Apple's Phil Schiller: 'We Don't Design for Price, We Design for the Experience'

[Made In Machines]

**** you apple. You don't do a proper redesign for 8 years and when you do you horrendously price gouge all of your users. Did you see the intro about making macs more accessible to everyone? How Ironic.Before I thought they represented reasonable value as my unibody lasted 8 years (I'm still using it) and PCs laptops with equivalent spec weren't much cheaper. Now you can get a Dell, Asus or Razer laptop of better spec for £1000 cheaper. I don't think they even care about laptop sales anymore. Just another Iposer product. Horrible scamming company. £2350 and a tiny 256GB storage and an Ok graphics card. Good one.

 

[moxin]

the 'experience' you get from a previous gen notebooks

 

[avanpelt]

I predict that we will see price drops on the new MacBook Pros by the middle of next year -- similar to what they did with the watch.

If they don't sell as many MBPs as their internal targets forecast (and I don't think they will), they'll need to consider lowering the cost by at least $200 across the board on the Touch Bar models, I think.

 

[bigtomato]

the 'experience' you get from a previous gen notebooks

I'm also disappointed, I never thought I would say this but this but microsoft has out-innovated apple. Tim cook needs to go much too conservative in my opinion, this is merely a speed bump and apple should be ashamed of this. We need a touch screen mac like microsoft surface book, makes so much more sense nowadays. This is the problem when one company controls everything. If i could port mac os/x to a windows machine I would, the windows world is incredibly innovative getting sick and tired especially now that apple has a ton of money to do anything.

 

[recoil80]

Prices are too high in my country, I'm talking about $300 more (including taxes) for the base 13''.
I'm an app developer, I really have to work on macOS, but those prices are insane.
I'm going to stick with my 2012 Air for at least an year because I can afford the new Macs since they are essential for my job, but they don't add so much value to justify their cost. I think the previous generation MBP, maybe refurbished, is the best buy today.
Touch bar is cool, but is not a game changer at least for me.

 

[Larry-K]

Yeah well, still out of my budget. I'll stick with my archaic 17" MacBook Pro from early 2011. With an SSD, it works great.

You might as well, it has just as much RAM.

 

[544263]

Ferrari designs for the experience too.
Rolls Royce, Porche... etc. Clearly Apple is not marketing its latest laptop to the Toyota Yaris or Honda Fit crowd.

the problem is, they forgot about us ... the professional Audi, etc. drivers ... we can afford those machines, but we don't want to. - we are no *d*ots. we know what to value, and how much something is worth.

a few people keep talking about affordability. while this might be true for many, for others it's not about affordability but free decision. many could afford it, BUT: just won't spend 5000 euros on a maxx'd out 2016 laptop that is not considerably better than a maxx'd out 2012 macbook. actually i would have to carry around a bunch of adapters, how st*pid is that ... it's a step backwards. i dont care about that emoji bar. 32 gigs of ram, quad core 13" laptop, 2TB ssd for a fair price, battery life, a well balanced range of ports so i don't need stupid adapters. - that's what i care about.

besides hardware getting more and more unpractical, prices skyrocketing, OSX continiously degraded in quality over past ~2 years. i'm experiencing more bugs and update issues over the past 1,5 years than all the years before combined, since 2007.

elementary OS linux (very much OSX like) is just amazing, windows 10 is great too (good tools for disabling the "dialhome" features are available) and there is plenty of really good hardware alternatives.

i'm really curious to see how people are voting with their wallets.

 

[Freeks]

After those three guys are fired, Apple can be good again.

Those guys seen so lost.

 

[Ries]

Let's break down the entry level 15" model with what we can figure out using the highest prices listed:

1. 6th Gen Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.6GHz Quad Core CPU: ~$378 (Direct from Intel)
2. PCIe onboard SSD: ~$250 (Current market listing)
3. Radeon Pro 450 2GB GDDR5 GPU: ~$200-225 (More difficult to determine)
4. 16GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 RAM: ~$100 (Crucial, OWC, etc)
5. 15.5" 2880x1800 220 DPI IPS Panel: ~$300-$400 (Panel seems same as previous models)

Total Base Components: ~$1028

Thunderbolt 3.0 Logic Board w/ USB 3.1, R&D and development pricing unknown, yet using current market high prices in establishing a reasonable baseline, it's difficult to justify the $2399 USD price point.

https://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Radeon-NITRO-Graphics-11257-02-20G/dp/B01J1M4HDS

You can get a desktop model 460 with 4GB ram, fans/pcb, box, shipping for $140. It's not costing Apple more than $60-$80.

