Apple increases 2 year old Mac Mini by £80

[addictive]

Today Apple increased the base price of its two year old Mac Mini by £80. The company's greed knows no bounds. The UK prices are insane after the Macbook Pro event.

I was ready to buy a new rMBP but their prices are beyond ridiculous plus I'm not as impressed as I thought I would be with the Touch Bar, I thought the demonstrations were weak especially the "deejay", as if any respected deejay is going to use this!

Yesterday I purchased a wired Apple keyboard for £40. It's an old product but I wanted to get one. Today that same product has increased to £49.

I do realise the UK's currency has weakened since the referendum on leaving the EU but these are old products. Apple doesn't need to gouge their consumers on these. If Apple is going to gouge on prices let it be on the newest products.

I can only wish a pox upon Apple's corporate house. What have the company been doing for the past few years, not much accept counting their money it would seem.

I never thought I'd say Microsoft looks like the more innovative company this week in new products compared to Apple.

 

[Macs4u]

I agree totally. Apples greed and arrogance knows no bounds. They have gimped the Mini with soldered ram for no other purpose than sheer greed as their upgrade 16gb ram is utterly ridiculous. The new Macbook Pro 15" is laughable in pricing. I certainly will not be buying another Apple product at these prices and will just build my own when my current Mini gives up. Microsoft are definitely seeming to know the future a bit better. Can't stand Cook and think he has singlehandedly ruined Apple.

 

[Boyd01]

No, really, its all right….

https://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/27/apples-phil-schiller-on-macbook-pro-price/

"Affordability is "absolutely something we care about," Schiller says. "But we don't design for price, we design for the experience and the quality people expect from Mac."

 

[Micky Do]

Brexit…. c'est la vie.

 

[oneshotpro]

Tim Cook's Apple puts the shareholders first.

 

[Partron22]

Tim Cook's Apple is going to find itself rapidly shedding customers if it maintains its current path.
Things are feeling like they did in the mid 90's.
That is not a good feeling.

 

[richpjr]

Tim Cook's Apple is going to find itself rapidly shedding customers if it maintains its current path.
Things are feeling like they did in the mid 90's.
That is not a good feeling.

It's sad to say, but Apple has turned into just another high tech company, living on it's reputation. That won't last forever and you see the warning signs all over the place.

 

[Gav2k]

Today Apple increased the base price of its two year old Mac Mini by £80. The company's greed knows no bounds. The UK prices are insane after the Macbook Pro event.

I was ready to buy a new rMBP but their prices are beyond ridiculous plus I'm not as impressed as I thought I would be with the Touch Bar, I thought the demonstrations were weak especially the "deejay", as if any respected deejay is going to use this!

Yesterday I purchased a wired Apple keyboard for £40. It's an old product but I wanted to get one. Today that same product has increased to £49.

I do realise the UK's currency has weakened since the referendum on leaving the EU but these are old products. Apple doesn't need to gouge their consumers on these. If Apple is going to gouge on prices let it be on the newest products.

I can only wish a pox upon Apple's corporate house. What have the company been doing for the past few years, not much accept counting their money it would seem.

I never thought I'd say Microsoft looks like the more innovative company this week in new products compared to Apple.

Apple didn't do anything but adjust for a very weak pound.

 

[Slippery Gimp]

I spotted this yesterday and thought it might have been for a new model they sneaked in at the end. Nope, a 20% increase 'because'.

Doesn't matter which way you voted in the Brexit referendum, it's still a terrible action by Apple.

They expect me to buy a new one? They're going to have to be a lot nicer than they are being at the moment. They're rapidly turning into a faceless corporation who only care about profits. Obviously companies are out to make profits, I understand that, but the way they're acting recently is actually making me not like the company.

 

[sleconte]

Prices in SEA for Apple products have not changed. I think it is as Gav2k said above, adjusting for strength of currency.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Tim Cook's Apple puts the shareholders first.

Clearly you haven't been following AAPL the last couple of years.

