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Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

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Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#51

Post by protomyth »

kemiller wrote: post #40
protomyth wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost isn't everything, even in 1984. The PC wasn't the price leader of the era, check the market share and price of a C64.

No, but it was arguably price-performance leader, which the Mac, in raw terms, decidedly was not. I guess the other piece at the beginning was the IBM brand, but that wasn't enough to make it take off like a rocket.

IBM salesmen were pretty effective (it was the second run after the IBM 5100), but I get the feeling Compaq isn't quite given the credit they deserve. The Compaq Portable was a pretty compelling machine for business.

I would argue that the C64 was still a price / performance leader given its low price.

edit: /BM/IBM/

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#52

Post by maxawaytoolong »

ugh wrote: post #41
maxawaytoolong wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA is the world's largest consumer goods market, surpassing the next one, Japan, by a factor of 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_market...

That’s interesting but is it also a good reason to use “USA” and “the world” interchangeably? Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Portugal, Finland, Ireland and Romania combined – all EU member nations – are about equal to the US. They have a larger combined population (about 460 million v. about 310 million) but the USA certainly don’t beat them…

The article doesn't actually use "the USA" and "the world" interchangeably. It just says that Apple is the #1 buyer of flash memory in the world. I regret making my initial comment because in the context of the article, the comment I was responding to makes little sense.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#53

Post by Anechoic »

martythemaniak wrote: post #48
marze wrote: post #20

Lucky for Apple's competitors they have Android, otherwise they'd really be up a creek. With the hardware volume purchasing advantage combined with the many-year head start they have on the OS, it will be surprising to me if any competitor obtains a 10% market share in the iPad or iPod Touch markets.

At this point, you should probably remember that Android came out 2 years ago and managed to overtake the iPhone in that short time frame. I highly doubt Apple will have even a plularity (let alone a majority) of the tablet market in 2 years.

You're presuming that the Android vs iPhone sales figures are indicative of popularity vs the iPhone only being restricted to one network provider (at least in the USA). The iPad doesn't have that restriction.

It may very well happen that Android tablets overtake iPads but Android vs iPhones market is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#54

Post by schultzor »

ojbyrne wrote: post #39
arron61 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7" vs 10" screens but failedl to mention that the Galaxy Tab also has dual cameras, a GPS chip, a cellular chip, and etc - things not seen on the ipad. I think the Tab could have been priced lower but Samsung wanted to see if they could technically compete with the ipad at the same price point first. And if things don't go well, reduce the prices later. Why shoot yourself in the foot to begin with? And additionally w…

The (admittedly more expensive) 3G ipad has both a cellular and a GPS chip. $629/$729 for 16/32 gigs.

I'd bet that some of the 3G iPad's $130 premium is also a concession to ATT for the contract-less data plan options.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#55

Post by wtallis »

cheald wrote: post #35
icegreentea wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you move up to Dells and Lenovo's "premiere" laptops (Latitudes and Thinkpads), then the price difference narrows considerably. Bare bottom T410 (14") is ~1200 (granted, its currently on sale for like 700-800 dollars... Lenovo has a lot of sales actually). I think it's fair to say that MBPs compete with all of the other brands "one step up" or business lines. MBP build quality alone lets it fight in that categ…

At some point, you're paying a few hundred extra for the aluminum body and glowy Apple logo - it's not just about "premium" versus "consumer" tiers of hardware. A Latitude 5400 (again, same hardware loadout) prices on Dell's website right now at $849.00. A ThinkPad Edge 13", again, similar loadout, prices at $694.00. Apple makes fantastic hardware, no doubt, but it's very difficult to consider them to be competitivel…

You're generally paying a few hundred extra for the aluminum body, the shiny Apple logo, the comparatively huge multitouch trackpad, firewire, bluetooth, backlit keyboard paired with an ambient light sensor, a brighter, higher-contrast display, and a longer-lasting battery (though a lot of that is due to software). Often times (including when comparing against the ThinkPad Edge) you're also upgrading from a toy Intel GPU to an NVidia GPU.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#56

Post by mattmaroon »

First of all, I priced this at work out of curiosity when buying some Mac Pros and some Macbook Pros. You can get a PC with the same hardware specs as a Mac Pro for about half the cost. You can also get a PC with the same specs for about the same cost if you get one of the gamer brands, but just a Dell or HP Quad core machine is far cheaper than a Mac Pro, assuming all things that can be compared on an apples to apples basis are the same.

