New iPod Shuffle Contains $22 Worth of Parts
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allmIne
macrumors 6502a
It's a business. It provides goods for a profit. So where's the problem? Obviously people are buying it, so there's no reason for Apple to reduce the price of the Shuffle.
I'm sensible enough to admit I've no real idea about business, beyond what I learned in economics 101. So I'll leave it to a company doing pretty well for itself given the circumstances to determine their own price structure on their own products.
Value is not equal to cost
This is one of the more bizarre discussions with the usual ridiculous arguments that get trotted out every time there is a discussion about the cost of ANYTHING.
Get this
Apple will charge whatever people will pay for anything.
They are a business...watch my lips...BUSINESS.
They are in business to make a PROFIT.
If they were a CHARITY and were spending $100 to deliver $22 dollars of aid they would be a bad CHARITY (and there are lots of those).
Apple is not a CHARITY.
If you don't want a shuffle for the price that it costs then you should not buy one.
I would like a new BMW Z5 for about $25000 but I don't think that this is going to happen.
Hey if you really want to look at mark ups try big Pharma...the cost of the materials in a pill of Viagra, Lipitor, Prozac...pennies....
This is one of the more bizarre discussions with the usual ridiculous arguments that get trotted out every time there is a discussion about the cost of ANYTHING.
Get this
Apple will charge whatever people will pay for anything.
They are a business...watch my lips...BUSINESS.
They are in business to make a PROFIT.
If they were a CHARITY and were spending $100 to deliver $22 dollars of aid they would be a bad CHARITY (and there are lots of those).
Apple is not a CHARITY.
If you don't want a shuffle for the price that it costs then you should not buy one.
I would like a new BMW Z5 for about $25000 but I don't think that this is going to happen.
Hey if you really want to look at mark ups try big Pharma...the cost of the materials in a pill of Viagra, Lipitor, Prozac...pennies....
Jayomat
macrumors 6502a
iPie
macrumors regular
so many experts!
So many experts of economics on MacRumors! I am going to propose that all heads of state consult the MacRumors Economic Oracle to solve our current economic crisis.
Enrollment for the exclusive MBA offered by the MacRumors School of BuSiness (MRS BS) is now open.
MacRumors Consulting is now offering free advice, GM, Chrysler look no further -
So many experts of economics on MacRumors! I am going to propose that all heads of state consult the MacRumors Economic Oracle to solve our current economic crisis.
Enrollment for the exclusive MBA offered by the MacRumors School of BuSiness (MRS BS) is now open.
MacRumors Consulting is now offering free advice, GM, Chrysler look no further -
allmIne
macrumors 6502a
So many experts of economics on MacRumors! I am going to propose that all heads of state consult the MacRumors Economic Oracle to solve our current economic crisis.
Enrollment for the exclusive MBA offered by the MacRumors School of BuSiness (MRS BS) is now open.
MacRumors Consulting is now offering free advice, GM, Chrysler look no further -
Lol. It's no wonder we're in the situation we're in, really, is it? The only consolation is, none of the people complaining about the price own a business. They couldn't possibly.
Tighter than drums, they really are.
Aqueus
macrumors member
I wonder what some of you would say if you saw a break down of a Zune.
what is the breakdown of the other mp3 products?
gnasher729
Suspended
I wonder what some of you would say if you saw a break down of a Zune.
But we won't see those numbers. For unknown reasons iSuppli only publishes numbers for Apple products. No Microsoft products, no Creative, no Samsung, no Dell, or HP, only Apple.
And the numbers they supply are completely meaningless. They are a _guess_ of the cost of individual parts, which is an absolutely meaningless number. Only good to incite the clueless masses who somehow think that sales price minus cost of parts equals profits, plus the usual trolls who have to chip in their wisdom.
Who knows? You won't get these numbers from iSuppli. If you check their website and then their news column, all articles except one are about Apple (the last one is about Hynix trying to raise money).
hiimamac
macrumors 6502a
I think what makes things seem over priced, they are, in a way, is that the mac pro is as much as 80% higher over cost, that's a 400% increase. What makes it seem so bad is there is no mid range tower at a much lower price point. Things like ecc ram vs standard ram also keep price up.
The sad thing is in paper you could build a machine that bears the mac pro except in rendering. On the other hand price out a dell with the same specs and it will cost more. Unfortunatly, the iMac is the mid range, take away the display and you looking at $699. Apple would do well to consider this and move the mini to the $199 market. They would more than make up fir it in market share plus in software. If you're really an enthusiast, get the efix USB dvuce, and build a hack i7 fir $800. This would give you the best bang fir dollar or get an iMac.
So many experts of economics on MacRumors! I am going to propose that all heads of state consult the MacRumors Economic Oracle to solve our current economic crisis.
Enrollment for the exclusive MBA offered by the MacRumors School of BuSiness (MRS BS) is now open.
MacRumors Consulting is now offering free advice, GM, Chrysler look no further -
The amount of economic experts here are starting to rival the amount if Photoshop experts that can tell a fake photo.
Eric S.
macrumors 68040
Relax. All the words we use were either made up at some point or modified from something else.
iMacmatician
macrumors 601
And the number of prophets who can pull the date for the next Mac update out of thin air.