 

[addictive]

Prices in SEA for Apple products have not changed. I think it is as Gav2k said above, adjusting for strength of currency.

I get that. But this is a two year old product which was already hugely uncompetitive in its pricing. Look at the keyboard example i gave, an old product and no reason to adjust that.

As I said in the thread at the start adjust for currency devaluation on the new products if Apple has to do that.

 

[potatis]

One the positive side, it will look cheap compared to the upcoming Mac Mini with touchbar on front.

 

[Macs4u]

When apple updates products yearly I can see why they would not reduce the prices as time goes on and their component costs reduce but increasing the price of a 3yr old Mac Pro by £500 when the component prices would obviously have gone down is pure greed. The Mac Mini component prices would have come down by at least the £80 since the last update. It's just pure greed on a massive level. I'm at university doing music and their is now more PC's than macs. The PC's they have run a hell of a lot faster too. Cubase for instance on the imacs run ok. Cubase on the PC's absolutely run better.

 

[Boyd01]

When you look at it, the interesting thing is what you were paying for the Mini before the price increase. I read that the base model was selling for £399 which included tax. At the current exchange rate, that would be $485. In the US, taxes are controlled by the local jurisdiction, and the advertised prices you see (such as $499) do not include tax. I bought a base 2014 Mini last month at my local Best Buy and the total with tax was $534.

So you guys were getting a pretty nice deal on these machines before the price hike, 10% cheaper that what I paid in the US.

 

[Wiltonian]

New UK Apple prices are silly, IMHO.

Two options:
1.What's left of old stock in the refurb store: http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac
2. Replace your Mac Mini, with a 2010 Mac Pro - which I just did: 2.8GHz 4-core Xeon, with huge space for HDs (and an SSD boot drive) and cheap memory upgrades (just paid £40 for 24Gb) for less than the price of a new higher-spec Mini.

Stuart
[doublepost=1477686880][/doublepost]

So you guys were getting a pretty nice deal on these machines before the price hike, 10% cheaper that what I paid in the US.

Only a side effect of exchange rates; Apple products seemed no cheaper to us after the collapse of the pound than before it. Now they've gone up 20%, but our incomes haven't. OTOH, the US gets many European cars far more cheaply than Europeans do - market forces.

 

[sublunar]

New UK Apple prices are silly, IMHO.

Two options:
1.What's left of old stock in the refurb store: http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac
2. Replace your Mac Mini, with a 2010 Mac Pro - which I just did: 2.8GHz 4-core Xeon, with huge space for HDs (and an SSD boot drive) and cheap memory upgrades (just paid £40 for 24Gb) for less than the price of a new higher-spec Mini.

Stuart
[doublepost=1477686880][/doublepost]

Only a side effect of exchange rates; Apple products seemed no cheaper to us after the collapse of the pound than before it. Now they've gone up 20%, but our incomes haven't. OTOH, the US gets many European cars far more cheaply than Europeans do - market forces.

The refurbished store is selling Mac Minis with 15% discount off the new RRP. Effectively prices increased. Just look at the base Mac Pro in there that's now selling for £2549 which is higher than the original retail price of £2499 which was in effect on Wednesday.

Of course, buying used off eBay is an option but used prices could well be drifting upwards after this latest blow. I think Apple sales will suffer but we'll see in the next quarterly results. This could mean that Apple will mitigate by using a March event to refresh the desktops with whatever they had up their sleeve but decided to hold off on - be it Kaby lake, AMD Vega, or some mystery design(s) that were not ready in time for Apple.

With the LG external 4k monitor able to supply 65w charging power via USB-C could we see that Mac Nano using the new base MBP/Air surrogate 15w Skylake CPU/Iris Graphics with just 2 USB-C ports, flash memory only, and a smaller footprint?

To be very fair, there has to be a number of people considering a sojourn back to a Windows PC if they need a powerful desktop but have value for money in mind.

 

[addictive]

Throughout all the boards and talkbacks i've read over the past 30 hours there is a lot of people who are huge fans of Apple (after all they are commenting on talkbacks etc....) who were looking forward to a new purchase.

