I was just explaining to a relative that there was a new MacBook Air, but that based on her desire for the lightest possible laptop, she should consider the MacBook instead. That we have to tell people that the "Air" isn't the light one is simply absurd.
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I was just explaining to a relative that there was a new MacBook Air, but that based on her desire for the lightest possible laptop, she should consider the MacBook instead. That we have to tell people that the "Air" isn't the light one is simply absurd.
No one is saying that Apple can’t justify the price increase. The question is, can buyers justify paying the increase? Many are saying no. It doesn’t matter what it cost Apple; it matters whether people can afford it, and if they think there is value.
As for the items you listed, none increased 45 percent in one year! If the cost of living increased at that rate, and incomes didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this debate because no one would have money for discretionary purchases such as smartphones.
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You're wrong. It's painfully obvious and intuitively clear that MacBook is lighter than MacBook Air, which in turn is lighter than MacBook Pro.
Pro is heavier than Air which is heavier than -.
EDIT - just to be clear, this was a joke
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Think of it like this, if Google was to shutdown tomorrow nothing would really happen except there is no alternative for youtube. Android is open source so any one can use it and build on it, all other Gmail services got alternatives. Now think if Microsoft would shutdown... No computer running Windows will work, no Microsoft Office anywhere, and god knows how much of the internet will go down with it due to servers running Windows Server.
Google is a tool that has alternatives, its not a platform. Android is a platform but again, its open source so everyone owns it really.
3. It follows then that the MacBook Air is also over priced because they are similarly priced. The Surface Laptop is a better bargain at pretty much every price point.
4. Yes, full Windows. A fully functional OS in a tablet. Something many want Apple to offer.
5. Yes, hopefully they will offer a better processor.
I really hope next year brings smaller bezels and TB3 to the Surface line up. Unfortunately, it will probably just be USB-C. Which is fine for the Go, but the rest of the lineup should have TB3 for the price.
Also, the Surface Studio should have a better processor. The Mac mini shows that a full desktop CPU can be used in a similar form factor.
The price difference between 849 and 999 is 17%. And I don’t know nor do I care who doesn’t want the max. There are those that do, including me (the entire pwm thing excluded)
The reality is what people were used to paying. $849 was the off-contract price for an iPhone 5. Only a fool would buy an iPhone outright when subsidies were the norm. Your cell phone service would have cost the same whether you purchased the phone for $199 from the carrier, or BYOD. I know, because I argued with Verizon when the obligatory two-year contract ended. I said, my phone is unlocked. You're no longer subsidizing it. Shouldn't I pay less for service going forward?
When carriers switched to financing, the purchase prices of new iPhones were less: $699 for the base. If not for trade-in allowances and free phone offers, people would have gone into shock nonetheless. A norm of $199 to a new norm of $699 is drastic. Now the new norm for Apple's best is $999. A 45 percent increase. No matter how you defend it, it's a fact that the cost of owning Apple's latest flagship has increased considerably.
Where are you getting the cost of the 5? I had a 5, the off-contract price for the 16GB model was $650, which was the same price as the base 4S, 4, 3GS and 3G before it.
The base price of the top of the line regular sized iPhone was $650 up until the 8, which I believe intro'd at $700. NOTE - all based on US prices.
You're correct. The 64GB model was $849, while the 16GB model was $649. I was quoting user i7guy's example ($849) while pointing out that the base model prices for the later phones were less than that, but still a larger out-of-pocket purchase for folks who were accustom to $199 offers before.
well kudos to you for working your way up to have that kind of personally built up wealth and having that amount of spare cash.
I had some liquidity available and had the option of AAPL or AMZN last week. I went with AMZN since I already have exposure to AAPL. Didn't hit the exact bottom, but I'm up over 10% since I've bought. I'm happy, for now. But then again, my horizon is still measured in decades, so I don't need to worry about the daily ups and downs. Get in at a good price and hold until retirement.
The price of the 5 was 649,749 and 849,
i did some digging and listed the prices here- https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ble-u-s-company.2157136/page-21#post-26852706 he didn't respond to these facts...
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I have some profit sharing shares that I might like to liquidate and invest somewhere, not sure of where to start...
When I was in the uk I was able to invest in some tracker funds. Should check if they have the same thing here (Australia).
I so agree with you! Tim lives in La la land. Could you imagine where Apple would be with Steve at the helm!
People always say Tim is doing a good job because of stock price, regardless the blunder Apple makes. But imagine where it would be with Steve.
Tim - needs to go ASAP!
I'm extremely conservative with my investments. I'm not looking to get rich, just being able to provide for my later years.
Not sure how things are in Australia, but in the US, there are plenty of different investment vehicles to choose from. 401K, IRA, etc.
For work sponsored retirement accounts, we're typically limited to a selection of mutual funds. I don't have time to pour over all of the details, so I just select the portfolio that lines up with my retirement year.
For personal accounts where I can choose anything, I typically go with large, "trusted" corporations that pay a dividend. I've been burned in my early years listening to what the analysts say, so I'm biased against their "ratings".
My strategy is to look at companies that have a high dividend yield. This is usually a result of the stock having been hit hard. Once I find some of these stocks, I'll take a look at their 52 week hi/lo. I try to target ones that are in the middle of the 52 hi/lo. So this whittles down the list. Then I'll dive deeper into the remaining stocks to compare stuff like the sector they're in (i.e. tech, banking, oil, etc). It helps if the company is in an sector that I find interesting.