 

[The Man]

I remember a time when new Apple things came that were affordable. I remember when Steve Jobs introduced the iPad. Everyone expected prices up to $999. But then came Steve and said it started at just $499. Wow. Steve wanted everyone to be able to buy one. I could buy one, and I did. Steve knew that new technology should be for the masses, and at prices that were just right. And that new things should be pushed hard so adoption rate is high. Apple worked hard to be able to keep the price down. I don't like to do these "when Steve was alive" lines, but things have changed. Now, even the keyboards and mice are at prices I will never be able to afford. A keyboard for 120 Euro. A trackpad for 149 Euro. But what exactly is the added value to justify these price hikes? I used to be able to say that I understood the line up and the prices. But now... The line up is a mess. They keep older models far too long. And they don't push things forward. Like why didn't Apple push 32GB standard storage sooner for iPads and iPhones? Why do they keep a 4GB RAM Mac mini? And why don't they push SSD on the iMac? My Apple takes the great leap, does the great push forward. So a touch bar is great, but make it available to even the entry level model, so that everyone can benefit the new technology. And last, I actually liked the incremental updates in January they used to do.

 

[Larry-K]

I'm not sure if the "experience" they're designing for is their own, of fat stock options, or the customer's, of abject poverty.

Could be both I suppose.

 

[Applebot1]

My experience will be to look elsewhere at new computer time. Can't believe the price increases recently, even on existing equipment.

When my 2012 rmbp gives up the ghost I will review the situation and seriously look at a another platform. However I suspect Apple will leave Intel in the near future...

 

[Larry-K]

Ferrari designs for the experience too.
Rolls Royce, Porche... etc. Clearly Apple is not marketing its latest laptop to the Toyota Yaris or Honda Fit crowd.

I guess you mean they design for people with more money than sense.

Ferrari sold almost 8,000 cars last year, Maybe Apple could double that number, just hope the new MBP doesn't spend as much time in the shop.

 

[Ishayu]

This machine is just too slow. It's form over function. I do not find it useful for my professional work or for playing games. The Radeon Pro 460 is a terrible graphics card - it's almost as slow as what Nintendo is putting into their upcoming tablet, the Switch, and selling it in a pro machine means that Apple has definitely lost the plot on the needs of pro users.

That means I need to look elsewhere. This is not what I'm looking for in a Pro product, and I can't understand how you, Apple, can be proud to recommend this, at this price as well, to your family and friends. This laptop is worth around $1,200 or so and is not a pro device, but a consumer device. Now, if it cost more than that to make it, you're obviously putting in too many things that aren't useful but cost a lot. The touch bar, as an innovation, is not worth $300. It's just not, the end.

I honestly think that Steve Jobs is revolving around himself in his grave at this hour. If you put a generator on it you'd probably generate enough electricity to power another iCloud data center, so you've got that going for you, which is nice.

 

[morphineseason]

They're so afraid to add a touch screen/ combine iOS and macOS because they think the laptop is such a great form factor that's been used for 25 years, yet they're the same people who will throw out basic ports we've come to expect on our devices for the sake of courage and moving forward from legacy connections and form factors. Contradict themselves much?

 

[iChrist]

Two years to develop the touch bar huh?

The touch screen is already invented, much more capable, and would have taken you a few weeks to develop.

lol.
Jonny I've is a busy man working on a tiny touch bar and perfecting the color black on the latest iPhones.
He didn't even have time for one of his magical design videos.

 

[Scubaman]

Yeah well, still out of my budget. I'll stick with my archaic 17" MacBook Pro from early 2011. With an SSD, it works great.

