equation. But Apple's international pricing strategy has historically been based on exchange rates. What they typically do, when they release new hardware, is to adjust the price based on exchange rates, like this:
1) convert U.S. price to the local currency using the current exchange rate
2) add VAT
3) add an extra 10-15%
Or at least it looks like what they've been doing (based on the fact that when you take the exchange rate and VAT on the release date, the US vs. international price difference is almost always within a 10-15% window).
Maybe you should have wrote your point in better English?
You DO realise their is one or two cables of fibre optic linking the UK to the America's right? Upon which travels all internet traffic? So yeah it would be cheaper to just run one server and then pay like all ISP's do.
And erm? Apple pays the government taxes? The same as everyone else.
I wish the British would stop complaining. We have been paying the equivalent of 80p in Australia while you have been paying 59p. Now we are paying just under what your paying. So stop whinging...