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The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

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Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#111

Post by davidmathers »

elblanco wrote: post #90
potatolicious wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you really just link, as an alternative to Apple's keyboard/mouse, a product whose first review is "Garbage"? You figure design into the cost equation all the time in your life - why would one wear anything except Wal-Mart t-shirts otherwise? Ease of use, quality of construction, and yes, even styling, is incredibly important in all aspects of life.

Just showing that $100 is outrageous for a wireless mouse and keyboard. Here's one for just a hair more with solid reviews. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823126... It's not hard to find reasonable quality at a good price point.

The keyboard most like Apple's keyboard is the Logitech diNovo. $99.99 at newegg. Mouse not included:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823126...

There is no other mouse like the new Apple mouse, so there's nothing to compare it to. High quality wireless mice from Logitech or Microsoft are usually around $50 though.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#112

Post by davidmathers »

acg wrote: post #109
davidmathers wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, seriously . Have you seen the followup response at http://jimcloudman.tumblr.com/post/223517306/re-the-curious-... ?? It's so amazingly ridiculous. You have to read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt: I think another part of it, though, is that the panel manufacturer must be drooling over the fact that this is really the only way to move a lot of high-end panels, and therefore gain access to serious economies…

Come on now, you don't have to buy one and these sort of posts are only going to make your OS of choice more competitive. Bring it on: the more choice there is the better things will be. Doesn't the article mention Dell's monitor? Scientists cannot make low-cost hardware if there is no market, LG probably welcome apple's move as it allows them to ramp production up sooner.

you don't have to buy one

Actually I do have to buy one. I use Apple computers exclusively. Except for my home server running Ubuntu which I built myself.

I don't just have to buy one, I'm eager to buy one. The 27-inch iMac is exactly what I've been waiting for. Unfortunately I have to wait for the second revision because the current CPU/graphics hardware is weak. It will be a hard wait.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#113

Post by davidmathers »

kburn wrote: post #103
davidmathers wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following you. $800 for the display $500 for the computer components $100 for the aluminum case $100 for the wireless keyboard and hi-tech mouse $100 for OS X and iLife $100 for beautiful industrial design $1700 sounds like a fine deal to me. I'm tempted to buy one right now, but I'm forcing myself to wait for the first component refresh that will come in 6 or 8 months. Core 2 Duo is about to go obsolete.

You can keep lowering your component prices on your list till this makes sense to you. But let's be honest, you'd buy this machine no matter what because that's simply what you are into. The value proposition argument doesn't factor into fanhood. not a knock, just an observation, I'm thinking these look pretty sexy as well

I find it hilarious that just a short way up the page someone is telling me you don't have to buy one because I so obviously loathe Apple products, while you're telling me my love for them is so strong that you'd buy this machine no matter what.

All I do is speak the truth.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#114

Post by antonovka »

jrockway wrote: post #19
clemesha wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I developed for several years solely on a Linux laptop - it was my personal laptop too. Then I switched to OSX, and damn what an awesome breath of UI fresh air. I would never deploy anything on any platform besides good-old Linux, but for a personal computer, I'm sold on OSX.

I hate to turn this into an OS debate, but it looks like it has become one. I have used OS X. I have written software for OS X. I had a job that was to support OS X. I don't like it; I don't think it works well. It doesn't do what I want and it's not particularly stable. Problems I have with OS X are nonexistent with Linux, so that's what I use.

I have used Linux since 1994. I have written software for Linux. I had a job that was to support Linux. I still run Linux on servers where there's no other option.

I don't like it; I don't think it works well. It doesn't do what I want -- the desktop software options are incredibly lacking, getting anything working is like pulling teeth, and relying on a distributor like Debian or Ubuntu for all my software means that I get stuck either using outdated software or running against an unstable release of the OS -- either way, I spend way more time thinking about the OS than doing my job.

In terms of stability, the lack of stable releases, poor code quality of the kernel, and reliance on distributors to patch and maintain their own kernels really shows through in the number of kernel panics and other issues I see. I can't recall the last time one of my FreeBSD servers or Mac OS X desktops crashed.

