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The Touch Bar shows the text that you can fill up (for example, name, address etc Or even whether usernames against passwords are stored in your system). It’s much more convenient and intuitive than the onscreen auto text options.
This is the only instance I use the touchbar and I would gladly pay again for this.

Stuff like 1password can auto-fill name, address, credit card, etc. with cmd+\

Every box in the form at the same time.

So while that might be nice, the touchbar is several hundred dollars on top of the macbook price, and 1password is like... $10 or whatever.
 
Many of us would also like to see MagSafe rise from the dead as well🙂

How about ... NO
we now have charging from any of the 4 ports, higher W input, charge from display
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Dear Phil,

Husband to a teacher (and a taxpayer) here to tell you you are wrong. Not only are the Chromebooks succeeding in classroom penetration, they are likely to do so for a long, long while. You see, school districts are on increasingly tighter budgets, and they don't have the extra disposable funding available to pay the Apple Tax for admittedly better hardware or software. Equally important, Google has spent a lot of time, effort and money to build an infrastructure for school IT admins to easily manage a school systems worth of devices. Apple has nothing close to this available. A few years ago, a school initiative was announced, and some mediocre software released, but it doesn't come close to what Google gives away for free and maintains regularly with updates. Apple has essentially abandoned it along with its textbook initiative.

Basically, Apple needs to learn what many politicians are learning: despite the merits of what works better in a debate, it is hard to dissuade people from wanting "free".

Thanks,

Achiever

so your point is similar to "Google makes machines for IT admins, Apple makes ones for teachers" ; but about student experience, would making a documents on iPad (Pages maybe) better than Google Docs on Chromebook ? same question about Keynote/Slides?
anyone?
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Liking what they’ve done but....no wifi6 or hdr = no sale!

wut? is this real?
 
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wut? is this real?
I'm on the same boat: the new MBP hits basically all wishes I had for a new purchase except WiFi 6. For a machine which I plan to keep for years to come it makes little sense to purchase now a model with WiFi 5 where the transition to WiFi 6 has already started.

My ISP will start offering a WiFi 6 router next week: I plan to upgrade to it next year when hopefully a new MBP model will include WiFi 6 too.
 
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Again, they happily serve other niche markets — including offering the Mac Pro with up to 1.5 TB RAM — and could reasonably sell this hypothetical larger Mac mini at a great range of prices, from the current starting price point to probably about $3–4K, which would fill the gap and allow them to maintain the profit margins they’ll want.

I feel no pain over this. I love my iMac and, when the time comes, will most likely replace it with another iMac. But that doesn’t mean that the iMac is right for everyone who wants a Mac that performs like it. And again, they make more money from a model like that than from people building their own machines or buying elsewhere.
I think we’re probably going to have to agree to disagree at this point. Maybe :) I’ll take another shot, addressing your two points:

1) There’s profitable niche and unprofitable niche. When analyzing the economics of selling a box like Mac Pro, where buyers are adding maybe $5k on average in high-profit upgrades, there’s more in play besides just the profit on the box:
  • Those buyers are also more likely to buy a $5,000 monitor, for instance
  • They are also a part of a key market segment, so-called creatives, which increases aspirational sales to their like-minded market/demographic cohorts.
  • These customers are also buying software like FCP X and Logic Pro X
None of these factors would be present to near the same degree in the $1k to $3-4k product you propose, imo.

2) Your statement that “they make more money from a model like that than from people building their own machines or buying elsewhere” isn’t necessarily true at all. There’s a cost to carrying an additional model in the product line, beyond the initial development, verification, test, etc. Even if the model only sells for a few years, Apple’s looking at an additional 5-7 years of ongoing costs, including QA for new OS and applications software releases as well as support and service, including things like spare parts inventory.

Like all products, there’s a break-even point. If, at the relatively low ASP this product would sell at, it would need to sell a couple million units—and that doesn’t happen—it’s a loser plain and simple. That some customers were saved from switching to PCs doesn’t much cushion the blow; it’s effectively paying people not to switch.

