The option to purchase without a charger doesn't have to mean "pay extra for the charger that used to be included". If Apple really believed all the greenwashing in their own publicity they could have got with the program and said "leave out the charger and get a €15 store credit" (which they'd probably have made money on as people either didn't use the credit or spent more than €15).
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Apple's New 16-Inch MacBook Pro Charger Has a Compatibility Issue
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You are correct. And I am not defending Apple or anyone else for doing this.
Apple claims to subtract the charger from the price, but who knows really?
The intentions of the law are good and valid, but Apple has - of course - twisted it to benefit only themselves.
I simply wanted to point out that the other poster was posting false information.
I personally believe that good discussions are important and should benefit everyone. However, it should always be based on facts, not fiction driven by an agenda.
Mrkevinfinnerty
macrumors 68040
It's not about paying extra. It's about paying less if you don't need a charger because you already own one.
...but the old design allowed you to use a third party 2-pin C7 lead which wouldn't be grounded. So it's possible that they got pulled up for that. Or, that the increased Wattage of the power supply meant it needed a compulsory ground pin in some jurisdictions so they had to block use of the old, 2-pin duck-head plugs.
Still - that's just speculation, plus moving to a 3-pin IEC socket would have been a nicer solution.
Except Apple charge more this year with no charger, so now you have £200 + £99 for an equivalent charger - is that really in the spirit of the regulation?
If you already own a charger, you'll pay less for the laptop.
You may not have noticed that inflation causes prices to increase across the board.
The good news is, you have choices. Don't like Apple's prices? Exercise your agency and purchase a competitor product that you believe offers better value.
Thats actually a very good theory.
I asked Auntie Gemini about it and she said that in Australia unearthed chargers are allowed as long as they are cerified Class II. (AS/NZS 3112 and AS/NZS 62368.1)
So unfortunately that's probably not it...
Personally I believe that it's again "Corporate Greed".
Mrkevinfinnerty
macrumors 68040
Depends where you are. Isn't true in the UK.
The price is the same whether you purchase a laptop with or without a charger?
Mrkevinfinnerty
macrumors 68040
No. The M5 14 inch MBP launched in the UK at the same price as the M4 model but with no charger included
Manufacturers were never going to reduce the laptop/phone price by the retail price of the charger (which includes a generous mark-up). In the case of Mac, it's all obscured by new models, exchange rates etc. The UK price (sans charger) of a MBA is the US price (with charger) of $1099 with the $ changed to a £ - OK, the UK price includes 20% tax which accounts for part of the $/£ difference, but the exchange rate varies daily. The bill-of-material cost to Apple of including/excluding the basic wall-wart is a rounding error...
It's more about (A) not adding to my overflowing box of redundant, landfill-bound power supplies and (B) creating a more competitive market when you actually need a spare/replacement charger.
I might buy a new charger with a new device (not quite saturated with USB-C power supplies yet), but its more likely to be a higher-power, multi-port one that can charge all my devices at once and will outlive many of them - the sort of minimum-spec, single-port wallwart that typically gets bundled with a device would be straight-to-landfill for me.
Then the M5 laptop had a price increase over the M4 laptop. My cost of Apple devices in the US has also increased over the years.
jarman92
macrumors 68020
jarman92
macrumors 68020
It's an entirely illusory "option"—no manufacturer is going to make 2 SKUs of every single product, one with a charger and one without. The only sensible way to comply with this directive is to omit the charger and add it as a separate SKU if the customer wants one.
If that price increase were only in the UK, then it would - of course - be unfair and against the spirit of the regulation.
But let's look at the US: from https://everymac.com/global-mac-prices/all-msrp-macbook-pro-prices-in-united-states.html
Apple MacBook Pro "M4 Max" 14 CPU/32 GPU 14" 36GB 1TB - US$3199
Apple MacBook Pro "M5 Max" 18 CPU/32 GPU 14" 36GB 2TB - US$3599
Apple MacBook Pro "M4 Pro" 14 CPU/20 GPU 16" 24GB 512GB - US$2499
Apple MacBook Pro "M5 Pro" 18 CPU/20 GPU 16" 24GB 1TB - US$2699
btrach144
macrumors 68040
Mrkevinfinnerty
macrumors 68040
Good grief, Apple could sell a laptop without a battery and there are those who would gratefully accept it & gleefully justify it to others.
Sure, this is how most manufacturers will deal with that law.
But that's not what you said before. And you know it.
Again, let me walk you through this.
If a new proprietary connector is introduced, a complete new ecosystem is formed.
There are lot of different people that need a lot of different accessories for this new charger connector, like extension cords, car adapters, travel kits.
1. If the connector is Apple-proprietary, then only Apple can sell and profit from these needed accessories. No competition. No price comparisons.
2. People are FORCED to buy new, instead of reusing the stuff they already have.
In my book that is "Corporate Greed". Does that make sense?
In case you are addressing me... i am not gratefully accepting anything. I am also not gleefully justifying.
I am simply pointing out that the 200 bucks price increase was not isolated to the UK.
I am also pointing out that the 200 bucks price increase gives you DOUBLE the SSD space.
EDIT: To make my point clear: Yes, I agree, it is a dick move from Apple.
The same dick move as removing the entry config of the MBA - just to make to gap between the Air and the Neo bigger.
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No, it wasn’t directed at you or anyone else in particular
jarman92
macrumors 68020
No, that's what I said.
This is true in the abstract but makes absolutely no sense here. First of all, multiple people have posted here that they have this charger and the connector is the same, so there's obviously more to this story. Second, the idea that this would form a "new ecosystem" is farcical—it's a plug on a wall charger that Apple only provides with machines that start at $2,700. The addressable market is infinitesimal. And lest we forget, the plug has been exactly the same on every MacBook charger for the last 20+ years and there has never been any "ecosystem" built around it. And even if one suddenly sprang up it wouldn't benefit Apple because Apple doesn't sell anything that fits into this plug!
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jarman92
macrumors 68020
Astounding how you just take a maximally cynical position on everything Apple does and assert it as if it's irrefutable fact.