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I thought with M1 the chip price will be lower due to reduction on licensing cost.

How does that make any sense? To the extent there is a licensing cost, it would be with Arm chips, not Intel. When you buy an Intel chip you buy it, you don’t license it.
 
The reason for the shortages EVERYWHERE not just silicon chips is the logistical nightmare caused by the the pandemic. Everyone is ordering online and shipping is deeply impacted. China ran out of empty shipping containers and it's like 80:20 or maybe even 90:10 ratio on return shipping from the USA to China. Add in Europe, etc. The fact that shipping ports are maxed out and there is a queue of container vessels off the coasts lined up waiting for as long at 14 days plus. Then you've got a shortage of truck drivers to haul all those goods. There are numerous impacts in raw materials getting from point A to B. Lumber costs have skyrocketed, etc. This is all related to shutting down economies and increasing shipping to never before seen levels. Shipping container costs are through the roof. The container ships do not wish to sail home with no cargo except empty containers but they really should be forced to do so just to reset the balance then come up with a measured ratio to maintain the balance. Many other points of failure can be measured and it's all cumulative. The GPU's are being gobbled up by digital currency miners because they will pay almost any price for them as they have calculated their value based on their electricity usage and can cost justify them. The economic principle of supply and demand is at play. Due to the chip shortages, auto manufacturers cannot deliver new vehicles. This has cause the price of used vehicles to skyrocket. A friend just bought a used Subaru with 100K miles at only $6k less than a new one but she could not get a new one. My brother sold his used Camero for a profit over what he paid for it a few years ago. This is what happens when you shutdown the global economies and transition to online delivery methods. KABOOM. It will take years to dig out from this hole when this crisis finally wains.
 
Not my field at all, but is there anything to stop Apple setting up its own chip foundry themselves? Surely money isn't an issue. Would it be skilled labour preventing that idea?
Risk. it’s very easy for something to go wrong, and then the $10billion or $20billion that you spent on the factory goes down the drain. And the cost per-wafer would be higher than using a contract fab because since you are only making devices for yourself you don’t get the volumes that, say, TSMC gets. It also requires a ton of intellectual property and skilled labor. Very easy to infringe patents.
 
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I suspect any price increase is going to cause people to hold onto their existing Apple devices longer which is bad for wireless carriers due to older phones not being able to take advantage of new wireless spectrum and it might make customers think twice before buying another iPhone.
 
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Isn’t this simply economics at work? Apple will raise the price and pass on any additional costs to the consumer if they don’t think that this will have any noticeable impact on overall sales.

It’s basically elasticity of demand and profit-maximising theories at work here.
Well, I think it's closer to an excuse for exercising this theory—exploitation of a situation that's ultimately just bad for the customer.

I do realize you're probably right, but it's an unfortunate feature of how economics "works" in that case.
 
But I am consumer, I don’t care how much Apple will loss. I do care my wallet. iPhone is already god forbid expensive. I can hardly justify spending 1000+ on iPhone 12.
Perhaps an iPhone SE would be more suitable for your limited budget.
 
If you would advise your company to absorb supplier price increases because they already make enough profit, I'm glad you're not my CFO.
It also depends if consumers are willing to pay the price increase as well considering Apple devices are already expensive devices to begin with.
 
Apple either absorbs the costs this year, or a lot of people will not be buying their kit during this years upgrade cycle

I’d like a new iPhone this year, but could easily wait a year if they jack up the prices
Especially if the big differences are a “10% bigger battery which costs $3, and a camera lense that is 0.1mm larger costing a whopping 0.50c - I say $100 cost due to this new venture they are trying, you know, for R & D!!”
 
Chips will probably be something like $20 more per chip at cost to Apple and we'll see desktops/laptops jump $150-200 in price.

I'm in to get the 14" MBP but will just wait if there's a decent price bump over the current $1800 13" MBP.

Same with phones. I'm due in November but will either just wait or get something like the Pixel 5a if we see $100 increase across the board.
 
Inflation getting you down?! No worries, just use your Biden Bucks to pay for that new iPhone!
 
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Another reason to Stick with Intel on Mac

Plus you get to run the NEW and AWESOME WINDOWS 11

Only 3.8GB in size compared to 12.5GB for macOS Monterey.

Do Macs satisfy the TPM requirements, or do you need to tweak it? I’m a bit confused by all that since my 2020 custom built PC doesn’t meet the requirements.
 
Another reason to Stick with Intel on Mac

Plus you get to run the NEW and AWESOME WINDOWS 11

Only 3.8GB in size compared to 12.5GB for macOS Monterey.

Really? Whew, I need to switch to Windows 11, then. My arms get so tired from carrying those extra 8 and a half GB everywhere.
 
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Hit the nail on the head here. I have been waiting for a new MBP, but if the price hike is noticeable I’ll be delaying another year.

I get it’s a business decision, and inflation impacts prices, but Apple needs to find a happy balance between reducing costs to keep consumers in the same ballpark on costs. I’m much happier to pay the same price YoY than paying $2,600 one year and $2,900 the next.
What economy are you in where prices stay the same YOY? in mine they go up every year.....sometimes more than once a year.
 
As long as we don’t know the exact chip price 20% don’t mean anything. If the chip price is 15 dollar and got increased to 18, Apple will probably raise the price by 50 bucks.
And if a person can't afford a $50 price increase on an item in the $1K price range, then they most likely should not be spending the $1K on that device in the first place...imho.
 
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That is exactly my point. They can afford to lose some profit and the fact we have people defending multi- trillion dollar companies at the cost of consumers boggles my mind. Especially when they are profiting a hefty amount already with nothing being brought to the table for the consumer to benefit from?
Ask some of the major level investors if they are willing to lose some profit. I'm not in that, but just saying. Those are the places where Apple stock...and therefore Apple wins or loses. A "hold" or a "sell" from Wall street does a lot of harm.
 
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