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worst logic ever.

no seriously go build a honda. stay off the forums.


While I agree it's a ridiculous analogy, but it's the same thing. Just because consumers feel that they are being overcharged for something that is pretty apparent (increase in storage from 16 -32 GB should not be an extra $100), they must be told to go build their own phone?? Ok buddy.
 
Slight logic fail. People here are complaining to each other - they aren't complaining to Apple or their employees.

Also I'd argue that GREAT steak restaurants cuts and aging process of the beef are far superior than what you can buy on your own :)

But I digress.

They're complaining period, which is just stupid given the reality of the situation.

And I will submit that I prepared a bone-in ribeye two weeks ago that I bought from my butcher for $40, and I had a $100 bone-in ribeye at a highly rated restaurant last weekend that was approximately the same size, and had been wet aged (28 days) and dry aged (21 days) by the restaurant. Mine was infinitely better. Not just my opinion. Others who had tasted both agreed. ;)

Now I'm hungry.
 
When using slaves to build the house the cost won't increase much? They are not the richest corporation in the world for no reason?

Selling good products is also a major contributor to their wealth. That along with top end marketing is the reason they are so successful. A company that bases it's primary strategy on cutting employees wages would die in a year.
 
They're complaining period, which is just stupid given the reality of the situation.

And I will submit that I prepared a bone-in ribeye two weeks ago that I bought from my butcher for $40, and I had a $100 bone-in ribeye at a highly rated restaurant last weekend that was approximately the same size, and had been wet aged (28 days) and dry aged (21 days) by the restaurant. Mine was infinitely better. Not just my opinion. Others who had tasted both agreed. ;)

Now I'm hungry.

Me too. As an aside - have you tried cooking Sous Vide? We can take this to PM if you want. But - wow - Cooking Sous Vide and then searing afterward = amazing...
 
I like how you think but a house takes like a year to build, a watch can be constructed in few hours by machines ?

Getting land permits, government forms, weeks with a lawyer and years with an architect are bigger issues to sort out. Once they house is under construction you're pretty much home free. And thats only after you've found suitable land! I've experienced it first hand. Unless you have multi millions, getting the best home on a mortgage budget is an awful process.
 
so obviously "Chinese slave labour" cannot be far away. Not that the people claiming either have any clue what they are talking about.

Well, that, and those Chinese people who do work for the manufacturers supplying Apple (in my understanding) make a decent wage compared to their peers and are probably grateful for the jobs.

While unions certainly have their place, there is a point where they become bigger, more powerful, and ultimately more dangerous and damaging than the big corporations who's harms they are supposed to be protecting the workers from.
 
Just how retarded the author is to write such nonsense.

And those who feels "negative about Apple" because of this.
 
Bring assembly to the US and I don't care about the mark up.

Not going to happen folks. And, I bet you do care about the markup unless you're pretty wealthy.

If Americans want jobs back, they will either have to compete or create new jobs in areas that don't have the competition and can sustain the imbalance in wages.

I will say that these margins are not healthy for the market and historically do not last. Mircosoft is the perfect example of that, look for these margins to get back to 20-25% after all costs once the world market is saturated.

Why is that? Microsoft got there by cheating. Apple has done so by innovation and creating a great product with great brand loyalty. That doesn't hurt the market... in fact, it largely drives it. If we had a few more Apples around (in various industries) the market would be a much better place, IMO.
 
And jacking their prices beyond belief and tricking their customers in thinking they are buying a ferrari but in actuality its a pinto lol
 
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You sound like my economics teacher in college. The problem is that under their systems Apple should be out of business and all of their competitors should be the richest companies in the land. I would sit in class and marvel at how upside down it all sounded and how in most chapters Apple was doing the opposite. This brought me to a realization. My business classes were being taught by people who never made it in business. This could explain the high percentage of business failures. When you learn the policies of those who couldn't make it work themselves, you doom yourself to failure. That's why the founders of the largest tech companies in the world all dropped out of school.

That's all well and good. But i promise you, no successful businessperson lets their sunk R&D costs effect their pricing on the margin. And yes i have taught in college, but i've been a successful consultant for the past 5 years.
 
The plain fact is that most of us are smart.

