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Apple is going to raise device prices, but when?

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Re: Apple is going to raise device prices, but when?

#21

Post by RaSoJo »

pdpi wrote: post #16
basisword wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that a step too far? e.g. the PS5 price has increased like 25% and it's a 6 year old product now. Similar for other consoles. It feels much more acceptable to me on something like a Mac that's less than a year old (and going to last a long time + have good resale value).

Macs have much shorter lifecycles than consoles, and Apple doesn’t have a history of reducing prices over that lifecycle. Consoles have much longer lifecycles and typically drop in price over time (as components get cheaper). It seems fair to expect that behaviour to work in both directions.

Yes, exactly. Price hikes mid-cycle is not something I have seen Apple do historically.

If true, one reason could be that: Cook is retiring, while Ternus is on his way in. Ternus wouldn't wanna start off with his first announcement being a ginormous price hike. Makes him look bad.

So Cook becomes the fall guy. i.e., he increases the price by 15% in the existing M5 range.

When Ternus comes in, he keeps prices stable on the M6 range. Makes Ternus look like an awesome guy...and gets him off on a flying start in his CEO tenure.

Re: Apple is going to raise device prices, but when?

#24

Post by MBCook »

AnonC wrote: post #15

I think it would be uncharacteristic of Apple to raise prices anytime from now till new products are announced in September. It doesn’t match Apple’s brand image (like the author says). As pointed in another post by John Gruber, Apple kept selling the trash can Mac Pro for a very high price for years without any updates. So it can certainly afford to bear this pain for a couple of more months and bundle all the price…

I suspect you’re right, but if they don’t do it until the new stuff is announced I suspect the price hike would drown out the news of all the new stuff. And I really don’t think Apple wants that.

If they announce it on, to pick a date, July 1 then by the time the iPhone is announced it will be somewhat old news. It will still get mentioned but it won’t be the main feature of every story at announcement time.

Like so many other companies Apple is between a rock and a hard place with this stuff.

Re: Apple is going to raise device prices, but when?

#25

Post by PaulHoule »

Aren't their storage prices so inflated that they could just eat the difference?

For years with every other OEM I have bought the laptop with the minimum amount of memory and saved $800 or so buying the largest memory sticks that work with the machine from Crucial (R.I.P.) Doesn't work if the memory is soldered to the board though!

Re: Apple is going to raise device prices, but when?

#26

Post by pdpi »

basisword wrote: post #19
pdpi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macs have much shorter lifecycles than consoles, and Apple doesn’t have a history of reducing prices over that lifecycle. Consoles have much longer lifecycles and typically drop in price over time (as components get cheaper). It seems fair to expect that behaviour to work in both directions.

They’re not dropping in price though. PS5 is 25% more expensive than at launch six years ago.

Sure, and what I'm saying is that I'm ok with them doing that. It's a matter of consistency.

The PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One all followed the pattern of dropping in price over the course of their lifetimes, because components got cheaper over time. The fact that the PS5 and the Xbox Series X|S have gone up in price is consistent with the general price elasticity.

I'm also OK with Apple having a rigid pricing structure and never really doing any sales or discounts, but then I expect them to not raise prices on the current M5 hardware, and leave those price hikes for the M6 generation that I assume is just around the corner.

Re: Apple is going to raise device prices, but when?

#27

Post by PaulHoule »

deltarholamda wrote: post #18
Insanity wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a new product line. Should have clarified but I meant mostly their existing product lines and specifically iPhone

On some level the Neo is just a new chapter in the story of the original iBook. The difference between 1999 and now is the much stronger Apple brand, so people on the fence were quite ready to throw down with a $600 Mac.

Apple was on the ropes in 1999!

Classic MacOS never had an entirely reliable network stack for browsing the web but hey, they had a GUI running in 128k of RAM in 1984. Not to say that macs didn't have their charms during the .com bubble but it wasn't until Mac OS X came out in 2001 that a mac was a purchase that made sense.

Re: Apple is going to raise device prices, but when?

#28

Post by [deleted] »

PaulHoule wrote: post #25

Aren't their storage prices so inflated that they could just eat the difference? For years with every other OEM I have bought the laptop with the minimum amount of memory and saved $800 or so buying the largest memory sticks that work with the machine from Crucial (R.I.P.) Doesn't work if the memory is soldered to the board though!

[deleted]

Re: Apple is going to raise device prices, but when?

#29

Post by ndiddy »

They already did, to an extent. The base Mac Mini used to be $600 with a 256 GB SSD, but they got rid of that and now the cheapest option is the $800 512 GB model. The typical Apple strategy is to make the base model of a given computer the price competitive version, and price gouge on additional storage and RAM to build up their margins. I guess the RAM price increase made the margins on the $600 model too low for Apple to want to sell.

Re: Apple is going to raise device prices, but when?

#30

Post by StilesCrisis »

PaulHoule wrote: post #27
deltarholamda wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On some level the Neo is just a new chapter in the story of the original iBook. The difference between 1999 and now is the much stronger Apple brand, so people on the fence were quite ready to throw down with a $600 Mac.

Apple was on the ropes in 1999! Classic MacOS never had an entirely reliable network stack for browsing the web but hey, they had a GUI running in 128k of RAM in 1984. Not to say that macs didn't have their charms during the .com bubble but it wasn't until Mac OS X came out in 2001 that a mac was a purchase that made sense.

Were you actually a Mac user? The initial release of OS X was quite inferior to OS 9--it was an incredible proof of concept and perfect developer target, but for an end user, not so much.

I've been in computer labs full of Mac OS 8/9 machines happily browsing the internet so I'm not sure what your claim about "unreliable network stack" is referencing. Unless you mean "a crash requires a reboot" which was true, but also often true for Windows 95/98 as well!

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