In notebooks the price disparity is not quite as large, but it's still large. You'll get about the same notebook for $800 that you'd get for $1,200 from Apple. Also, stuff like RAM upgrades and SSDs cost far more for the same thing. Again though, you could find comparable Windows units for about the same prices, or at least close, if you went with higher end notebook brands.

Second, in phones the price disparity is still large because of Apple's deal with AT&T. They're getting not only the $600 unsubsidized prices, but some extra fee as well taken from the contract. You might argue that AT&T is paying that, not you, but your bill may be higher as a result, or you may be on AT&T rather than Verizon since VZW wouldn't agree to that, etc.

Even in tablets, competitors definitely can match the iPad's prices. The Nook is $250. I of more tablets costed below the iPad than above.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#57

Post by nowarninglabel »

andreyf wrote: post #31
nowarninglabel wrote: post #11

The 2nd paragraph: "Now, even putting quality aside, competitors can’t match Apple’s prices." Does not jive with the prices mentioned later: Apple Ipad - $599/$699 for the 16/32 GB models Samsung Galaxy S - $594 HTC A8181 Desire - $527 I don't know what the author's definition of "match" is, but seems to me Android tablet makers have matched prices quite well. *Edit: fixed my formatting

He's talking about cost of actually building the device. A big part of the iPhone's consumer price ($700 for 32gig) is markup, as he points out in comparing it to the price of the iPod touch, which is $300 for a comprable model. In other words, he's claiming that Apple could undercut the A8181 Desire or the Galaxy S on price, but keeping the customer choose between "FREE* shiny new phone" or "$200* shiny new phone" r…

If that is what the author is talking about, then the author is still off (at least based on this analysis):

Galaxy S $205 build cost - http://bit.ly/bocdoe

Apple Ipad $264.27 - http://bit.ly/aW8mvu

(bit.ly links cause the links are huge, goes to Isuppli)

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#58

Post by schultzor »

rchowe wrote: post #45
marze wrote: post #20

Lucky for Apple's competitors they have Android, otherwise they'd really be up a creek. With the hardware volume purchasing advantage combined with the many-year head start they have on the OS, it will be surprising to me if any competitor obtains a 10% market share in the iPad or iPod Touch markets.

I'd argue that if the competitors didn't have Android, the tablets would just run on x86 processors. And run either windows or linux. I believe that the presence of ARM early in this market is actually good on the OS side, because it doesn't lead to shoehorning windows onto a tablet. x86 tablets aren't going to succeed both because of the pressure to run desktop OSes, but also because x86 processor companies only see…

With the failure of Linux netbooks, I don't think it'd do any better on tablets, ARM or x86.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#59

Post by jsolson »

martythemaniak wrote: post #48
marze wrote: post #20

Lucky for Apple's competitors they have Android, otherwise they'd really be up a creek. With the hardware volume purchasing advantage combined with the many-year head start they have on the OS, it will be surprising to me if any competitor obtains a 10% market share in the iPad or iPod Touch markets.

At this point, you should probably remember that Android came out 2 years ago and managed to overtake the iPhone in that short time frame. I highly doubt Apple will have even a plularity (let alone a majority) of the tablet market in 2 years.

> At this point, you should probably remember that Android came out 2 years ago and managed to overtake the iPhone in that short time frame. I highly doubt Apple will have even a plularity (let alone a majority) of the tablet market in 2 years.

More Android devices are sold than iPhones, yes. Add the iPod Touch to that and I'm pretty sure Apple still has a substantial lead (and possibly growing).

Also, how many of those Android devices are being sold with 1.6 and aren't able to upgrade the 2.x series due to manufacturer laziness or hardware limitations? Is it really fair to compare an Android 1.6 device sold today to an iOS device sold today? The iOS device will, based on history to date, be eligible for OS upgrades for at least two years. The Android 1.6 device is already two years out of date and not getting any younger.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#60

Post by guelo »

While it is true that Android phones haven't been able to undercut iPhones by much, the argument doesn't hold up for tablets and iPods because these markets haven't really been entered by the Android manufacturers yet. The Samsung Galaxy tablet is at the forefront but the real wave of Android tablets is months away waiting for the release of Gingerbread. Expect a lot of announcements around CES time. As for the iPod market, Android has a lot of catching up to do with it's media software so that will probably be a bit further out.
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