Sadly, this is 100% true. Oh Steve, how I miss the Apple you built.
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Apple COO Jeff Williams 'Very Aware Of' Concerns Over Apple Product Cost
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What he meant to say is that they've been milking extreme profit from customers for as long as they could but the new Samsung Galaxy S10e has wiped the floor offering new features customers want and improving existing features so they now have to resort to PR spin. With regards to R&D, AW sensors were stolen.
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/22/apple-settles-lawsuit-biometric-sensor-valencell/
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/22/apple-settles-lawsuit-biometric-sensor-valencell/
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Really? Let’s also bring Dodge v. Ford Motor Company into it. I mean, at least go with the classics.
Was it the $20B in profit in 90 days that tipped you off to poor strategy?
That’s only more than almost every single company in the world did in an entire year.
The only way Apple will learn is when people keep their Apple devices for a very long time. Squeeze as much out of the device even when Apple is no longer supporting it. What your pocket book grow and watch as they drop prices. I think our desire to have the latest and greatest sometimes gets ahead of us. Use the product in a practical way and it will serve you well.
“We had over 10,000 nurses in the room to react to our SSD pricing. They were fine with it.”
But look at all this new emojies we put so much R&D to each of them, forget about product functionality and quality. Emoji matters!
If you are not completely satisfied with emoji variety, think how much R&D, love and care we put to having staff diversity! No, professionalism doesn't matter any longer, all hail to diversity.
My 970 EVO 2 TB SSD is currently $680 (CDN). This is very fast flash memory, 3500MB read/2500MB write. It is not cheap stuff. For my MBP it would have cost $1750 (CDN) plus the value of the default 256gig. Their pricing very clearly values it at a flat $250 per 256gig, so $2000 for the same 2TB. Except Apple's is slower.
It is literally 3 times the price to get the slower Apple SSD vs a superior product for my non-Apple gaming machine. And the real kick in the pants is that for the privilege of paying Apple the $2000, I would have had to pay $500 more for the emojiBar model of the MBP (I have the 13" non-emojiBar model).
So yeah, Apple pretending they're aware at all of how absurd their pricing is really is a gigantic laugh.
I could go on, for example mentioned the mac mini, but as I said, I don't want you to accuse me of an uninformed rant.
It is literally 3 times the price to get the slower Apple SSD vs a superior product for my non-Apple gaming machine. And the real kick in the pants is that for the privilege of paying Apple the $2000, I would have had to pay $500 more for the emojiBar model of the MBP (I have the 13" non-emojiBar model).
So yeah, Apple pretending they're aware at all of how absurd their pricing is really is a gigantic laugh.
I could go on, for example mentioned the mac mini, but as I said, I don't want you to accuse me of an uninformed rant.
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Can’t disagree with that, but what products are you talking about?
I get it. The product is more than the cost of the raw materials and there are costs for research, development and all the rest.
However... that doesn't explain why the keyboard folio for the 12.9 inch iPad Pro went from $169 to $199 while adding zero new features and the simple folio from $79 to $99.
Pricing is most definitely an indicator of luxury but Apple already had that. They have never offered inexpensive anything. The products are well made. Generally.
My read on this is that they have been blindsided by the criticism over pricing. There are times when they just don't get it and this is one of those times.
However... that doesn't explain why the keyboard folio for the 12.9 inch iPad Pro went from $169 to $199 while adding zero new features and the simple folio from $79 to $99.
Pricing is most definitely an indicator of luxury but Apple already had that. They have never offered inexpensive anything. The products are well made. Generally.
My read on this is that they have been blindsided by the criticism over pricing. There are times when they just don't get it and this is one of those times.
Read the post above yours. The facts show Apple profit margins on iPhones were once higher, double digits higher.; into the 70% range. Now its back around 60%. But mostly have remained near steady.
The bill of materials used to be just under $200 for a $600, or 1/3. Now it is $400 for a $1000 phone, so 40%. Higher material cost of the phone cost.
And no one batted an eyelash about price of a 3GS or iphone 4 with higher Apple margins per unit.
More expensive insides equals more expensive phones even with lower profits Apple takes.
No one batted an eye at those products because they were great as compared to the competition at the time. Plenty of new Apple products aren’t great as compared to the competition, or even older Apple products, especially considering the price.
No one really cares about what the profit margin is, even if they say they do. They care about the quality of the product and the price. Old iPhones were absolutely revolutionary and were reasonably priced. Why pay substantially more for something that isn’t much better than prior products, and certainly isn’t revolutionary?
I wouldn’t mind the pricing if the products were worth it. They just aren’t. This is in relation to pricing of their products in the past and the competition.
It's been clear for years that shareholders are the only stakeholders Apple actually cares about. Virtually every utterance from the company over the years about wanting the best experience for customers has been completely disingenuous and a nothing more than PR spin.
I agree it’s a premium brand. Too bad it no longer has premium products.
You use the original iPhone's price tag as an example in your argument, but forget that at the time it was a highly innovative product, way ahead of its time. We cannot say that about the current iPhones. In fact, they're behind the competition in many ways, yet are more expensive.
The main problem is they jack up their prices AFTER everyone has invested in the ecosystem, where it's not easy to switch like you say. At the same time, their growth in new sales has stalled, so they resort to nickeling and dining people on dongles and storage upgrades, etc. People feel as if they are being taken advantage of, and everyone's loyalty to the brand is being tested. I'm not sure what you stand to gain in being charged extra for things that other companies are providing free.
No problems here with my Apple products - a couple of laptops, 4 desktops, a few MacMini's, an iPhone, iPad, Watch, HomePod. All reliable.
The only issues I've had were with both of my cheese grater Mac Pros (one a logic board, the other a power supply). But that was when Apple was under the leadership of a different CEO. Zero issues since then.
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They’ve always nickeled and dimed on storage upgrades and accessories. This is nothing new.
I wouldn't even go that far. A premium brand will at least provide complete products. If you buy the latest apple computer and latest iPhone, you can't even connect them together without buying an extra accessory. Imagine Louis Vuitton selling a purse and then charging more for the "optional" strap. Or Burberry selling you a shirt and the buttons come separately. There is nothing premium about Apple except the margins they are able to extract based on the rapidly dwindling goodwill they build up in the past. Apple is going to plunge over the same cliff that Sculley ran them off of -- after years of being the most profitable company in silicon valley. Except this time there's no Steve to put the wreckage back together.
About $180 four years before the iPhone was even announced. I went through about 9 of the V600s.