Best quote I have read here in a long time!If you think the 'apple tax' is bad - you should see what the 'Van Gough' tax does to 22c of cloth and pigment!.
farmboy
macrumors 65816
Organs are free
In the United States, organs are free. By federal law you cannot charge for an organ. The cost that IS paid is for the harvesting, processing, testing, storage, delivery, paperwork, etc. In other words, it's not the organ it's the processing fee.
In the United States, organs are free. By federal law you cannot charge for an organ. The cost that IS paid is for the harvesting, processing, testing, storage, delivery, paperwork, etc. In other words, it's not the organ it's the processing fee.
Anuba
macrumors 68040
Well the computers are a different story altogether. iPod prices are just fine. iPods are competitively priced and relatively cheap, even though the margins are technically quite substantial. I honestly never heard anyone complain about the prices on iPods. The software prices are fine, too. iWork is a steal and they're more or less giving Logic Studio away (if you compare to similar products).
The reason why they take so much heat for their pricing on the computer hardware side of things is that Apple are so tone-deaf in that particular market. They want crazy profit margins on re-packaged generic PCs like it was 1982 and computers were some sort of magical boxes the masses have never seen before. This is why everyone from forum pundits to journalists to Microsoft keep attacking them over the "Apple tax". Nothing to do with Apple's prices in general, just the computers.
MagnusVonMagnum
macrumors 603
No, it would be interesting to see what a competing music player costs in parts to see where Apple's models stand in terms of the competition. Why is it every time we see one of these parts threads, there's no information given as to what the competition's products cost in terms of parts so we can compare? Just listing $19 in parts for something that costs over $60 sounds bad. Maybe it's normal, but how can you tell when no other information is given?
So instead of having the same tired arguments between fanatics (who think anything Apple does is OK) and the realists (who expect companies to have ethics and make a "reasonable" profit without soaking the consumer for everything they're worth in every way imaginable that's possible), maybe the person or site presenting their article could do a little more homework and present how Apple's products compare to others in costs and if available, in profit margins, which is the true tell-tale of whether Apple has ANY ethics what-so-ever because this headphone jack thing looks very bad to me.
Maybe ethics are based on "outdated" things like religions, which teach not to cheat at the scales, etc., but some of us are old fashioned and expect value, not hype and attempts to get license fees out of things like headphones where a simple female connector jack would do just fine and let you connect any headphones you want to their control cable. That latter thing tells me all I need to know about Apple's ethics, really. They clearly want to extort money out of the competition (or eliminate competition entirely that don't want to pay their extortion charges) and therefore Apple has no ethics. Most corporations don't. They lobby for anti-consumer laws and then try to soak them at every turn. Is that the morality and ethics countries like the U.S. were based on? That falls on Steve Jobs, really. He has been directing the company for years and profit at any cost seems to be high on his mind.
So while I cannot be 100% certain whether the parts/cost ratio is completely out of line with the Shuffle without more data or comparisons to the competition, I can be sure that the headphone cable/chip thing was designed to do exactly the things I've outlined above and that does not speak well for Apple as a whole. You cannot respect companies that are essentially greed mongers. Small business owners often advertise how they are "fair" and "honest". Corporations always seem to lack in those areas and lobby for even more profit. Maybe it's because of the shareholder system which seems to demand returns for investors whereas small privately owned companies can make more ethical decisions, but that just means the corporate system is broken and needs a regulated overhaul. The recent recession and failure of banks and corporations alike proves that it's long overdue.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)
It is interesting that the parts cost $22. I don't see Apple making a whole lot of money on the shuffle if you consider costs of hosting and developing the online store plus costs of operating Apple stores.
It is interesting that the parts cost $22. I don't see Apple making a whole lot of money on the shuffle if you consider costs of hosting and developing the online store plus costs of operating Apple stores.
Anuba
macrumors 68040
Also, retailers want their share too, but they sell iPods at the same prices as the Apple stores do, so obviously Apple doesn't get $79 for those Shuffles.
So charging what people are willing to pay, in order to make money to further R&D, pay for advertising, pay salaries, and to make shareholders money isn't ethical?
The corporate system needs an overhaul because publicly held companies have to please their shareholders?
Not a big fan of capitalism, huh?
What the banks did to the US and what Apple charges for an iPod are two very, very different things, and the former is completely irrelevant to this thread.
Anuba
macrumors 68040
The ethical dilemma mostly comes from having to kiss up to shareholders who keep getting greedier and greedier. "What, only $5 billion in profits? We expected $10 billion, please fire 10,000 of your employees or we'll take our money elsewhere". Apple have spoiled their shareholders with record profits for many years now, and there would be an uproar if they cut their prices.
I wish more companies were run like Ikea. The world's largest furniture manufacturer is in fact not a public company at all -- you can't buy Ikea stock, because it's actually a foundation. They don't have to kiss up to anyone except the end customers, they don't have to resort to mass-firings because some pompous investor wants a ruby-encrusted yacht.
Eric S.
macrumors 68040
But also don't forget pressure from Wall Street investors: "What, only $5 billion in profits? We expected $10 billion, please fire 10,000 of your employees or we'll hammer your stock price until it's worthless."