You just know that upcoming OLED Macbook Pro is going to start at 3k for the base configuration.
Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
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Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#622Some 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 had a similar thought. I bought a computer for $3600 CAD 3 years ago and it shows no signs of limiting my work in any way. I have another from 2020 from my employer that is just fine, likely costing them about $2500 CAD when they bought it.
Over the lifespans of these devices, a few hundred dollars doesn't matter much. I don't really care.
I do care that the prices are a reasonable reflection of market realities and that their profit margins aren't expanded compared to the last several years', but assuming these increases are actually necessary: okay.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#623Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prices are never going down, even if the shortage eases. The era of cheap high-end computing is likely over. And it'll be used to pressure people into switching to thin clients and ever-more subscriptions High-end desktops were already a niche market, with many home users just using phones+tablets as their main devices. The entire games industry is already in a big crash too, and with consoles approaching $1k for 6yr…
Or in a few years time memory chip production will meet demand, and prices will decrease.
Or the winners of the AI race will make enough money to buy up the majority of global production indefinitely...
But even if things recover in a few years, Apple makes a lot of money from massive markups on RAM and storage and not allowing upgrades. If their customers keep paying, and I suspect they will, there'll be no incentive to bring prices down, not for the higher-end devices at least.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#624Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "worst" part of this comment, is that it's not even exaggeration. In the last 6 months, my competition increased 5x. People that didn't have the skills to compete, now do. My margins will keep shrinking while hardware and servers gets more expensive. It's a fucking miserable future for us software people. Architecting and "good taste" won't be good enough to put food on the table next year...
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While I understand both of your perspectives, please think about how frustrating it can be to have poured years into building a product genuinely solving a problem and building a relationship with clients only for a dozens AI copy cats to come in. Even if your product is clearly better, the SEO slop alone will raise your marketing cost, price cutting will affect you as not all clients are able to tell quality before purchase or will know of your project, etc.
And in the end, everyone is worse of. We get less for the products we build. Customers in many cases get a worse solution. And the AI copy cats multiply until none of them can make a living from it.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#625Anyone else here enjoy living in the future? Look at us, we get AI megacorporations ruling the world and bestowing us with the power to use their servers for just $20-200/month. It's practically charity, and all we had to give up for it is all consumer hardware, the quality of the internet and our own jobs. I love it here!
I would never want to compel someone else to buy services from me if they had a better option available. My goal is to make money by contributing to society, not force others to pay me for services they don't want from me. If AI makes it so programmers aren't needed anymore, well, I had a good run and made good money while it lasted. I'll find something else productive to do.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#626I was literally ordering an M5 MacBook Pro tomorrow. The total is $900 more now. Might have to hold off and just live with my M4 Mini.
I regret not RamMaxxing my M4 mini
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#627Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the absurd memory prices might have some positive outcome, it will be consumers demanding that all their basic pack of apps are able to run on 16 and even 8 GB of RAM, by means of avoiding those that hog their machines. And consequently (hopefully), developers and their managers being incentivized by market forces to have a modicum of care for performance and not wasting bytes. Dreaming is free... All Electron dev…
>> it will be consumers demanding But how do I get to express that demand? Asking as a frustrated regular user of excel - excel is amazing software but if your laptop is not in airplane mode, the number of little delays that creep in is wild. It's all seemingly network delays, connecting to onedrive servers when i'm editing a field (why?!), 10s of connections to random microsoft domains as i flick between tabs in the…
Most people can't perceive "micro stutters" and many who can don't care. It's a fairly niche feature requirement.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#628Would MBP M5 32GB RAM be adequate for small model post-training and small RL experiments?
Planning to snatch one from BB/Amazon.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#629Anyone else here enjoy living in the future? Look at us, we get AI megacorporations ruling the world and bestowing us with the power to use their servers for just $20-200/month. It's practically charity, and all we had to give up for it is all consumer hardware, the quality of the internet and our own jobs. I love it here!
The "worst" part of this comment, is that it's not even exaggeration. In the last 6 months, my competition increased 5x. People that didn't have the skills to compete, now do. My margins will keep shrinking while hardware and servers gets more expensive. It's a fucking miserable future for us software people. Architecting and "good taste" won't be good enough to put food on the table next year...
It might be miserable for you, but it sounds great for your customers. I am genuinely sympathetic though.
Re: Apple raises prices of MacBooks, iPads
#630Some 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.
its worth noting that you were much less restricted with this 6k computer in 1996. today we are paying ever more for walled gardens that will eventually become nothing more than a portal to cloud services. we are not returning to a previous position, we are moving to a world where everything will be a thin client.
Speak for yourself. I have a modern machine running Fedora. What walled gardens are you talking about? Buying a Mac is a choice that you may make, but I never will.