Anyway, in summary there are reasons Apple hasn’t built this machine over the past 20+ years. I’ve suggested a few, maybe none of them are actually applicable; no one outside of Apple can really say. It’s just my opinion based on my experience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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I think we’re probably going to have to agree to disagree at this point. Maybe :) I’ll take another shot, addressing your two points:

1) There’s profitable niche and unprofitable niche. When analyzing the economics of selling a box like Mac Pro, where buyers are adding maybe $5k on average in high-profit upgrades, there’s more in play besides just the profit on the box:
  • Those buyers are also more likely to buy a $5,000 monitor, for instance
  • They are also a part of a key market segment, so-called creatives, which increases aspirational sales to their like-minded market/demographic cohorts.
  • These customers are also buying software like FCP X and Logic Pro X
None of these factors would be present to near the same degree in the $1k to $3-4k product you propose, imo.

2) Your statement that “they make more money from a model like that than from people building their own machines or buying elsewhere” isn’t necessarily true at all. There’s a cost to carrying an additional model in the product line, beyond the initial development, verification, test, etc. Even if the model only sells for a few years, Apple’s looking at an additional 5-7 years of ongoing costs, including QA for new OS and applications software releases as well as support and service, including things like spare parts inventory.

Like all products, there’s a break-even point. If, at the relatively low ASP this product would sell at, it would need to sell a couple million units—and that doesn’t happen—it’s a loser plain and simple. That some customers were saved from switching to PCs doesn’t much cushion the blow; it’s effectively paying people not to switch.

Anyway, in summary there are reasons Apple hasn’t built this machine over the past 20+ years. I’ve suggested a few, maybe none of them are actually applicable; no one outside of Apple can really say. It’s just my opinion based on my experience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Good points, but what if ... Apple simply made a line of headless macs that had the identical internal components of their iMacs. Absolutely IDENTICAL, except these headless macs had no screen and instead were in a case a little larger than a mac mini.

Then, a lot of the QA costs and parts inventory arguments you make would be dramatically mitigated.

On top of that ... what if Apple then also offered a stand alone monitor that also had the identical specs as the monitor in the 27" iMac? Then a lot of people would buy the headless mac and then maybe also the Apple monitor to match it, which would be profitable as well.

And by the way, if Apple did make a stand alone monitor identical to their 27" iMac monitor, I'll bet you a ****-ton of mac pro buyers, who aren't going to spring $6000 for the XDR, and will instead buy a third party monitor, would buy the less expensive Apple monitor instead - if it existed.
 
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I can imagine that several people's number one complaint about the Mac Pro will be its price. I wonder if Apple will listen and address the desktop market in the $2k to $4k range.

And another thing: Apple seriously needs to bring modularity back in some form, even if they don't offer it on all models. If I spend over $2k on a notebook, why on earth can I not upgrade it (SSD/RAM) when the time comes? Boggles my mind.

So I wish someone would actually give me a sensible answer to this question.

Why do you need to upgrade RAM and SSD? What are you doing at "upgrade time" that you weren't doing before that requires the upgrade?

Now... let's say the answer to that is I'm doing "X" - whatever X is. So X is something that ... apparently ... will benefit from a storage and RAM upgrade but not any other upgrade. Really? What possible workflow exists that meets that specific requirement?

Ok... so maybe you'll then be willing to admit that "Well, no there really isn't any workflow or whatever that exists that benefits ONLY from RAM/Storage upgrade, and not CPU, GPU, or any other upgrades."

And so if that's the case, what's wrong with: Sell the old one (they hold their value pretty damn well) and buy a new one, and upgrade EVERYTHING?

I have asked this question multiple times on this forum, and NO ONE has ever given me a sane, logical answer to it. Maybe you or someone else replying to this will be the first?
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Many of us would also like to see MagSafe rise from the dead as well🙂

It won't. Here's one reason why:

https://www.google.com/search?q=usb-c+magsafe

A multitude of options, some of which suck, sure, but some are even significantly better than Apple's implementation. And when you don't need plugged-in power have an extra port that you wouldn't have otherwise (without compromising something else).