I'm sticking with my 2012 MBP with DVD 16GB DDR3 memory Intel i7 plus 2TB Samsung SSD which keeps it a class performing laptop!

Apple in the US may find this hard to believe but high speed broadband is not universal! In some parts of the world (particularly out of the way locations - rural places, at sea, anywhere other than N America / W Europe!) you're lucky to get any sort of internet connectivity and CD's DVD's remain the primary vehicle for consuming content!

Getting rid of the only Mac laptop with DVD seems dumb if Apple wants to develop markets in emerging economies such as Indonesia, India etc...

 

[Yoshinori]

Where is the power button? I can find it only non touchbar model.
They upgraded facetime camera to 720p. Nice.

 

[Kabeyun]

But this is the Pro line... the F-keys are not "outdated" in many professional contexts... and now you can't touch-type them.

Combined with the port stripping, the storage, and the last gen tech, and the sacrifices for "slimness", it's like Apple is now defining a professional as someone who blogs from a cafe, rather than coders/architects/engineers in offices.

Four ports, storage up to 2TB, and a quad core 3.8GHz i7 doesn't sound like a tinkertoy to me. And actually I think the Touch Bar will be far more useful for audio engineers and photo editors than a row of function keys. They also said Touch Bar works with Terminal, so it's not just for emoji and volume control. And speaking of audio pros, they left the 3.5 mm headphone jack in. I do agree that Apple's relentless pursuit of slimness comes at a battery life cost across its whole product line, but that's not unique to Apple. Slim has become yet another number in the (myopic) spec wars.

 

[davys]

**** you apple. You don't do a proper redesign for 8 years and when you do you horrendously price gouge all of your users. Did you see the intro about making macs more accessible to everyone? How Ironic.Before I thought they represented reasonable value as my unibody lasted 8 years (I'm still using it) and PCs laptops with equivalent spec weren't much cheaper. Now you can get a Dell, Asus or Razer laptop of better spec for £1000 cheaper. I don't think they even care about laptop sales anymore. Just another Iposer product. Horrible scamming company. £2350 and a tiny 256GB storage and an Ok graphics card. Good one.

Well said,Sir. Ridiculous pricing (especially in the U.K.) as has been said throughout this thread. How out of touch are these execs to customer affordability? Exciting pipeline my arse - unless you're happy to excessivly rip-off your customer base.

"Hello Again"? Should have been "It's been good, cheerio"

 

[sparkie1984]

Well said,Sir. Ridiculous pricing (especially in the U.K.) as has been said throughout this thread. How out of touch are these execs to customer affordability? Exciting pipeline my arse - unless you're happy to excessivly rip-off your customer base.

"Hello Again"? Should have been "It's been good, cheerio"

Totally agree mate! And it's actually me done with Apple for a computer. Even their iPhone doesn't excite me anymore and I found it very hard to justify £800 on the 7 plus.

I find their stuff has got a bit meh. For me now whether thats because it's got so expensive now that it's not worth it or what I don't know?

Anyway my next machine is going to be windows 10 I'm afraid!

Hopefully people vote with their wallets but I suspect not

 

[kaminsky]

Well they are trying to price the mac out of the users wallet, so they can kill it off and concentrate on "post pc" devices.

Spot on.

 

[Larry-K]

Four ports, storage up to 2TB, and a quad core 3.8GHz i7

Please, don't quote that "Turbo" marketing rubbish, it's a 2.9 GHz with 16GB of RAM that can't be upgraded, and you'll need a tacklebox full of dongles for.

That's all you can expect when "Thinner" is a priority.

 

[Macist]

Imagine if Apple sacked Phil Schiller and replaced him with some random dude from Dell. We'd have sensible pricing, ports, fewer dongles, great displays, touch, no daft touch bars. And it'd still all be thin and light enough for just about everyone. Apple would treble sales instantly.

 

[timber]

I do not expect Apple to design for price. I consider the touch bar a great addition with great potential. All looks great.

Despite that I think the MBP are grossly overpriced. I can afford it but I just can't find any value or logic. It isn't whining, it's just talking about it in a internet forum. I will move along and wish a great experience for those than pull the trigger on these beautiful machines.