Display Price Drop

[Yvan256]

I'd argue that Apple monitors aren't even that much better ergonomically. My Dell 2005FPW raises, lowers, rotates, pivots, and can be turned to portrait mode. Additionally, it's VESA mountable. The Apple 20" pivots. That's about it.

I wish all monitors could be changed to portrait mode... It rules for vertical games in MAME.

 

[Yvan256]

Competition and choice is a good thing for consumers, regardless of the choice you make. Would people really prefer a tech world where your only choice was an Intel CPU, a box from Dell, and your software from Microsoft and Adobe? Is that a great situation for consumers?

A lot (and I really mean a lot) of people still think it's the situation today... Computer = intel/AMD + Microsoft, no choice about it.

"Macs can't even go on the internet or do email" is also still alive and kicking.

Sad, but true.

 

[deral]

Aaack! I just came from the Apple Store, but didn't even bother looking at the new cheaper prices. I should have been more observant, erg., they need to release a time machine express so that I can go back an hour and pick up some more goodies.

 

[Yvan256]

Yeah, that would be pretty sad if after his keynote, his "one more thing" was cheaper monitors.

Nah, I'm betting the "one more thing" will be the Mac mini.

 

[andrewh]

Maybe so but sometimes you simply are paying more for a product that has standard hardware. Which isn't getting what you paid for its getting fleeced on a product that should be cheaper. They are counting on people to not comparison shop and simply purchase it because it looks slick with my G5 tower.


LOL. I love the reasoning on the thread so far. It almost sounds a bit like circular logic.

No one seems to bother to look at the actual specs of the hardware they are comparing. Contrast ratio, dot pitch, viewing angle, etc. In almost every case there is a better solution on the market other then Apple which wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it wasn’t for the fact that they are also cheaper. You want to go with an all Apple solution that costs more that is fine but please don't try pissing in my face and call it rain. Are ACD good? Yes. Are they the best on the market? Close. Are they more expensive then they should be? Damn straight.

Some of us will buy and enjoy the best, and others will rationalize why they can't afford it -- "It's not very good", "Overpriced", "there are better deals", etc. Come on already.

So glad I'm not as cheap as so many people in here. If you're a student well you have an excuse. Anyone working for a living who can't justify a few bucks more for something you look at every day, for several years, is just a cheapazzz.

 

[dejo]

Just a practical example: I'm holding a sandwich and reading some news on the web, while chatting with someone. I want to paste some text into my buddy's window. I don't want to drop my sandwich so how can I do such thing with only one hand (and of course, without needing to drop the mouse and type commands)?

Yeah, but what do I do if I'm holding a sandwich in one hand and a soda in the other, reading some news on the web while chatting with someone? Argh! Why doesn't Apple make a mouse I can use with my foot?

Here's my advice, Mainyehc. Put down the sandwich and step away from the computer!

 

[dejo]

No one seems to bother to look at the actual specs of the hardware they are comparing. Contrast ratio, dot pitch, viewing angle, etc. In almost every case there is a better solution on the market other then Apple which wouldn’t be that big of a deal if it wasn’t for the fact that they are also cheaper.

How about some specific examples?

 

[CaptainCaveMann]

Some of us will buy and enjoy the best, and others will rationalize why they can't afford it -- "It's not very good", "Overpriced", "there are better deals", etc. Come on already.

So glad I'm not as cheap as so many people in here. If you're a student well you have an excuse. Anyone working for a living who can't justify a few bucks more for something you look at every day, for several years, is just a cheapazzz.

Your obviously well off. You live in san fran and you are getting on peoples cases for not spending over a grand on a display. San fran is one of the most expensive places to live in the country i know because i live in san diego (born and raised). Im 21 im a student full time and i work full time. My parents bought their house 20 years ago for 115,000 and today its worth 600,000. Rent for me and my roomates is 2000 a month for a 3 bedroom pos house. I make 15 dollars and hour and i cant afford an apple display of that caliber. So shut it rich boy

 

[andrewh]

Your obviously well off. You live in san fran and you are getting on peoples cases for not spending over a grand on a display. San fran is one of the most expensive places to live in the country i know because i live in san diego (born and raised). Im 21 im a student full time and i work full time. My parents bought their house 20 years ago for 115,000 and today its worth 600,000. Rent for me and my roomates is 2000 a month for a 3 bedroom pos house. I make 15 dollars and hour and i cant afford an apple display of that caliber. So shut it rich boy

Ha ha, nice!