Problems I have with Linux are nonexistent with OS X, so that's what I use.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#115

Post by nitrogen »

potatolicious wrote: post #108
elblanco wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN won't let me reply direct...so I'm replying to myself. If I spend $30 on a keyboard mouse/combo. And it breaks in 6 months, I can just throw it away and get a replacement and still have coffee money. And in 6 months, the keyboard/mouse combo I buy for $30 will be better than the one that I could have bought 6 months prior for $70. No matter what I bought, I'd likely be in the market for a replacement (or would jus…

"If I spend $30 on a keyboard mouse/combo. And it breaks in 6 months, I can just throw it away and get a replacement and still have coffee money." And through all of this you're still using a cheap $30 keyboard. Why buy something cheap and disposable just to replace it 6 months later? Sure, your TCO is still lower than the nicer keyboard - but the ease of use and satisfaction is easily worth the difference, not to me…

+1 for non-monetary/intangible benefits. Even my ancient (early 90s) 3 series is an amazing drive, and well worth the disintegrating door panels and various other problems. I've driven a variety of cars, old and new, and this is my favorite so far.

There are some products that, because of attention to detail or other design features, are a pleasure to use, even if their performance on paper is worse.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#116

Post by potatolicious »

mrkurt wrote: post #84
randallsquared wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, both of those appear to be 2560 at 30", which is a lower DPI than the one under discussion. Since that's the only way that the 27" screens are better than the pre-existing 30" screens, it must be the metric that was meant.

That's 30" diagonal at a different aspect ratio (16:10), so the DPIs aren't as far off as they sound. The bigger problem is that neither of the linked 30" panels are LED backlit.

Also, the HP doesn't indicate panel type - which would suggest it's a TN panel.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#117

Post by potatolicious »

elblanco wrote: post #91
davidmathers wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks and form factor matter to me and are something I'm happy to pay for. I'm not saying they should matter you. If you'd rather save $300 and buy a computer in a standard plastic box, with trash peripherals that are only rated 1 egg, then you're welcome to it. The number of people who spend $300 on just a case + power supply from newegg when doing a custom pc build is not small.

Fair enough. But even when I threw together my last monster home machine from newegg I don't think I spent more than $150 on case and power, and I even went hog wild with lights and all kinds of fans and other sexy things. Just because Apple felt that they needed to spent who knows how much R&D on a new plastic unibody mold that nobody is impressed with much, in order to house perfectly stock budget hardware doesn't…

"that nobody is impressed with much"

Have you been following the news at all? I know many non-technical people (and technical people also) who are absolutely ecstatic about getting a MacBook with the new body. People care about this shit - in fact I'd say it's the minority that does not.

By the way, don't knock the unibody till you use one. My unibody MacBook Pro has got to be the most solid machine I've ever used - handily beats any other laptop on the market, including the venerable classic ThinkPads.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#118

Post by potatolicious »

davidmathers wrote: post #12

there’s an entire high-end computer stuck to the back of it Actually, there's an entire discount-parts ($150 cpu, $70 video card) computer stuck to the back of it. If you configure it with high-end parts the price goes up to $2200 and even then you're getting a previous-generation video card (radeon 4850 rather than the new 5850). It's not really so curious. Apple does the "make exclusive deal with a supplier and bea…

Bear in mind that the iMac uses almost exclusively laptop parts, which are more expensive (but have better thermal profiles, and are of course smaller).

The only thing in an iMac that is desktop-sized is I believe the HDD (and maybe the RAM? I'm not sure).

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#119

Post by jawngee »

jrockway wrote: post #99
jawngee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would your eyebrow raise a bit when you hear a developer say they use any particular OS? What do you gain by having such rigors? Why do you assume your opinion is absolute? (Which is must be for you to cock an eyebrow in what I'm assuming is disgust or mistrust). What do you do when someone tells you they develop on Windows? I'm imagining a groin pull, or something of that magnitude.

I am just surprised. I remember how much stress I went through to get basic things working, and I am surprised that other people were willing to waste so much time. (Example: installing libxml2 for XML::LibXML and the system perl.) So it's not disgust at all, it's just shock. I keep hearing how nice of a development platform it is, but I couldn't get even the simplest things to work. (I used OS X for 2 or 3 years abo…

That makes more sense :)

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#120

Post by elblanco »

bitwize wrote: post #106
elblanco wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The breathless claim of a "high end computer" stuck out to me also. The iMac computer parts are one step up from bargain bin. They aren't the cheapest possible, but on a scale with two ends, they aren't near the "high" end of that scale. I also like the author's math, a 25% price difference isn't much? sigh

It's high-end because it's Apple. Any more performance, and it'd be a supercomputer. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4182/is_19990907/ai_...

Ha! I forgot about that terrible bit of marketing.
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