Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage • Hacker News Board

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#141

Post by InclinedPlane » Wed, Nov 10, 2010, 8:40 AM UTC

netcan wrote: post #96

kemiller wrote: post #12

Another factor here is that mobile devices are all a tier or two down from personal computers in terms of the raw number of dollars. Seems like a 15% premium is something people will consider paying if it only amounts to $30, but might not if it's $300. This was especially true in the early days of the PC revolution. The Mac 128K sold for $2495 at the time, which is more than $5000 in today's dollars[1]. I can't find…

The industry has changed and is continuing to change into a world that suits Apple better. Getting in early and big (eg iphones & ipads) is letting them influence the change even more in their favour. What caught my eye in this article was: "Nobody knows what kind of CPU they have in their phones." That's a world that suits Apple. Interestingly, PCs are unique in that people take an interest in components. Do people…

Musicians know what wood or metal their instruments are made out of. Many people know what materials their clothes are made out of. Rock climbers know what materials their gear is made out of. Artists care about the quality of the graphite in their pencils. Sailors know what their boats and sails are made out of. Etc.

Enthusiasts care, not everyone cares.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#142

Post by thomasz » Wed, Nov 10, 2010, 10:23 AM UTC

dagw wrote: post #140

napierzaza wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh ____ has 95% of the music player market. Fill in the blank.

I'll answer "No one". Most numbers I can find place Apple in first place with around 75%.

Are those international numbers? I'm just wondering, because if I would buy the cheapest nano, I'd have to pay 159€, which would be ~ 219$. That's not really competitive. The cheapest Air costs ~1,377, a 15'' Macbook Pro ~2,410.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#143

Post by buro9 » Wed, Nov 10, 2010, 10:27 AM UTC

I believe that the price advantage comes not insignificantly from the market side of reselling software, apps, music and video and taking a not insignificant slice of the sale of those items.

If you remove the market from the equation Apple's bottom line isn't as impressive, in fact the rise of Apple in recent years is coupled to the rise of their market place.

So strong is their domination over music distribution that I'm starting to think that when an investigation starts against Apple that the target should be to split Apple into two companies; one for hardware (and OS) and one for the markets. Only then will Apple operate on a level playing field with regards to other hardware manufacturers, as it is the advantage of the market that enables them to subsidise the price of hardware, and as they have grown dominant in hardware (especially in music players) they should be treated as a monopoly of that market and competition encouraged (by just levelling that playing field slightly).

I realise that these views aren't in line with the opinion of the vast majority of people I speak to, especially online and in circles who use Apple gear. But this is long term speculation stuff, the "What-if"... years ago I speculated how dominant itunes could be and it mostly has come to pass and is still increasing (25% of all US music, 69% of digital music as of mid-2009).

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#144

Post by ZeroGravitas » Wed, Nov 10, 2010, 10:42 AM UTC

netcan wrote: post #90

cletus wrote: post #79

I've had this argument far too many times. Specifically regarding the iPad vie put several theories forward regarding the 7" vs 10" tablets: 1. Apple has tied up the world supply of 10" capacitative touch screens. That's not far-fetched; 2. Price: as per Gruber's argument; 3. Fear: no one wants to directly compete with the iPad so they're seeking some form of differentiation. Nikon did this with DSLRs and Canon. It w…

All these might be true, but still be on-the-margin effects. In the PC world (and I think the old audio player world), any new Apple product was met a competitor with the similar specs (often better) at close to half the price (taking into account sales and such). Like the post concludes, if it was possible to make an android tablet (even a 7" one) that was a direct alternative to the ipad at $350 someone would be

Archos 10 inch tablet: $300.

http://www.archos.com/products/ta/archos_101it/specs.html?co...

I'm not saying it's the best tablet ever, though on a spec checklist it might actually win (camera, HDMI out, USB host, multimedia formats etc.). I'm more interested in the fact that the vast majority of Gruber-style pronouncements about how special Apple is require you to not have any knowledge of what's actually happening outside the Apple bubble.

