Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#181

Post by ducknalddon » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:16 PM UTC

hankchinaski wrote: post #12

The only way I buy new MacBooks now is I try to keep it as long as possible as upgrade only to the oldest and cheapest available model. Last time I bought a m1 Mac air for a bargain price. That’s the only way I’m getting real value. The newest models are simply overpriced. Until they launch something new and discount the current models to a decent price. Same goes for iphones

>The newest models are simply overpriced.

If Apple overpriced their gear as much as people complain then they wouldn't be one of the largest corporations on the planet. That doesn't mean it makes sense for you of course but I'm sure they spend a lot of time considering how they are going to price their products.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#182

Post by vladvasiliu » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:16 PM UTC

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #150

enlyth wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from this, if you're an enthusiast who likes to build their own PC, component prices have gone insane. A flagship GPU is 2000 dollars, and motherboards are priced so high that Gamer's Nexus decided to do a 25 minute video rant about it. The returns are diminishing, it's not worth to get a 4090 RTX with DDR5 and a compatible mobo, if for 1/3 of the price you can get 90% of the performance with a used 3090 and DD…

reckon we're also entering the territory where even older hardware is "good enough", especially since so much work is now in the browser. My 4 year old Thinkpad runs fast enough that I won't feel the need to upgrade for a while. My other 5 year old Macbook is the same. I also built a desktop 2 years ago and that's so smooth and fast that unless something physically breaks, I can easily stretch it out for 5 years.

This. My gaming computer is a 10 or 11 year old machine, whenever the first motherboards with PCIE 3 came out. Only the GPU is relatively recent (an AMD RX5000 series). It works well enough even for recent games. The limiting factor is the GPU VRAM if I want to play in 4k.

Sure, my work zen 3 laptop is somewhat faster for compiling and stuff and only eats a fraction of the power, but for what I do, it wouldn't make enough of a difference to justify buying a new computer.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#183

Post by noneeeed » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:17 PM UTC

GeekyBear wrote: post #5

Given the state of the PC market it would be shocking if Mac sales were not also affected. >The PC market has experienced its largest decline ever, according to analyst Gartner. Preliminary results by Gartner shows that worldwide PC shipments totalled 65.3 million units in the fourth quarter of 2022, a 28.5% decrease from the fourth quarter of 2021. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252529126/PC-industry-se...

Thanks for putting this in context. I'm sure there are issues specific to Apple, but the entire market has hit the buffers at the moment.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#184

Post by enlyth » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:17 PM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #171

Dalewyn wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>motherboards are priced so high Only if you go for the really stupid RGB "gamer" motherboards sprinkled with more fairy dust than sense. Something like this ASUS Prime Z690-P[1] is reasonably priced at just north of ~$200, it even has luxuries like 2.5gig ethernet and onboard wireless. If you want a DDR5 setup, this ASUS Prime Z690-A[2] is still ~$260 with plenty of luxuries. If you can do without a top-tier chipset…

What even is the point of "top-tier" chipsets? Like why would one ever pay extra?

It's not just about the chipset, due to market segmentation and companies trying to squeeze the most out of the consumer, basic features like 7 segment displays are missing on mobos which aren't the highest tier.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#185

Post by ducknalddon » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:18 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #96

Luxury brands usually do better than people expect during a recession, surprising to see. Apple product prices are far too high for the struggles of the working poor or proletariat to notice. Apple's always been a 1%-er aspirational purchase and that income sector is doing fine. The problem I've seen WRT apple is techie type people see specs and salivate over the numbers, but the subjective experience of this years p…

>Apple's always been a 1%-er aspirational purchase and that income sector is doing fine.

Apple has more than 50% of the US market for phones. 10% for PC's.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#186

Post by spaceman_2020 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:19 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #158

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of Peter Zeihan, I'm also utterly surprised that no one even brings up the demographics debate. Everyone has been so indoctrinated on the "we have too many people" propaganda that they haven't even realized how fast birth rates have dropped across the globe (and they're dropping even faster now). The demographics of Europe, China, Japan and S. Korea are all terminal at this point. Outside of UK, France, and t…

> Outside of UK, France, and to some extent, Germany, most of these countries don't even have an immigrant culture to make up for the shortfall. Not really true, for example: Sweden has been doing above EU average on both immigration and higher birth rates (for its development level) to account for the shortfall, it's not that clear cut in Europe as a whole.

Fair, but Sweden's population is just too small to make any meaningful impact on Europe as a whole.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#187

Post by spaceman_2020 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:20 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #164

piva00 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right but completely missing the point. The case is not that the PM couldn't have access to a Macbook if they so wanted but that it'd take the head of government of a country a whole month of their take-home salary to afford one. It's quite absurd, not the accessibility for the PM but to give a hint to how the average person of said country would definitely be priced out.

But a mac air is a luxury item, and its pricing reflects that. I don't think it's absurd at all. A similarly capable laptop could be had for a much lower price, so people that complain they cannot get this luxury item for an "affordable" price just sounds entitled to me.

I'm not asking for Apple to reduce prices - that's their prerogative.

I'm simply pointing out the absurdy of the pricing in context of this news story about falling sales.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#188

Post by baq » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:21 PM UTC

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #74

pigsty wrote: post #30

The dollar is insanely strong right now and global Mac prices raised in accordance with that. In places that don’t use USD, prices shot up by tens of percent overnight while the US prices are the same as ever. Japan, for example, got a price increase of about 40% on all items. Unsurprisingly, sales declined.

> The dollar is insanely strong right now This is a bigger story that isn’t being told properly often. The recent BRICS currency move is about them panicking over increasing dollar global dominance. Checking recently I can’t find any major currency that is up against the dollar over last 10 years. US productivity is running away from the rest of the planet is another variable and with rapid on shoring of numerous ind…

There is no alternative. Good that media doesn't report it because there's nothing to report. The dollar is not going away anytime soon.

A good comparison I got from twitter is Amazon credit. If you get $50, yeah it's fine, you'll spend it. If you get $5000 of it, you'll look very, very closely into all options to get your dollars back.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#189

Post by noneeeed » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:21 PM UTC

sfpotter wrote: post #8

Too bad we can’t try to focus on building people computers that last decades.

I don't know about decades, but my son is still using my 2011 Macbook Air. It's had two battery replacements and an SSD upgrade.

My issue is less about the hardware and more about the OS upgrades.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#190

Post by dukeyukey » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:21 PM UTC

ralfn wrote: post #161

masklinn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and that’s always been an issue with Apple products: they set their prices in USD, then set the foreign price using conversions from around release date (plus taxes obviously). That means if the dollar was very strong at release, the machines get very expensive in foreign currency.

Which is weird, because barely any part of it is produced in the US. So it's not that their costs are going up. They are just not realizing they are self sabotaging in terms of opportunity costs. If they adjust prices to purchasing power, with at least 30% profit marge, windows laptops and chromebooks would be having crisis talks right about now. People would prefer the Apple stuff, but not at that price. Even if you…

Produced, no, but designed, programmed, and marketed, yes. And Apple's profits compete with other US companies, so it's products need to be profitable at the current very strong US dollar valuation.