Yea... no! :)

The majority of people these days can't think their way out of a paper bag.


In that light, I think Tim Cook shouldn't have made his remark. He knows the historical timing of these reports, so he knew one would soon be released on the Apple Watch. And he was probably afraid because he knows the component costs are lower on the Watch. But it makes him sound almost like a liar. At least some of the previous parts cost estimates must have been close - even if only by chance.

Well, I'm sure these cost estimates are kinda, sorta somewhere in the ball park. But, since the parts aren't actually all available for purchase, and don't count manufacturing costs and techniques accurately, Tim was probably right in saying what he said. These are just wild guesses that maybe, possibly give some insight into component costs.

But, they are also kind of goofy, because they are pretty much irrelevant. And that, I'd guess, is maybe what ultimately caused Tim to make the comment. I'd probably just have rolled my eyes and laughed, but that's why I'm not CEO of Apple. :)

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I don't mind high profit margins if the product is excellent (which the Apple Watch is not) and if people are willing to pay. It's when you sacrifice function, performance, and customer satisfaction in favor of increasing profit margin (ie. bean-counting) is where the problems is, and this is what Tim Cook does (e.g., soldered memory, crippled products, shell-game pricing schemes, etc.).

Huh? The Apple Watch isn't excellent? Useless maybe (the whole product category is), but it's easily the best in the category (again).

And, I like the current direction of Apple's products for the most part... you just have to think ahead a bit. My more recent Apple purchases have been extremely reliable and there is no way they'd be as small and ergonomic, etc. if they had to have user-servicable parts and doors, etc. With the quality of components they are now using, and lack of moving parts, there just isn't much need for that anymore.

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You sound like my economics teacher in college. The problem is that under their systems Apple should be out of business and all of their competitors should be the richest companies in the land. I would sit in class and marvel at how upside down it all sounded and how in most chapters Apple was doing the opposite. This brought me to a realization. My business classes were being taught by people who never made it in business. This could explain the high percentage of business failures. When you learn the policies of those who couldn't make it work themselves, you doom yourself to failure. That's why the founders of the largest tech companies in the world all dropped out of school.

While I'd never discount a good education, there is a good bit of truth in what you're saying.

First, while the knowledge of the *science* of economics has never been at a higher point, economics is also part of the humanities... and modern economics has that people aspect almost entirely wrong.

And second, a lot of the tech industry hasn't even been run according to sound economic principals (or even good common sense)... it's just been utter stupidity. That's a good part of the reason Apple had it's dark years under idiot CEOs (well that, and that companies like Microsoft were cheating (i.e.: doing illegal stuff)).

I think the reason some of these people have been so successful is that they haven't necessarily learned all the stupidity and just ran off of common sense for at least some aspects of their businesses. I've worked most of my life in IT, and always have to laugh when I hear some company say they are going to install xyz software because some big company uses it... actually, that's all the more reason to question it!!!
 
To the people who think the watch is over priced as a result of this...try selling bags of cement and piles of wood for the same price as a fully assembled house of identical mass.

Analogy of the year right here. Bravo, my friend.

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I really hope you apple watch people feel like fools now. That's pretty much rape at those profit margins. ..... Those poor wallets. Won't someone please think of the wallets?

You want to know how I know you don't know **** about economics or business financials?
 
Where is the 'taptic engine' in that breakdown? You know, the part they have trouble sourcing quality units from...?

Granted a linear actuator must not be that expensive to produce... But if it turns out something is actually hard to get by and to get a quality version produced, surely the cost must be bigger?!
 
Me too. As an aside - have you tried cooking Sous Vide? We can take this to PM if you want. But - wow - Cooking Sous Vide and then searing afterward = amazing...

Warning: Off topic post.

I seriously looked at it, but the idea of waiting 12+ hours for my steak is not for me. Instead I've been using this method lately. Pretty freaking amazing. I may never cook a steak another way again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ4xl7XJM08

Really important to have a good thermometer and follow the temperature guidelines precisely. Last time I cooked one I used my Traeger grill to do the "baking" part. Even more amazing.
 
And this is also why Wall Street has historically been so wrong about Apple.

Actually, it's properly more attributed to a misreading of the tea-leaves.