This is BETTER.
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I think we’re probably going to have to agree to disagree at this point. Maybe :) I’ll take another shot, addressing your two points:

1) There’s profitable niche and unprofitable niche. When analyzing the economics of selling a box like Mac Pro, where buyers are adding maybe $5k on average in high-profit upgrades, there’s more in play besides just the profit on the box:
  • Those buyers are also more likely to buy a $5,000 monitor, for instance
  • They are also a part of a key market segment, so-called creatives, which increases aspirational sales to their like-minded market/demographic cohorts.
  • These customers are also buying software like FCP X and Logic Pro X
None of these factors would be present to near the same degree in the $1k to $3-4k product you propose, imo.

2) Your statement that “they make more money from a model like that than from people building their own machines or buying elsewhere” isn’t necessarily true at all. There’s a cost to carrying an additional model in the product line, beyond the initial development, verification, test, etc. Even if the model only sells for a few years, Apple’s looking at an additional 5-7 years of ongoing costs, including QA for new OS and applications software releases as well as support and service, including things like spare parts inventory.

Like all products, there’s a break-even point. If, at the relatively low ASP this product would sell at, it would need to sell a couple million units—and that doesn’t happen—it’s a loser plain and simple. That some customers were saved from switching to PCs doesn’t much cushion the blow; it’s effectively paying people not to switch.

Anyway, in summary there are reasons Apple hasn’t built this machine over the past 20+ years. I’ve suggested a few, maybe none of them are actually applicable; no one outside of Apple can really say. It’s just my opinion based on my experience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Good explanation. I kinda think the last point is pretty key - that is Mac users/wanters have been asking for this "headless iMac" for 20+ years and neither Steve, nor Tim have built it. And it could even be argued that when Apple was building essentially the same thing prior to Steve coming back, they nearly went bankrupt.

So maybe it's the reasons explained above or maybe it's something else. Maybe we'll never know. But whatever it is, there's a very sound business reason somewhere in there why it's NEVER happened, and likely never will (no matter how much MacRumors forum readers think it should or want it). Gonna have to deal.
 
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And so if that's the case, what's wrong with: Sell the old one (they hold their value pretty damn well) and buy a new one, and upgrade EVERYTHING?

Everything is wrong with it!
1- If your car brakes a tire, you DO NOT change the entire car.
2- If you need more SSD space or simply goes bad, it is ridiculous having to waste time just selling the computer, buying a new one and furthermore, reinstalling everything and reauthorizing all the programs again when it can actually be solved with a simple swap of an SSD or RAM. It is just complete NONSENSE!
3- It is not just about what the user might need in the future, but also about repairability. If for any reason either RAM or SSD goes bad, you need to change the entire Logic board.
4- It creates more expensive repairs, that only benefits Apple.
5- It simply generates more trash
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By the way, Phil Schiller rather than trashing Chromebooks maybe you can talk about
1- Apple's lack of innovation
2- That took 3 years to fix a bad keyboard.
3- The bad developing planing that the Macbook Pro was updated 3 times in the same year.
4- Still after 3 revision in a year, Apple internal all soldered design is pathetic, so much so that if anything happens you lose all your data.

The last MBP 16 have no major upgrades whatsoever...
Same processor than the previous MBP15.
it is quite funny that they call the Physical Escape a "feature"
Back to the 2015 old keyboard
Same 720 videocam.
Same useless touchbar

A 4% increase in size
Increase in resolution
Increase in RAM size up to 64GB
increase in SSD size up to 8tb

And we suppose to be excited?
No innovation whatsoever...
 
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So I wish someone would actually give me a sensible answer to this question.

Why do you need to upgrade RAM and SSD? What are you doing at "upgrade time" that you weren't doing before that requires the upgrade?