It's also worth noting that the Samsung Galaxy Tab price has been on a constant downward trajectory. Last I saw the Carphone Warehouse in the UK was selling it for £489 for 32GB (compared with $599 for iPad 32GB) a £110 difference rather than the $30 dollar one Gruber quotes. Comparing list prices favours Apple since they, somewhat unusually, rarely if ever sell below that price.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#145

Post by ZeroGravitas » Wed, Nov 10, 2010, 10:54 AM UTC

yoden wrote: post #105

jsolson wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

Only 30% of iOS devices are iPod Touch. At android's growth rate, that'll maybe stave it off a quarter or two.

Last figures I saw (in a link posted here at HN) was double the iPhone sales in Q3 . As someone pointed out in response to the obvious reply, even if you add all the other iDevices, you still don't match that. So in sales they're already ahead.

It'll take a few quarters of higher sales to catch up with Apple's installed base, but since the entire market is growing, I don't think it'll take that long.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#146

Post by ZeroGravitas » Wed, Nov 10, 2010, 10:58 AM UTC

schultzor wrote: post #58

rchowe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which Linux? Android is already doing okay, Meego and WebOS are relatively untested but have big corps behind them and Ubuntu should fill a similar niche to the one where people run Windows tablets because they need some specific bit of Windows software.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#147

Post by Schlaefer » Wed, Nov 10, 2010, 11:09 AM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #16

trotsky wrote: post #6

I see daring fireball has never heard of archos. http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/31/archos-unleashes-five-fiv...

Let's see: I would love to buy a $229 Android device that’s the equivalent of the iPod Touch Which one of the Archos is equivalent to iPod touch?

http://www.archos.com/products/ta/archos_32it/index.html?cou...

Other Android devices in the iPod touch class are out there (e.g. Samsung http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/10/samsung-galaxy-player...).

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#148

Post by rimantas » Wed, Nov 10, 2010, 11:27 AM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #143

I believe that the price advantage comes not insignificantly from the market side of reselling software, apps, music and video and taking a not insignificant slice of the sale of those items. If you remove the market from the equation Apple's bottom line isn't as impressive, in fact the rise of Apple in recent years is coupled to the rise of their market place. So strong is their domination over music distribution th…

  Only then will Apple operate on a level playing field
  with regards to other hardware manufacturers, as it is
  the advantage of the market that enables them to subsidise
  the price of hardware

I must be reading it wrong but it sounds a bit like „let's make it worse for Apple, because others cannot quite catch-up“. iPod'a are not the cheapest players, are they?

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#149

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Wed, Nov 10, 2010, 11:36 AM UTC

Yaggo wrote: post #138

siglesias wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget iLife.

Anybody have an idea what would cost an equivalent software for Windows? (Offering similar usability, high quality templates/samples/tutorials etc. Actually it wouldn't surprise me if no such a thing exists for Windows.)

I don't think you have to do that, it's far too subjective and there are free equivalents for a lot of stuff (Picassa for iPhoto for instance).

The easiest thing would be to knock the retail price of iLife off ($49) as that's where Apple seem to value it.

Re: Daring Fireball: Apple's Pricing Advantage

#150

Post by narag » Wed, Nov 10, 2010, 11:53 AM UTC

cletus wrote: post #88

chime wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - significantly better battery life than any Windows lapt I've ever seen (due in part to software admittedly); My 11 month old Acer Timeline gets me 8+ hours of battery life with constant Wifi use. I easily work full days without recharges.

Your Acer Timeline also uses a CULV (Ultra Low Voltage) CPU. Apples and oranges. Find me a Core 2 Duo (non-ULV) or i3/i5/i7 laptop with equivalent battery life. The Timelines are a good budget laptop and much better than the Atom-based netbooks (imho). Personally I prefer the Asus UL30A (etc) range but that's really nitpicking.

+1 for the Asus UL30. Impresive battery life and a nice screen.