However, the changes made and the huge price increases has really delivered huge resentment towards Apple.

People have been waiting for new MBPs for 18 months so there is pent up demand so I imagine the next quarterly reports will look healthy. Many people though will likely not buy a new Mac and just buy a refurbished model or hang on to their old Macs. Apple really messed up by not updating their models sooner.

There is no cheap laptop now. The Air is still on sale but its basically been given an EOL.

Any March/April event from Apple will be iMac and iPad related. The next iteration for the Macbook Pro will likely be October 2017 and that will depend on if they use Kaby Lake processors. Apple could easily skip Kaby Lake on the Macbook Pro and release nothing new for another two years now.

I had £2,000 GBP ready to spend on a new Macbook but I'm going to keep going with my eight year old Macbook Unibody. I thought the Touch Bar looked gimmicky not landmark and the removal of so many ports and magsafe make me think if I need a Macbook Pro then the USB-A models with the SD card would suit me fine.

I'll wait until USB-C is more ubiquitous.

But the gouging on the prices is obscene

 

[fhall1]

It's sad to say, but Apple has turned into just another high tech company, living on it's reputation. That won't last forever and you see the warning signs all over the place.

I like the Mac Mini as much as anyone, but Apple isn't living on its reputation. It's living on the iPhone. It sells over 230 million iPhones a year and less than 20 million Macs. Revenue from desktop Macs, and the Mini in particular, is a flea on the dog's butt.

 

[Altis]

Tim Cook's Apple is going to find itself rapidly shedding customers if it maintains its current path.
Things are feeling like they did in the mid 90's.
That is not a good feeling.

Yep. It's floating on its existing success and loyal fan base. That's never good for the consumer.

Once enough people start moving away from Apple, it starts a big snowball because a ton of users are really just followers. That's how Apple became when the iPhone came out.

Now even some of the biggest Apple fans are having a hard time accepting the decisions being made and the direction of the company and its products.

 

[Ray Brady]

The UK prices on the Mini are entirely in line with the US store. The base model is currently £479, which includes £80 VAT, so the actual machine price is £400. The pound is currently worth about $1.22, so this translates to $488, which is actually $11 cheaper than the same machine in the US store.

 

[Wiltonian]

The refurbished store is selling Mac Minis with 15% discount off the new RRP. Effectively prices increased. Just look at the base Mac Pro in there that's now selling for £2549 which is higher than the original retail price of £2499 which was in effect on Wednesday.

When I posted, there were no Minis listed; mainly old model MBAs and MBPs!

Stuart

 

[tomjleeds]

There are two very different issues at play here, which the OP seems to be confusing.

1. Prices of new products are much higher than anticipated
This is in part due to the weak pound, but prices have risen elsewhere too. Whether or not it's correct to call it "gouging" you could at least legitimately make that accusation.

2. Prices of old products have increased
It is incorrect to call this "gouging". It doesn't matter if they're old products. Pre-referendum the pound bought approximately 1.45 dollars, now it's around 1.20 dollars. Therefore without a price increase Apple is receiving approximately 20% fewer dollars than it did before for every purchase you make.

Some people need to wake up to the realities of currency exchange. It's serious business, not project fear, not gouging by Apple - and this is just the beginning.

 

[MRrainer]

Yep. What I'm reading is that the currency (GBP) hasn't bottomed-out yet.
UK Apple-users: You haven't seen the last price-increase of Apple-gear. In fact, almost everything that is imported is going to become even more expensive on top of what you already perceive as high.
Some people believe a GBP/EUR parity is possible, depending on how "well" the Brexit-talks go....
I would even say: if you see a remote change of you buying, buy now. Or pay even more later...

 

[OllyW]

Moderator Note:

Threads and posts on controversial political, religious, and social issues are to be limited to the Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum, and made only by those eligible for that forum.

If you wish to discuss the politics of the Brexit vote that has lead to the price hike to Apple products in the UK, please use the Weak Pound and Hiked Prices Make Apple Macs More Expensive for Brits thread.