No, not putting anyone down for not spending a grand if they don't have it. There are lots of other products to choose from. It's the needless criticism of Apple products that is irritating. But really, $200 (price difference) is about the price of a couple of pairs of jeans these days. For a screen that your eyes are staring at sometimes for long hours, many days of the year, for a few years, it's easy to justify. I was a starving student as well, and I certainly knew what to save money on and what not too. It's not always about how much you make but what you do with it.

Anyway back on topic -- if people are happy with a Dell then fantastic, but to say that the Apple is not superior they are just not informed or are in denial.

 

[CaptainCaveMann]

Ha ha, nice!

No, not putting anyone down for not spending a grand if they don't have it. There are lots of other products to choose from. It's the needless criticism of Apple products that is irritating. But really, $200 (price difference) is about the price of a couple of pairs of jeans these days. For a screen that your eyes are staring at sometimes for long hours, many days of the year, for a few years, it's easy to justify. I was a starving student as well, and I certainly knew what to save money on and what not too. It's not always about how much you make but what you do with it.

Anyway back on topic -- if people are happy with a Dell then fantastic, but to say that the Apple is not superior they are just not informed or are in denial.

I hear ya

 

[rt_brained]

When was the last time Apple announced new product or price changes IN ADVANCE of MWSF? Fact is, if the upcoming keynote address was going to be light on information, then these two announcements would have been saved for next week.

Sounds like today's announcement was "spill-over" from a potentially feature-packed announcement next week. Perhaps the biggest we've seen in years.

On the other hand, this being Steve's first big outing since surgery and considering all the work and preparation that goes into the keynote, it could be an attempt to lighten his workload a bit.

 

[CaptainCaveMann]

When was the last time Apple announced new product or price changes IN ADVANCE of MWSF? Fact is, if the upcoming keynote address was going to be light on information, then these two announcements would have been saved for next week.

Sounds like today's announcement was "spill-over" from a potentially feature-packed announcement next week. Perhaps the biggest we've seen in years.

On the other hand, this being Steve's first big outing since surgery and considering all the work and preparation that goes into the keynote, it could be an attempt to lighten his workload a bit.

Well, thats definately a positive way to look at it. In reality however, i think next week is going to be a dissapointment indeed for all of us to want pb,pm,imac updates.

 

[spikeovsky]

Well, thats definately a positive way to look at it. In reality however, i think next week is going to be a dissapointment indeed for all of us to want pb,pm,imac updates.

I'm with you on that one. I really hate the feeling of post-Macworld disappointment - remember a few years back when the "one more thing" was a "big thanks to all the great people working at Apple"?

So, just to maintain a degree of sanity and happiness, I'm not holding out for this miniMac. If it is released, I'm saying $599 for the basic model. No to the flashPod either, though this rumour of Apple selling 5GB iPod minis with some sort of weird firmware thing to limit the drive to 4GB is interesting. I'd love to see people's reactions if/when Steve tells them their 4GB minis are actually 5GBs - though I already feel the pain of Apple's servers as people rush out to download firmware updates. Hopefully they're using the new Xserves!

And hopefully I'm wrong about the miniMac!

 

[JFreak]

2. Currency drops: this makes very little sense. I'm not an economics major or anything, but I think that if the US dollar is declining against world currencies, that makes goods made in the US cheaper elsewhere, and goods made elsewhere more expensive in the US. But apple doesn't make stuff in the US. The US dollar doesn't matter-what matters is asian currencies versus european currencies, which, to my knowledge, haven't been particularly different lately than before this price drop. The weak US dollar should mean price increases in the US, and hold steady everywhere else.

OR... think another way.

apple discounts its prices once or twice a year, and it may very well be that the "us discount" was this time given in a form of no price increase, and the rest of the world saw the small discount it always had when the us prices were discounted.

this is a small step to the right direction, but it's still an outrage. 1 euro equals to 1.35 us dollars, so one $999 ibook should cost 740 euros were the price sheets "fair". well, at least in finland that ibook costs 845 euros before taxes, so there's still a lot of room (12,5%) for discounts, if apple really wanted to treat us international customers fair.

but it has always been their policy to set international prices "a bit" higher than they should, so they wouldn't have to adjust prices too often because of currency rates. apple likes that the price points are steady.