That's how I do it, and it's served me well over the years. Like I said, I'm not looking to get rich, because, IMO that invites too much risk.
AAPL and AMZN have relatively low risk for a 20 year horizon. GOOG, FB, MSFT are also low risk over the next 20 years too.
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Without Tim, iPhone wouldn't be selling 230 million units a year. Apple would be holding too much inventory and burning money by warehousing everything. Then left with a ton of stuff that they can't sell.
Steve was great at many things, but Apple's success as a "manufacturing" company is credited to Tim.
I'm curious to know what blunders you think Apple has made under Tim's leadership? Please be specific.
I disagree that Tim needs to go. Who should replace him? I think he has done a great job overall but I also hope apples decreasing sales are a wake up call that prices are getting unreasonable on some products. More likely apple will change nothing because they simply don’t need to. People will keep buying their stuff because overall they are still great products that provide great experiences.
Apple has growing revenues, so their “sales” are increasing in the double digits. If you mean unit sales being FLAT (not declining either, actually iPhone sale sup 1M y/y) you can’t make the argument someone else could have balanced price and units better than Cook.
Apple sold $166B in iPhones in 2018 or 218M units at an asp of around $760. Want more units? You have to lower the price. It’s a balancing act that has been executed brilliantly. At some point, unit sales are going to level off and services become more important because this is the monetization of your user base. Even flat to slightly declining unit sales will still mean a growing iPhone base.
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Not sure where you see AMZN as low risk. It dropped so fast because its one of the most expensive stocks in the market relative to their earning power.
Apple made $60B in profit in 2018.
Amazon made $7B in profit.
Yet, the market values these companies at almost identical values. Amazon needs to make money, someday. They already issued disappointing Xmas guidance which is what helped drop the stock about 30%. Amazon has also doubled in about a year, at its high...so it ran up a lot.
I love Amazon as a company, but they are essentially a low margin retailer with intense competition and a great cloud services business with increasing competition as well.
I don’t see Amazon as a low risk company because the minute they stop growing, it doesn’t have the earnings, buyback, or cash to keep it up.
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People finance today. It's the equivalent of the subsidy, except the $849 was hidden in the monthly bill. Some "fools" like me started to pay for their phones outright, so they weren't locked in to endless 2 year contracts and I was free to do what I wanted.
It was a shock to go from $199 to $699, but that has nothing to do with this conversation of what constitutes a "price increase" by apple.
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No problem, maybe I mistook the way it sounded.
If we remove currency fluctuations, to me the question becomes, how do you price your service?
Are you(Apple) allowed to charge more (raise prices) because you as a company have dumped millions into R and D, have new components, higher potential warranty costs, etc?
Should Apple keep charging the same MSRP year after year and build the tech to the MSRP?
Apple should no give away their services, that is their bread and butter. They can have a humanitarian point of view and yet charge a fair market price for their products. Apple planned this move(no unit sales) a while back, nothing they do is from the "seat of their pants".
I see AMZN as low risk over the next 20 years. Certainly not low risk if I need my capital back in a year or so. I'm looking at a long horizon.
AMZN is positioned well with their cloud business. I have confidence in Bezos's ability to put the company in the right direction at the right time. His purchase of the Washington Post has given him (and AMZN) leverage in the political realm. The leverage that he exerted on various cities around the country for the HQ was brilliant.
I have no doubt that AMZN will be around in 20 years. They most certainly won't be just a retailer. I'm banking on Bezos being able to transform the company as needed.
I always have liked craig federalni, but who knows.
Tim is not a visionary like Musk. Apple makes good products still (HomePod excludes), but I don’t expect anything amazing anymore as when Steve was at the helm.
So you paid $650 more so you wouldn’t be tied to a carrier for two years? Your strategy was senseless. You still paid the same for cell service whether you owned a device or not. Carrier pricing wasn’t competitive. I doubt the carrier you settled with, saved you the $650 you squandered.
Can't speak for anyone else, but for me, going from subsidy to buying outright saved me $150 over two years.
Back in the subsidy days, if I opted for a $650 phone, I would pay $200 up front, but my connection fee would be $40/month. If I bought outright, my connection fee was (still is) $15/month.
$25/month for 24 months is $600. Subtract out the $450 subsidy and you can see that I save the $150 over the 2 years.
All I can say, there is much conjecture in this post, without knowing the facts.
Your numbers seem strange to me.
When I bought phones subsidized, they were $200 after subsidizing. My monthly bill for phone/text/data with Verizon was the same regardless if I had a subsidized phone or not. The perk that Verizon got from me was 2 years of commitment.
$200 / 24 months is $8.33 per month for subsidizing the phone.
Fast forward today, my monthly payment for my iPhone X alone is more than $8.33 per month. I have not changed from Verizon since 2004.
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It's because their cloud services is a beast. "Great" cloud services is an immense understatement.
On Amazon's mind, I'd argue they care more about user data and expanding their vast array of services and niches. By definition, this is what growth is even if it's intrusive. Many people here forget that some companies value their users (and their data) more than just pure profits.
Would you rather sell 1 item for $1000, or gain 1000 users for $1?