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Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail

9to5mac.com

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Re: Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail

#61

Post by 013a »

bredren wrote: post #15
seibelj wrote: post #6

I don’t understand why they announced the stand during the keynote at all. It’s not something to be proud of and it isn’t cutting-edge technology. They could have just put it for sale quietly and the outrage would have been far less.

Apparently decent pivoting, weighted stands are $400. So this is still not outrageously expensive if you are in the market for this type of thing. Perhaps Apple figured it would be seen through the same eyes as those considering a $12k Mac Pro workstation, and appreciated in a similar way. Another note: contra-wise, Apple did flirt with “luxury” watches for a time. Though I think they gave up on that direction.

I think the bigger concern is that, as far as we know, the Pro Display literally does not come with a stand. You can't even VESA mount it without the $200 addon. It'd be one thing if the $1000 stand was an upgrade from a basic static stand included in the box, but there's no indication that this is the case.

Re: Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail

#62

Post by [deleted] »

CPLX wrote: post #9

This is a silly criticism, it’s not a PR fail. The monitor stand is like a $99 hamburger on the menu. For the people rich enough to never care about the cost of a restaurant meal it’s a purchase, and for everyone else it’s a cue that this brand is absolutely top end prestigious and expensive. Im counting the days until I see one in a rap video or all over rich kid Instagram.

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail

#63

Post by walterstucco »

toyg wrote: post #23
happytoexplain wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know any press is good press, but come on. You can't just excuse any too-expensive product this way.

Does anybody have to "excuse" the sticker price on luxury cars? You can obviously get cheaper (and likely more comfortable) 4-wheeled transportation instruments elsewhere, but that's hardly the point.

Yes you do have to.

Luxury brands are luxury because they have an excuse for their ridiculous price tags, not because they ridiculously overcharge for regular products.

Prada does not make just overpriced H&M dresses...

Re: Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail

#64

Post by aloer »

save_ferris wrote: post #28
seibelj wrote: post #6

I don’t understand why they announced the stand during the keynote at all. It’s not something to be proud of and it isn’t cutting-edge technology. They could have just put it for sale quietly and the outrage would have been far less.

I was somewhat surprised with their entire Mac Pro strategy. With a base tower configuration starting at $6k (about twice what I was expecting), they seemed to signal a shift in what they consider a “pro” user to be. They’re pretty clearly chasing after the commercial, high-end computing market, but they’ve kinda left the high-end consumer market behind in some ways. Still no definitive fix to the fly switch keyboard…

I have not yet seen any speculation about what a full spec mac pro might cost but I would not be surprised if it approaches 100k$. It can also connect to up to 6 screens for 5k$ which means this thing might go up to 130k$ in price, fully specced

The mac pro itself might have never been meant for everyone. Most of the people in the "pro" group didn't know or didn't care that they might only be on the lower end in terms of "proness" and asked for a new mac pro anyways. But I guess Apple considers them already well served with the iMac pro.

Previously I thought the iMac pro would be phased out as soon as a real mac pro is introduced but perhaps Apple will keep it around now.

Re: Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail

#65

Post by walterstucco »

toyg wrote: post #34
theelous3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is nothing luxury avout the stand, it's essentially identical to any other stand, which is not the point of the cars in your analogy.

A lot of luxury-priced cars also have little particularly luxurious about them. The expression "you pay for the badge" comes to mind, which is precisely what luxury branding is about: the value of a $1k stand is that you paid $1k for it regardless of practical considerations, just because you could .

Not at all.

When you buy a luxury car you don't pay a lot just because you can, you pay a lot just because you can afford the kind of leather they use for the interiors, which would be too expensive for regular people.

Re: Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail

#66

Post by mamcx »

mcphage wrote: post #40
save_ferris wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was somewhat surprised with their entire Mac Pro strategy. With a base tower configuration starting at $6k (about twice what I was expecting), they seemed to signal a shift in what they consider a “pro” user to be. They’re pretty clearly chasing after the commercial, high-end computing market, but they’ve kinda left the high-end consumer market behind in some ways. Still no definitive fix to the fly switch keyboard…

> What’s the point in mass-marketing it? It felt like watching a marketing video to buy an airplane or something. It's because sites like this have been complaining for years that Apple has left the Pro market behind. This was their response to that. And now this site is switching to complaining that Apple's definition of "Pro" is too "Pro" for us.

"Pro" is NOT a price.

Is features.

Apple was already "expensive" but somehow reachable. Now, the Mac line is more and more out of reach for anyone without deep pockets.

---

I could have understand (somehow, still out my reach for a machine >3000) if the Mac Pro was > 10 cores, >= 32 GB, >= 1TB SSD, Vega or Nvidia > 1080

ie: just buy and is already a top of the line (or, what you will do with a base (old) Mac Pro to get to middle config)

Re: Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail

#67

Post by alexanderdmitri »

onebyteman wrote: post #48
cynix wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s a textbook luxury branding and pricing strategy. The problem is that this 10x overpricing strategy doesn't apply to their entire lineup, but that's not made explicit. As a result, people might mistakenly generalise it to their other products such as iPhones, leading people to think that their phones are also 10x overpriced and are actually only worth $100, thus diminishing its value.

Haha, no. The average person does not think that deeply or use that much math.

I'd wager the average person is more likely to grasp the mathematical incongruency than have the buying power to afford the incongruency.

Re: Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail

#68

Post by freetime2 »

theelous3 wrote: post #26
toyg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anybody have to "excuse" the sticker price on luxury cars? You can obviously get cheaper (and likely more comfortable) 4-wheeled transportation instruments elsewhere, but that's hardly the point.

there is nothing luxury avout the stand, it's essentially identical to any other stand, which is not the point of the cars in your analogy.

> there is nothing luxury avout the stand, it's essentially identical to any other stand

Some of the features that make it "luxury" in my mind are:

* Build materials / quality

* Small footprint

* Magnetic connector (no screws)

* Ease of adjusting height / rotating (according to Apple)

For a 32-inch, 16 lb monitor that may need to be moved around a lot and shared amongst multiple people, I can see how those qualities might be important enough to justify the price for some.

And if it's really identical to any other stand out there, can you show something comparable at a lower price?

Re: Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail

#69

Post by mathieubordere »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #22

Might as well buy some Tellurium Q Silver Diamond Digital Streaming Ethernet Cables to go along with it. A snip at only £1200.00 per metre. https://telluriumq.com/silver-diamond-digital-streaming-cabl...

the HiFi world really is something else
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