 

[Kirk]

Hmmm . . .

The prices on the Norwegian Apple store (online) are actually a bit higher today then they were yesterday. Not much, but still, a bit strange.

 

[alfismoney]

I don't see why Apple would lock the GPU in low resolutions anyway?

For the same reason you can only mirror a display on the imac, emac, and ibook. There are many professional graphics users who don't need as much power as the G5 gives but benefit from lots of screen real estate. Examples being web design, the majority of Photoshop use, and logging/capturing in Final Cut Pro. All of these aren't taxing on processors because you're just doing simple repetitive tasks rather than serious data crunching but are much easier for the user when you can see a lot on the desktop. However, Apple's profit margins are MUCH higher when you buy a G5 desktop (instead of, say, a new headless 1024x768 imac) with no built in LCD display or a pretty, over engineered case. I love my mac to pieces but it drives me nuts when Apple tries to tell me that $1000 is a good deal for a LOW RESOLUTION (I can get and do get better from a cheap 19"crt, thank you) screen for my bloody computer and $1500 is a good price for an extremely low-end workstation with no RAM that takes up all of the room under one side of my desk

 

[Zaty]

For the same reason you can only mirror a display on the imac, emac, and ibook. There are many professional graphics users who don't need as much power as the G5 gives but benefit from lots of screen real estate. Examples being web design, the majority of Photoshop use, and logging/capturing in Final Cut Pro. All of these aren't taxing on processors because you're just doing simple repetitive tasks rather than serious data crunching but are much easier for the user when you can see a lot on the desktop. However, Apple's profit margins are MUCH higher when you buy a G5 desktop (instead of, say, a new headless 1024x768 imac) with no built in LCD display or a pretty, over engineered case. I love my mac to pieces but it drives me nuts when Apple tries to tell me that $1000 is a good deal for a LOW RESOLUTION (I can get and do get better from a cheap 19"crt, thank you) screen for my bloody computer and $1500 is a good price for an extremely low-end workstation with no RAM that takes up all of the room under one side of my desk

Well, it is true that unlike Apple, other PC makers don't arbitrarily lock resolutions but quite often, it doesn't make sense to use cheap graphics chips for high resolutions because the quality of the signal is just not good enough. I remember reading an article in a German magazine where they tested the quality of the output signal you get when you apply the iBook spanning hack. They clearly sad the quality was poor. I haven't tested this myself but I can tell that especially cheap Windows notebooks do have a poor signal quality. So the result of this test seems plausible. I totally agree that the main reason Apple locks spanning is only marketing but there could also be a technical reason.

 

[Lugonn]

I can understand all those positive reactions about the price drop, but I feel myself f**ked for 100% with it. I've ordered my system end of June 2004.
A G5 dual 2.5/4Gb Ram/2x250Gb HD/2x30" displays.
I got my full order in November and now not even two month after I got my dream set-up they decide to lower the price of those expensive displays !!!!

It happens, and I understand your anger.

When the original 22" cinema display was introduced at $3999, I looked at it, thought about it, and waited. Almost a year went by then I took a plunge and bought a G4 w/ the 22" cinema at full price. A bit over a month later, the new prices rolled out and the 22" monitor was at $2999. Talk about taking a hit.

I'm now in the market for a dual G5 and the 30" monitor. You can bet I will be waiting for the next hitch before hooking up. If it means having to wait a few more weeks, so be it.

In any case I'm sure you enjoyed the use of your dual 30s

 

[Kirk]

Never mind. Lookes like they forgot the sales tax increase . . .

Hmmm . . .

The prices on the Norwegian Apple store (online) are actually a bit higher today then they were yesterday. Not much, but still, a bit strange.