The problem with Wall Street is that it isn't about investment anymore. It's a game essentially. As one of my friends put it (who plays the markets), if it were about investment, the rules would be different.

I've been telling people to *invest* in Apple since the mid-90s, because I was actually paying attention to what they were doing very closely, and recognized that if even a relatively small percentage of the market realized this, Apple would do quite well. They've exceeded my wildest expectations, but I was very certain they would do well.

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Yeah. And an Intel i7 chip costs just a bag of sand, RIGHT?

Best one yet! :)

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The beauty of this statement is that he could be saying that the Apple Watch’s component costs are even lower than has been estimated.

True, but that wouldn't match what Apple released to their investors... which I think would actually be illegal if they lied on that.
 
I hope someone at Apple was clever enough to scan the websites with advice for small businesses :D

However, if you start a small business and pay for R&D, be aware that while the cost is tax deductible, you still have to pay for it.

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Claiming that Tim Cook has any insecurities is quite ridiculous.

His comments on estimated BOM being inaccurate are made because he _knows_ the BOM, looks at the estimates, and sees that they are rubbish.

or he could try to mislead the enthusiasts (who are usually a year or two ahead of the public) when they discover that the BoM is wildly under the selling price, and is a much lower % than any other device in Apple's lineup.
 
I like how you think but a house takes like a year to build, a watch can be constructed in few hours by machines ?

Heh, well actually, I was part of an R&D team that put up a Victorian style home in the Columbus OH area (almost two decades ago) in less than a day.

But, your point would be the labor involved. But, like my house example above, the labor was just shifted to other areas than the end assembly. The house still cost about the same (actually a bit more than a traditional build), but the materials and quality was FAR superior for the end product.

I point this out because your premise seems to rest on a kind of an Econ 101 fallacy that technology destroys jobs or that that few hours ultimately isn't just as valuable (or more so).
 
Yep, way overpriced, especially with the gimped capabilities of the Watch. Sport should have started at $199 and Watch at $299.
 
Where is the 'taptic engine' in that breakdown? You know, the part they have trouble sourcing quality units from...?

Granted a linear actuator must not be that expensive to produce... But if it turns out something is actually hard to get by and to get a quality version produced, surely the cost must be bigger?!

My guess is that is what Tim was probably referring to in general. These parts breakdowns usually include custom Apple parts or parts where they just kind of take a stab at how much it costs because they don't have the exact thing.

And then there is the aspect of irrelevancy which I'm sure he'd have liked to say something much stronger about.

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Yep, way overpriced, especially with the gimped capabilities of the Watch. Sport should have started at $199 and Watch at $299.

Well, I'd not buy one at $99, but not because it isn't worth it (for what it is) but because I can't see any use for one... so it's not valuable to *me*. The raw material costs don't set the value for something... they influence it, but don't set it.
 
Yep, way overpriced, especially with the gimped capabilities of the Watch. Sport should have started at $199 and Watch at $299.

Actually, I think the pricing of the sport is in line with other things - bit surprised by the band prices, they seem absurd.

What bugs me is the design constraints and band rules, and lack of inventory at launch. I'm just getting more and more irritated about this company - as much as there are complaints about android fragmentation, Apple has made a bloodly mess of their hardware products with all the different standards, OS's, accessories, display resolutions etc... It's like being married (iCloud/itunes) to a hermaphrodite with multiple personalities (rMB, ipad, thunderbolt display).
 
While I agree it's a ridiculous analogy, but it's the same thing. Just because consumers feel that they are being overcharged for something that is pretty apparent (increase in storage from 16 -32 GB should not be an extra $100), they must be told to go build their own phone?? Ok buddy.

well, that's a completely different talking point - singularly, internal storage. we're talking about the cost of raw materials in total, and ignoring the R&D, testing, and marketing (etc, etc) that went into the first gen release. a brand new model [x] honda costs less than it would the next year, even if nothing has drastically improved in that year's newer model.

i'd agree with you on the storage point, but not the overall analogy you're presenting. anyway, not meaning to be rude, think i wrote my original comment a little drunk, so apologies.

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to those who want the status and fashion statement made in wearing one, yes. absolutely. i am not one of those people, so it would be a undeniable waste for me. different strokes.
 
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