That's his role nowadays, to make the rest of the Apple Journalists seem fair and balanced by comparison.
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Gruber: Apple TV is Sold at Cost, HomePod at Slight Loss
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That's his role nowadays, to make the rest of the Apple Journalists seem fair and balanced by comparison.
Lol, Rene Richie. Now THAT is Apple’s chief water carrier.
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I have to hand it to the guy—-he makes a hell of a living for basically doing nothing.
But I don’t care for him. He’s a hack.
Agreed, Apple TV and Homepod is the kind of device to lure you into the ecosystem
People forget that at some point, Apple TV costs $99 (2nd and 3rd gen) and I must say you get a nice quality build for that price. A $99 tv box from roku or xiaomi would be crap.
I don’t know just how much Apple’s margin for that Apple TV back then?
But Apple TV was the hub into iTunes and lots of purchase happened because of Apple TV.
There’s also this mid 2018 9.7” iPad that costs $349 and works with Apple Pencil. Every once and a while, Apple makes low margin products for business advantage.
The point that I took from what he said was that Apple has stopped balancing price and features. Developing products is all about figuring out what you can charge for how much tech. As of late Apple seems to be ignoring that balance, shoving tech into devices, and going "whatever, we can charge as much as we want, they'll pay it. They are compromising in the right ways anymore to hit decent price points, no one is restraining the designers and the engineers and pointing to a spreadsheet.
The original iPad is a great example. It had some big compromises, like the amount of RAM, because they wanted to hit the $500 price point. Apple of today would have put 1GB in, and when it needed to sell for $700 to make the same amount they would have done it.
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Aside from the fact that on a recent episode of The Talk Show that had Deiter Bohn as the guest they spent a rather large section of the show discussing the Pixel 3 and its camera, and Gruber was actually very complimentary of it overall.
The original iPad is a great example. It had some big compromises, like the amount of RAM, because they wanted to hit the $500 price point. Apple of today would have put 1GB in, and when it needed to sell for $700 to make the same amount they would have done it.
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Aside from the fact that on a recent episode of The Talk Show that had Deiter Bohn as the guest they spent a rather large section of the show discussing the Pixel 3 and its camera, and Gruber was actually very complimentary of it overall.
RE: "One thing I've heard from reliable little birdie is Apple effectively sells [the Apple TV] at cost. Like they really are like a $180 box."
NO WAY, I call Bogus on that !
It's << $180 !, try again !
More likely half that, Max !
NO WAY, I call Bogus on that !
It's << $180 !, try again !
More likely half that, Max !
Hi, I would appreciate a list of all these better alternatives, so I can buy them. Don’t forget they need to work seamlessly.
In addition I have no reason not to believe Gruber. I could easily see the business model of gaining market share through reducing profit margins on certain products whilst it is healthy on others.
yeah it went down, i just bought 3600mhz 16gb for my pc for 119 bucks, meanwhile mac mini charges 200 for 16gb up from 8gb, and 600 for 32gb, if they are 4200mhz yeh ok i understand but standard 2666mhz is crossing the threshold
I’m just here for all the comments claiming Apple’s prices are astronomically high and how this guy must be crazy and there is no way this can be true and how everyone else can make their crap for much cheaper...blah blah blah. Makes me laugh every time. Quality costs, end of story.
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I can’t stomach Gruber. Since Steve Jobs death, he has kinda become too much. I liked how he was kept at arms length during the Jobs era no matter how much of a fan boy he was.
Ya, you become a trillion dollar company by selling things at cost and at a loss. Makes sense.
It would make sense to plant these products for data analysis and improvement, since the two are permanent fixtures that are likely used daily and often with Siri, which is likely improved with this setup.
To sell at cost is probable, but marginally so.
Don’t forget about the salaries, employees, R&D, engineering, tooling, materials, parts, labour, facility costs, manufacturing, assembly, royalties, testing, QC, packaging, accessories, shipping logistics, delivery, stocking in retail, marketing, promotion, demo units, and transaction costs.
It’s believable.
To sell at cost is probable, but marginally so.
Don’t forget about the salaries, employees, R&D, engineering, tooling, materials, parts, labour, facility costs, manufacturing, assembly, royalties, testing, QC, packaging, accessories, shipping logistics, delivery, stocking in retail, marketing, promotion, demo units, and transaction costs.
It’s believable.
Find it curious that Apple would create a vehicle for their multi media eco system that didn't also spin a profit. This is not like Kodak's "instamatic" cameras of long gone that were made to move their film product. At the price Apple's ATV 4k stands at, one could get Nvidia Shield TV which is not as closed a system and in fact is far more versatile. Nvidia does not sale their product at cost.
Apple TV, Homepod are like 1% of Apple's revenue.
What about the other 99%?
Are the RAM and SSD upgrade pricing for Macs and iOS devices also sold at cost?
B.S.
What about the other 99%?
Are the RAM and SSD upgrade pricing for Macs and iOS devices also sold at cost?
B.S.
Quoting Gruber is unethical journalism. His only job is to churn out positive PR spin for Apple, nothing more.
In addition to the high quality of the hardware, software, and ecosystem of these products, there are two additional features that cost Apple a lot of money and add a lot of value to the purchaser:
- Privacy: I realize most people don't understand privacy policy (hence their mixing it up with this week's FaceTime bug), nor do they value it. But for those who do, Apple's Customer Privacy Policy is the market leader, and adds incomparable value.
- Customer service: Based on my own experience, whenever I have had an issue with an Apple product, they have replaced it instantly at the Apple Store with a new refurbished one. This type of high-end customer service combined with knowledgeable telephone/online tech support is not inexpensive to provide and adds significant value to customers who wish to have continuously operational products.
If you do not value those two features of Apple products, and do not value high quality products in general, then there are many competitors who do not provide them and will return the resulting cost savings to you.- Customer service: Based on my own experience, whenever I have had an issue with an Apple product, they have replaced it instantly at the Apple Store with a new refurbished one. This type of high-end customer service combined with knowledgeable telephone/online tech support is not inexpensive to provide and adds significant value to customers who wish to have continuously operational products.
The Mac Pro maybe. I don’t think Apple ever earned enough to recoup their initial investment in that one.
Point of order: just because you have two adjacent words, "over time", that can be squished together to make a single word, "overtime", doesn't mean that the resulting word has any relation to the original two words. The sentence quoted above has been made nonsensical by the removal of a single space.
This also means that not much of a premium market exists for these products.
Rubbish. Gruber, like Dalrymple, have criticized Apple plenty of times. I can’t recall if Rene does likewise because I read him less than the other two.