 

[sunilraman]

For the same reason you can only mirror a display on the imac, emac, and ibook. There are many professional graphics users who don't need as much power as the G5 gives but benefit from lots of screen real estate. Examples being web design, the majority of Photoshop use, and logging/capturing in Final Cut Pro. All of these aren't taxing on processors because you're just doing simple repetitive tasks rather than serious data crunching but are much easier for the user when you can see a lot on the desktop. However, Apple's profit margins are MUCH higher when you buy a G5 desktop (instead of, say, a new headless 1024x768 imac) with no built in LCD display or a pretty, over engineered case. I love my mac to pieces but it drives me nuts when Apple tries to tell me that $1000 is a good deal for a LOW RESOLUTION (I can get and do get better from a cheap 19"crt, thank you) screen for my bloody computer and $1500 is a good price for an extremely low-end workstation with no RAM that takes up all of the room under one side of my desk

my lowly low end iBook g4 933mhz 256mb does extended desktop, not mirroring ... nice

ps... a bit of a simple but very effective hack downloaded off the wonderful 'net.

i believe those comment about quality issues is absolute bloody rubbish ... with the spanning hack/mod you can bring up the usual control panel that you can separately configure display resolution and adapter refresh rate for the ibook screen or external display respectively...

try it with a decent external lcd, even with the vga adapter only it should look sweet :

 

[sunilraman]

I can understand all those positive reactions about the price drop, but I feel myself f**ked for 100% with it. I've ordered my system end of June 2004.
A G5 dual 2.5/4Gb Ram/2x250Gb HD/2x30" displays.
I got my full order in November and now not even two month after I got my dream set-up they decide to lower the price of those expensive displays !!!!
If I knew this before this would save me around 2.000€.
So thank you very much Steve !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I never gonna order the new top products right away. It's better to wait half a year/ a year. It's saves you a lot of money

gforce, i sympathise with you... i thought my love of apple would translate into a nice sales job at a quaint apple dealership in sydney... guess what, after 3 days i decided to quit and go back to web design (now i am trying to get into multimedia teaching/training/research)

apple supply chain is basically f*ed right now. we all love apple to death but like that naughty relative it has some dark sides to it that once you see it, well, somehow you learn to forgive because you love it so much... lol

i think what you got shafted with is totally dodgy and you could take that up with your local consumer affairs office. that is really dodgy and we've all learnt from your experience.... i think best strategy is do your research, line up what you want, wait for a price drop, then bam! hit all the dealers to see where you can get it all in stock within 2-3 weeks tops

take care dude... yeah... complain to your consumer affairs office !!

ps
i too was a bit of an early adopter in australia on the dualie-1.25ghz g4 MirroredDriveDoors and then single 1.6ghz g5... 'coz I was pushing Reason to the max.... but now i have learnt my lesson... better to wait a bit than jump in too early, in the meantime explore other ways to not max out that CPU bar in Reason

 

[rdowns]

Yeah, but what do I do if I'm holding a sandwich in one hand and a soda in the other, reading some news on the web while chatting with someone?

Dude, get yourself an iStraw.

 

[fraggle]

[edit] Hey, now that I thought again about the clickwheel (sorry for the long post guys, but I must add this ), I started wondering... Apple could develop some sort of clickpad. A laptop touchpad with clickable corners! Now that would be sweet, since it could be configurable Damn, I should apply for a patent!

You are a bit too late: http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/

I configured it on my PowerBook to have Expose on the lower left, right mouse button on the uper left and a fake scroll wheel on the right side.

BTW: I also have put Exposé on Fn which I never use otherwise which is very useful at least for right handers...

 

[captain kirk]

Seems odd that the 1.8 17" iMac (which was previously $1899) is now $1749 CAN (with edu discount), while the 1.8 Single G5 PowerMac, which was previously also $1899, is now at $1699 CAN (with edu discount).

Even stranger is the fact that without the edu pricing, the iMac is $1849 CAN while the PowerMac is $1899.

I cant figure this one out. If you are a student, Apple wants you to buy the single 1.8 Powermac. If not, they'd prefer that you buy the iMac. Very odd.

I'm in the market for either of these machines, but I'm waiting until after the keynote to make the decision. When I saw the edu pricing, I figured they lowered the Powermac prices to make way for faster models next week. But now I dont know what to think. I doubt they would eliminate the speed parity between these two models, since the 1.8 PM is essentially the headless iMac (notwithstanding the mini iMac rumours).

Comments???

I think i can help here, the level of edu discount apple gives depends on how much margin they have on a product, apple make considerably more money on the powermac than on the imac, hence the edu discount is bigger on the powermac, it is also the reason why there is a much bigger edu saving on software.

 

[illustratorDavi]

REFUND !!!

Hi

Macuser.co.uk have pointed out this offer where you can get a refund if you have just received a piece of apple hardware that has now gone down in price

I expect there is a US equivalent

http://registration.euro.apple.com/store/pricech/

Good Luck
David