Now... let's say the answer to that is I'm doing "X" - whatever X is. So X is something that ... apparently ... will benefit from a storage and RAM upgrade but not any other upgrade. Really? What possible workflow exists that meets that specific requirement?

Ok... so maybe you'll then be willing to admit that "Well, no there really isn't any workflow or whatever that exists that benefits ONLY from RAM/Storage upgrade, and not CPU, GPU, or any other upgrades."

And so if that's the case, what's wrong with: Sell the old one (they hold their value pretty damn well) and buy a new one, and upgrade EVERYTHING?

I have asked this question multiple times on this forum, and NO ONE has ever given me a sane, logical answer to it. Maybe you or someone else replying to this will be the first?
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what about simply bringing more life to a computer? I have a 2010 MBP. in 2017 i changed the hdd to a SSD, cost me $50. I upgraded the ram from 4gb stock to 16gb. cost me $70.. so for $120 i made a 7 year old computer like new again. before the upgrades it had slowed considerably just due to the ever more bloated macos.

if i followed your logic i would have sold that for lets say $400 if i was lucky, then gone and bought a 2017 map for over $1000 more, and be left with a heap of crap 2017 model.

so$120 vs $1000?? keep my perfectly good 2010 which a family member uses still to this day for 5 hours plus per day, or get a 2017 which would likely be broken half the time...


sane and logical enough for you?
 
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if i followed your logic i would have sold that for lets say $400 if i was lucky, then gone and bought a 2017 map for over $1000 more, and be left with a heap of crap 2017 model.

Ignoring the fact that you've pulled some random numbers out of thin air to make your case, you're also conflating two arguments and the end result is that your post does not seem sane or logical. The discussion about whether or not it makes sense for Apple to produce upgradable laptops or produce sealed "no user servicable parts inside" laptops is wholly unrelated to the fact that the 2016-2019 laptops have unreliable keyboards.

Imagine a hypothetical world where the 2017 MacBook Pro was reliable and not prone to breaking. Would that mean you would change your position? I doubt it.

The reality is that in order for a laptop to support upgradable ram and storage, design concessions have to be made. Everything else being equal, a laptop that can be upgraded is going to be thicker, heavier, and have worse cooling. It's likely to be less reliable and cost more to produce. It's a tradeoff that Apple has decided not to make and one that they believe best serves their customers and bottom line.

This is especially true when you're looking at a laptop that ships with an SSD. The HDD to SSD upgrade is a spectacularly potent improvement for any computer. You chose the single best hardware upgrade that personal computing has seen in the past 20 years as your anecdote to make your case. What's the equivalent upgrade you envision making to a late 2019 MacBook Pro? We're not likely to see any upgrade that comes even remotely close in the next 5 years. Upgrading a 1TB SSD to a 4TB SSD three years down the road isn't going to breathe new life into a laptop you buy today. It's just going to give you more space to work with. Similarly with upgrading the RAM. It's not going to tangibly improve the longevity of a three year old laptop with a three year old GPU and three year old CPU.
 
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exactly! and let's not forget about all of the smart home devices that are dropping daily. why not take on that market with an apple security system?

Here is hoping considering Apple’s revenue will place more emphasis on accessories.
 
Ignoring the fact that you've pulled some random numbers out of thin air to make your case, you're also conflating two arguments and the end result is that your post does not seem sane or logical. The discussion about whether or not it makes sense for Apple to produce upgradable laptops or produce sealed "no user servicable parts inside" laptops is wholly unrelated to the fact that the 2016-2019 laptops have unreliable keyboards.

Imagine a hypothetical world where the 2017 MacBook Pro was reliable and not prone to breaking. Would that mean you would change your position? I doubt it.

The reality is that in order for a laptop to support upgradable ram and storage, design concessions have to be made. Everything else being equal, a laptop that can be upgraded is going to be thicker, heavier, and have worse cooling. It's likely to be less reliable and cost more to produce. It's a tradeoff that Apple has decided not to make and one that they believe best serves their customers and bottom line.

