I have configured a new MBP with the M2 chip a few times when I consider upgrading my laptop mix. I'm still pretty happy with an Air M1, Lenovo X1 Carbon (6th gen) and a big ThinkPad P17. But the cost comes in well over $3K on a config that I think is "worth it." I understand that you can amortize it over quite a long period and at some point I just might buy it. But at that price point it keeps ending up as a "not click" buy for me.
Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales
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Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales
#582The 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…
Come on, at least the Mexican peso has appreciated considerably this last year. Swiss francs, BTC.
Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales
#583Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, macs are high quality and last a long time. My wife needed a laptop for class a year ago, so I gave her my old macbook pro 13 i bought in 2014. I also had a macbook air m1 for personal use, which I replaced recently with a macbook pro 14 m1, and planned to give my wife the air. She refuses the air bc she likes the old 13 so much, and she abuses the shit out of it. How often does a laptop go strong for 9 years?…
My dad bought an 11" MacBook Air in 2011 - I think it was the cheapest possible Mac you could get at the time (maybe $900-$1000?) But I really wanted him to be on MacOS. He basically never used it as a laptop, and it's been plugged in to an external monitor and keyboard for many years. He used to stack paper on top of it until I told him to stop it so it could vent better. I would update the software, but I think it'…
I dump my old macbooks on friends and family when I do an upgrade for speed reasons. I usually rotate every 2-4 years. My parents are still using a 2014 air that I got out of a box my previous employer was going to send to recycling. It's probably about time to upgrade them. They generally have the same usecase. They use iPads for most things, but sometimes they want a physical keyboard. They have rejected generally the ipad keyboards as 'weird'.
Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales
#584In 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…
It's always been an upper middle class, aspirational middle class affair no?
Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales
#585In 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…
FWIW, macs are high quality and last a long time. My wife needed a laptop for class a year ago, so I gave her my old macbook pro 13 i bought in 2014. I also had a macbook air m1 for personal use, which I replaced recently with a macbook pro 14 m1, and planned to give my wife the air. She refuses the air bc she likes the old 13 so much, and she abuses the shit out of it. How often does a laptop go strong for 9 years?…
lenovo makes better workhorses than apple. you seem to be attributing the plateau of necessary machine performance to apple's quality. the reality is that for general computation no one really needs more machine than was produced in ~2010.
you simply don't need to upgrade computers like you did in the 90s and early 2000s.
Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales
#586Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's crazy. In the USA, $2000 gets a m2 air with 24GB ram and 1TB drive. The cheapest option is $1200. Is there added taxes / tarrifs for the european prices? That's much worse than just the EUR/USD exchange rate.
I'm not advocating evading customs tax or anything illegal but I know many people who bring a laptop or phone back home for a relative everytime they go to the US.
Our Hyderabad associates tend to do that every time they come visit our office. Or they did, when we still had an office. It also helps that we don't have sales tax in Oregon.
Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales
#587Earlier quoted context omitted.
Peter Zeihans insistance on birth rate is a bit silly. Most developed countries, including the USA are in the 1.5-1.7 range. There are outliers like France that are higher. There isn't this huge demographic difference between Europe and the US. He is selling his message to American conservatives, so I guess the one who pays the piper calls the tune. I don't think he cares about immigration much.
Can't disagree but the biggest target of his demographics argument is always East Asia, and the numbers there are truly dismal. S. Korea's latest numbers were 0.78. I really don't know how a population can ever recover from that
They easily could by actually putting in family friendly policies into place and abandoning the educational policies which turned childhood in Korea into a constant drill 24/7.
Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales
#588In 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…
> 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.
I wonder why the Apple executive leadership doens't come together and say:
1. let's lower prices
2. let's keep prices the same but offer 16GB + 512GB of storage
my hypothetical retort would be "they don't need to if people keep buying their product" but, if the article headline is true about sales being down, then they need to run some kind of sale or re-evaulate i guess
i wonder what their margins are on their M2 Mac line of hardware
> It is generally believed that Apple has a profit margin of around 40-45% on its products.
> Using the mid-point of that range (42.5%), we can approximate the hypothetical cost of manufacturing an Apple M2 laptop as follows:
> Hypothetical Cost = Sale Price / (1 + Margin)
> Hypothetical Cost = $1200 / (1 + 0.425)
> Hypothetical Cost = $842.11
Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales
#589Earlier quoted context omitted.
The MacBook Air has been solid since inception, and that machine is good enough for the vast majority of people.
It kills me that I can only get ONE external monitor. It would otherwise be perfect.
Check out the DisplayLink stuff. I think it works pretty well. I even devote one DisplayLink screen to security cameras (4-6 640x480 cameras at 15fps). I also use that screen to play YouTube videos, if I'm following along with something
It handles it just fine at 8-10% CPU usage on an M1.
Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales
#590Earlier 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…
> AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people. Try getting a green card even as a trained European. Good luck :) Not that I'd ever be interested in living in the US. I prefer a country with a decent social security safety net and socialized healthcare. And where people can't just run around carrying guns. Spain is not perfect but I have way fewer things to worry about here. So I can relax and enjoy…
You are buying into a distorted image of the typical US population experience. Access to healthcare is pretty much instant and high quality for all but the very bottom of the society. 85%+ of the population can get an appointment within a day or two and if it’s urgent can access numerous urgent care clinics with almost no wait.
Best I can tell for many European countries the situation is significantly worse in terms of access.
There is a lot of strange misconceptions about US quality of life from people in other countries.