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Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

reuters.com

301–310 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

#301
post #218

I've been dragging my feet on upgrading my M1 Air, guess now I'm just going to wait a bit longer. Truth be told, it's still sufficient for web dev but I figured at ~5 years old I should upgrade it..

I had an M1 Pro MacBook and I agree with you about not needing a new computer. However, it seems like things are at best going to be the same if not worse over the next 5 years with AI prices. I went ahead and updated because although I’m still happy with my M1 Pro today, I am unsure how it will fair over the next 5 years.

That's why I updated, as well.

Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

#302

This feels like the car market during COVID. In December Best Buy had a $1999 configuration of the M5 MacBook Pro on sale for $1749 and I scooped one up. Now that model is $2199. I suspect I could sell the computer I've been using for 6 months at a profit, which is just bizarre. But then of course it would cost a lot if I wanted to replace it.

Yep, I had the exact same (but in euros), also a discounted m5 in December. I feel pretty lucky with that timing, not that it benefits me in any way but that feels like getting one of the last ticket for a concert

Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

#303

Some unc perspective: I paid ~$6,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars for a computer in 1996. Today, I can get the same power in a $6 single board computer. A powerful modern mini PC starts at ~$600. However painful these price hikes are, and they are painful, it is worth remembering that computing has become incredibly ubiquitous and cheap.

I'm still using ~10 year old PCs at both work and home. Running linux, still doing fine.

My 2012 thinkpad still works well.

I've got access to a couple newer laptops, but they just dont stack up to the old one.

Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

#304

Some unc perspective: I paid ~$6,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars for a computer in 1996. Today, I can get the same power in a $6 single board computer. A powerful modern mini PC starts at ~$600. However painful these price hikes are, and they are painful, it is worth remembering that computing has become incredibly ubiquitous and cheap.

The computing power available today is such a double-edged sword. We can do so much more so much faster, but then we (including myself in this) waste so many cycles on abstractions and frameworks and layers of libraries to make our development jobs easier.

Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

#305

Apple was already on the edge of "too expensive". Now it's obscene. I think this really opens the door for the new intel framework 13 pro.

> the new intel framework 13 pro Do they have a source for RAM that’s insulated from the global market?

no but you could even bring your own

but what i think they meant is framework is looking like a better deal now that macs are more expensive

Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

#306
So this is probably not good news for the MacBook Ultra with 512GB of RAM rumors being..affordable.

What's worse is that this is probably going to get worse. My angel investment group is getting inundated with pitches that amount to building an RX-6000 with 96GB of RAM and installing a local model to do "thing X".

So even if the OpenAI's of the world stop trying to use up all the RAM, you're going to have thousands of start-ups pushing local models.

Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

#308
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has been weathering this for a while. Maybe it was bad timing with a contract rollover but they seem to have lost their primacy with TMSC. I’m guessing they are doing their best to maintain margins. I don’t know what Apple’s cash chest has these days but it’s always been enormous. But they don’t score points in the stock market by having cash on hand. They do get points for operating margin.

Even when the M5 Pro MacBook 16 released, they did raise the price $100 but upped the hard drive to 1TB. I really thought they would wait to raise prices until the next cycle but this is a bit alarming.

If they never raise their prices, they can't drop them.

Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

#309

Some unc perspective: I paid ~$6,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars for a computer in 1996. Today, I can get the same power in a $6 single board computer. A powerful modern mini PC starts at ~$600. However painful these price hikes are, and they are painful, it is worth remembering that computing has become incredibly ubiquitous and cheap.

And yet in some ways, modern computers feel slower than those from decades ago. Software today is so, so much less efficient than it was back then.

Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads

#310
post #224

I thought Apple usually locked in contracts with TSMC and Samsung for years in the future? They should be best positioned to weather this storm. If they are getting buffeted enough to raise prices by this much, things are going to be dire for smaller manufacturers. Or, this could just be a convenient excuse to get even more margin.

Its a very, very long “storm”, at some point you have to re-adjust, even if it is very painful
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