This is especially true when you're looking at a laptop that ships with an SSD. The HDD to SSD upgrade is a spectacularly potent improvement for any computer. You chose the single best hardware upgrade that personal computing has seen in the past 20 years as your anecdote to make your case. What's the equivalent upgrade you envision making to a late 2019 MacBook Pro? We're not likely to see any upgrade that comes even remotely close in the next 5 years. Upgrading a 1TB SSD to a 4TB SSD three years down the road isn't going to breathe new life into a laptop you buy today. It's just going to give you more space to work with. Similarly with upgrading the RAM. It's not going to tangibly improve the longevity of a three year old laptop with a three year old GPU and three year old CPU.
in what way did i pull random numbers out of the air? those were the prices i paid for those upgrades. the only estimation i made was the selling price of the 2010, which was your planned best option, sell it and upgrade. i was generous in your favour in that respect.
my point was a simple upgrade made my years old laptop just as usable today as anything they currently on offer. and it saved me over $880. that's a sane and logical reason why people want upgrades. your question wasn't why would apple do it, you asked why would people want to. and ive given you a real life example.

the 2017+ MacBooks are crap in many ways, not just the worlds worst keyboard, no ports to use common peripherals.. and you want to talk heat... haha, have you used one of the new models? the old user upgradable design allows BETTER heat management.

and yes RAM upgrades do breath new life into older machines. as proven by the fact my 2010 machine runs perfectly still today. before the ram upgrade that wasn't the case. processors are rarely the bottleneck on anything these days.

if upgrades aren't necessary, why do the only pro computers apple now sell allow upgrades? the MacBook pro name is just a marketing gimmick. they used to actually mean something with the name pro.....
 
So I wish someone would actually give me a sensible answer to this question.

Why do you need to upgrade RAM and SSD? What are you doing at "upgrade time" that you weren't doing before that requires the upgrade?

Now... let's say the answer to that is I'm doing "X" - whatever X is. So X is something that ... apparently ... will benefit from a storage and RAM upgrade but not any other upgrade. Really? What possible workflow exists that meets that specific requirement?

Ok... so maybe you'll then be willing to admit that "Well, no there really isn't any workflow or whatever that exists that benefits ONLY from RAM/Storage upgrade, and not CPU, GPU, or any other upgrades."

And so if that's the case, what's wrong with: Sell the old one (they hold their value pretty damn well) and buy a new one, and upgrade EVERYTHING?

I have asked this question multiple times on this forum, and NO ONE has ever given me a sane, logical answer to it. Maybe you or someone else replying to this will be the first?
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It won't. Here's one reason why:

https://www.google.com/search?q=usb-c+magsafe

A multitude of options, some of which suck, sure, but some are even significantly better than Apple's implementation. And when you don't need plugged-in power have an extra port that you wouldn't have otherwise (without compromising something else).

This is BETTER.
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Good explanation. I kinda think the last point is pretty key - that is Mac users/wanters have been asking for this "headless iMac" for 20+ years and neither Steve, nor Tim have built it. And it could even be argued that when Apple was building essentially the same thing prior to Steve coming back, they nearly went bankrupt.

So maybe it's the reasons explained above or maybe it's something else. Maybe we'll never know. But whatever it is, there's a very sound business reason somewhere in there why it's NEVER happened, and likely never will (no matter how much MacRumors forum readers think it should or want it). Gonna have to deal.

It basically boils down to people wanting to save money by installing the upgrades themselves rather than paying Apple pricing for them.
 
Whilst comparing to an external drive wasn't a good example, the point is the same anyway. Apple's pricing is a joke.

A 1TB Samsung 970 Evo m.2 NVME drive that is comparable speed to what you find in a macbook is about $325. AUSTRALIAN.

2TB Seagate Firecuda (again, M.2 NVME - a properly fast internal drive) - $680 Australian.

Yes. Apple use fast drives. But the days of Apple having a proprietary PCIe SSD interface and PCs being stuck with SATA are no more. PCs now have m.2 slots and NVME drives that are just as fast. If not faster. And upgradeable.

