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

#331

Post by fourseventy » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:56 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…

They are a trillion dollar company. I think they have their pricing and profit margins well in hand.

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

#332

Post by senttoschool » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:56 PM UTC

donkeyd wrote: post #266

drooopy wrote: post #32

In my case, I feel that Apple has priced itself out of the EU market with the latest Macs and iDevices. The new base M2 Air begins at €1500 after taxes which is genuinely an absurd amount of money to ask for a device that comes with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively. The cheapest iPhone 14 starts at a bit over €1000. My plan is to keep my entry-level M1 Air for a few more years and then I'm…

Almost exactly 2 years ago, I bought an M1 Air for €1050. That same M1 Air is still being sold by that same store, but now costs €1126. That's a 7% rise in price for a laptop that's now 2,5 years old. This is just ridiculous.

Adjust for inflation and exchange rate.

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

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Post by liminal » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:56 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #248

liminal wrote: post #214

Work just bought me a new M2 Macbook Pro. It works great, but it's SO UGLY! I was really surprised to have such a negative emotional response to a new Apple product.

How is it ugly? Boxy design?

Very boxy, the lines and curves all just feel "off" somehow. It just lacks elegance. The previous Intel Mac was thinner and just felt more refined. Having a machine that works better is a fair trade, but it's unfortunate to have a negative emotional reaction to seeing/touching it.

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

#334

Post by raverbashing » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:56 PM UTC

slowmotiony wrote: post #274

drooopy wrote: post #32

In my case, I feel that Apple has priced itself out of the EU market with the latest Macs and iDevices. The new base M2 Air begins at €1500 after taxes which is genuinely an absurd amount of money to ask for a device that comes with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively. The cheapest iPhone 14 starts at a bit over €1000. My plan is to keep my entry-level M1 Air for a few more years and then I'm…

Electronics prices in the EU are simply crazy. Recently i wanted to get a small mini-PC that would be energy efficient and I could run some AI experiments on. Reading online forums, everyone's like "just get a mac mini, couple hundred bucks and you're golden". I check the apple website and turns out they actually cost almost a thousand euro for the 16GB/256GB model. But its the same with a lot of other electronics to…

The 16/512 M2 model lists in the US website for $1300, not sure about the previous model but doesn't look the prices are that different

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

#335

Post by rubyn00bie » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:56 PM UTC

This is the longest I’ve ever gone without purchasing a Mac like 20 years... something like 7 years now. Their offerings aren’t compelling for the price. Apple should have a massive competitive advantage in price, but instead of passing that down in anyway they’ve been keeping it to themselves.

Additionally, while they kill it in perf per watt, sometimes I just want performance. Ex. their current GPUs don’t compare well to NVidia but the machines are priced like they do.

Machines used to get more base RAM over time but they don’t anymore. I’m shocked 16GB isn’t the standard on every machine they sell. It should be cheap to get to 32GB. The base SSD is absolutely shameful, Apple at the price should have a TB minimum. It’s fucking 2023 for godsakes, it’s been like 10+ years of fucking people for a useful amount of storage. Isn’t that enough?

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

#336

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:56 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.

> mac air is a luxury item

8GB of Ram is luxury?

Rolls Royce is luxury. Luxury means status. A gold plated car is luxury ( for some). It's a whole different league.

Macbooks used to be premium - better performance, better experience. Limited storage is not premium.

If Porshe releases a car with 30 horsepower, and asks for £100,000, we have a word for that.

A joke.

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

#337

Post by Vogtinator » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

snapcaster wrote: post #160

ricardobayes wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile a lenovo is 800 EUR for a 11th gen i5, 16GB RAM and a 3050ti. As someone with a value investing mindset, I personally can't find the extra value for double the money in macs.

I think "commodity" laptop manufacturers have successfully tricked people into thinking a laptop is a collection of integers (16gb RAM, N core processor, etc) but I have NEVER used a laptop even close to as performant as the m1 and m1 ultra based macbook pros. You really have to experience it to believe it, it literally never lags no matter what or is ever unresponsive regardless of what i'm doing. Not to mention the…

> it literally never lags no matter what or is ever unresponsive regardless of what i'm doing

That's more the OS scheduling and userspace software than actual hardware. I don't experience any lag even on my father's 10yr old laptop.

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

#338

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

altcognito wrote: post #267

chii wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 would love to hear more macOS users admit that their equipment was a status indicator, overpriced for what it is. I’m sure apple is excited about cultivating this brand identity. If there is one way I can think that they could get away from the “Sony” or Nike model, it’s being seen as a luxury item, a tool of the select few, instead of just a high quality brand, that yes, might be a little more expensive. -- Just a…

Yes, it is just a status symbol. It couldn’t have anything to do with its speed, 16 hour battery life, or it not sounding like a 747 the minute you open too many Chrome tabs.

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

#339

Post by baal80spam » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

lifty wrote: post #138

vardump wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm typing this on a Macbook M2 max with 32 GB RAM. Not all that much open and the memory usage is at 27 GB. Chrome, Teams etc. messaging apps, Xcode and other SW dev stuff. Kinda regret I didn't go for 64 GB.

I somehow doubt that. Look at Cached files and subtract that number from Memory used, and tell us please that number.

FWIW, with only Chrome (several windows, multiple tabs, rebooted a few weeks ago) open I'm at:

Physical Memory: 32,00 GB

Memory Used: 21 GB

Cached Files: 10,45 GB

Swap Used: 0 GB

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

#340

Post by liminal » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

rcarmo wrote: post #235

liminal wrote: post #214

Work just bought me a new M2 Macbook Pro. It works great, but it's SO UGLY! I was really surprised to have such a negative emotional response to a new Apple product.

Ugly? It looks exactly like the previous gen.

Yup, I skipped the previous gen. My last laptop was the Intel MBP. This one works so much better, so it's a fair trade, but unfortunate to have to trade so much form for function.