You’re not wrong. Dell doesn’t solder in the storage and manage to have a thin chassis but what can we do? Apple has decided to solder it for two reasons: they probably pay less for loose chips than NVDIMMs this the logic board is cheaper to make and they can make more profit from customers forced to buy storage at their prices.

There may be an argument that can be made that integrated components make for a more reliable machine (i.e. no loose RAM) but that’s secondary to the profit incentive. This design can also be more efficient in the case of the LPDDR3 RAM in the 13” and Air since LPDDR DIMMs aren’t available.
 
I can imagine that several people's number one complaint about the Mac Pro will be its price. I wonder if Apple will listen and address the desktop market in the $2k to $4k range.

And another thing: Apple seriously needs to bring modularity back in some form, even if they don't offer it on all models. If I spend over $2k on a notebook, why on earth can I not upgrade it (SSD/RAM) when the time comes? Boggles my mind.
but apple do have different options for different price points.

my MacBook air cost me 1k and for me that's enough in terms of what I'm willing to pay at this point and for me this works fine for my work and usage at home. I do get though that better professionals need this kind of MacBook Pro and they can justify the price. I'm sure many here are professionals who are buying this as they want and need the specs on this.
 
Why do you need to upgrade RAM and SSD? What are you doing at "upgrade time" that you weren't doing before that requires the upgrade?

Apple's prices are ridiculous to upgrade at purchase. There is no way I could afford a current MacBook Pro with a 2TB SSD like I have now, let alone speccing it up to take me using it for at least 7 or so years and what the requirements and my needs would be then.


When I bought my 2012 MacBook Pro it came with 500GB of storage and 4GB of ram. I went to 750GB HDD and 8GB of ram in 2013, then to a 1TB SSD in 2015 and to 16GB of ram in 2017, and then a 2TB SSD in 2018.

Life changed, I had different requirements and the demands of software became greater. MacOS back in 2012 ran fine on 2GB of ram. Now 8GB of ram is a minimum. This trend is ongoing.

Upgradability often allows machines to be useful well beyond what the initial specs were. A Mid 2012 MacBook Pro with the standard HDD and ram is woefully bad in 2019. The same machine with more ram and an SSD is still an extremely usable machine. Making machines usable for longer is also environmentally good.
 
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so your point is similar to "Google makes machines for IT admins, Apple makes ones for teachers" ; but about student experience, would making a documents on iPad (Pages maybe) better than Google Docs on Chromebook ? same question about Keynote/Slides?
anyone?

As a teacher in an elementary school, I would say that google docs on a Chromebook is ultimately better than apps on an iPad. Mainly because google still has the more comprehensive support package.

For one, creating google docs is just one piece in the whole puzzle. For disseminating and collecting assignments, I find google classroom to be very convenient, and the service runs better on a desktop browser than the iOS app. In fact, I find that for many online web resources, the browser version is often more fully-featured than the app. Socrative on an iPad doesn't even work in landscape orientation or support split-screen, which makes it impossible for me to run a proper backchannel session with my students (because I have to type with my Smart Keyboard; so I just run it in safari).

Ultimately, I will say the experience of creating a presentation on keynote is about the same as slides. It's not really an issue of which one looks nicer; you are looking out for factors like whether the student is able to research and paraphrase information from the web.

That said, my school does have a small cache of iPads (about 40), which are fairly popular with some of the teachers for tasks like video recording. For example, some English teachers use this app called flipgrid to get students to record themselves speaking or presenting a concept, and we have even brought them out to places like the zoo. One music teacher users GarageBand for music creation with her students. We have also experimented using an app called trail shuttle to create a learning trail around the school, which takes advantage of the iPad's portability and inbuilt camera.

The TL;DR is that I feel the Chromebook and the iPad don't really overlap. If you try to force the iPad to replicate a laptop, you will fail terribly. Its value is in accomplishing tasks not possible with a conventional laptop form factor. So were I running a school with a 1-to-1 computing initiative, that is what I would do. Outfit classes with chrome books, but maintain 1-2 pushcarts worth of iPads for more specialised programmes. Given the cost of the iPad, it would simply be too hard to justify purchasing iPads in the hundreds or even thousands.
 
I haven't had problems with my 2016 MBP and I like the butterfly keyboard, but I also like my Magic Keyboard so having the same experience while working on a laptop and with my Mac mini would be great. Having a physical ESC key is also better, glad they added it.
I hope they'll make a 14'' MBP with the same keyboard and better specs, I may go for it instead of the 16''.
 
That's interesting. In Australia the 15" 16/512 was AUD$3,820, and the 16" 16/512 is AUD$3,800.
Foreign exchange no doubt. The last couple years the Australian dollar has trended down against the USD, and Apple is hedging against further weakness over the next year.

51725459-55E1-4D7F-9064-433D6FB31D23.jpeg
 
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You're also paying RETAIL pricing, and don't have hundreds of billions of dollars worth of persuasion behind you.

Yes, Apple's RAM and SSD (and GPU upgrade) pricing is a complete joke.
Both base and upgrade pricing is what it takes to support a huge company that has 500+ retail stores, 130,000+ employees and spends $1.5 billion a month in R&D.

It’s not possible to run a company like that if you offered upgrades at NewEgg prices. Sure, Apple’s upgrade prices are expensive, but that doesn’t mean they’re overpriced. There’s a difference.
 
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Foreign exchange no doubt. The last couple years the Australian dollar has trended down against the USD, and Apple is hedging against further weakness over the next year.

View attachment 877615
Fair enough, maybe that's it. I definitely can't see our economy picking up anytime soon while we have this pro-austerity government in charge. Our companies are actually making record profits, but our economy is dead, as the percentage of those profits going into the hands of the workers is falling, and thus none is being spent, and thus shops are laying people off, and so on, vicious circle.
 
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Fair enough, maybe that's it. I definitely can't see our economy picking up anytime soon while we have this pro-austerity government in charge. Our companies are actually making record profits, but our economy is dead, as the percentage of those profits going into the hands of the workers is falling, and thus none is being spent, and thus shops are laying people off, and so on, vicious circle.
The last thing your economy needs if consumers aren’t spending is for the government to tighten the purse strings. They should be doing the opposite, taking up the slack and spending to support aggregate demand. If consumers aren’t spending the government damn well better. I’m sure there are infrastructure projects that could be funded that would benefit future productivity.

Any government who thinks austerity is the answer to help the economy during a downturn in consumer demand need only look at the UK over the last ten years. When the economy is flat on its back and struggling to breathe, the last thing it needs is the government stepping on its neck.

/rant
 
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The last thing your economy needs if consumers aren’t spending is for the government to tighten the purse strings. They should be doing the opposite, taking up the slack and spending to support aggregate demand. If consumers aren’t spending the government damn well better. I’m sure there are infrastructure projects that could be funded that would benefit future productivity.

Any government who thinks austerity is the answer to help the economy during a downturn in consumer demand need only look at the UK over the last ten years. When the economy is flat on its back and struggling to breathe, the last thing it needs is the government stepping on its neck.

/rant
Exactly, this has been well known since the great depression. The government should always be doing the opposite of the private sector. When the economy is booming, the government should slow it's spending and save for a rainy day. When the economy slows, the government has to start spending, either by spending that previous surplus, or by going into debt. It's so simple. But every government does the opposite, driven by short term views. In a boom, they are flush with cash, and spend it on vote buying. In a downturn, there is worry about debt, so they tighten the purses. Infuriating. Our current government is tightening the purses in this downturn, and crow about their economic success while the economy goes down the gurgler.

On top of that, our government gives tax cuts, claiming this will create jobs. But it doesn't. Most of the tax cuts goes into the hands of those with the most money, who just add it to their pile, so none of it gets spent, creating no jobs, and the government then has less tax revenue to spend, and thus tightens it's spending, creating more job losses.
 
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