Why are the MAC's and apple stuff so expensive?

[BeaverBender]

I bet those vaporous people you speak of with 80" tv's are sitting far away from the screen if they can't perceive the difference... Either that or they are the same brilliant people who can't tell the difference between low-def and high-def.

 

[bliz]

Calm down^^This is not the topic:bleh: Make another topic to dicuss about that if you want :bleh:...:thumb:

 

[BeaverBender]

Just responding to the previous post. Hey, who are you telling to chillax? Them's are fightin' words LOL

 

[Desiato]

There's no point in arguing about something so subjective. If a 2880x1800 15.4 inch display is worth the $howevermuch premium to someone, then none of us can dispute that.

With that said, it's not worth the premium to me; nor is any Apple product. But I'm a function over form kind of guy.

Personally, I may be willing to pay a $200-300 premium for a display like this if offered for a product I might otherwise buy--a list that does not include a Macbook.

 

[bliz]

+1:thumb:

 

[BeaverBender]

There's no point in arguing about something so subjective. If a 2880x1800 15.4 inch display is worth the $howevermuch premium to someone, then none of us can dispute that.

With that said, it's not worth the premium to me; nor is any Apple product. But I'm a function over form kind of guy.

Personally, I may be willing to pay a $200-300 premium for a display like this if offered for a product I might otherwise buy--a list that does not include a Macbook.

So, you seem to have contradictory points there. If you prefer function over form you should like more pixels... Form would suggest that you would want something just for its aesthetics. More pixels IS higher function btw.

 

[Canker]

Pretty good troll effort by OP.

There is no one single reason why someone buys anything.

Apple have probably got their variables used in calculating price elasticity down exact. This is why they charge the premium they do.

Price elasticity of demand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Apple keeps their pricing pretty static, most of the time they're apt to release a new product with varying (or less) degrees of features instead of dropping their existing inventory price to catch people in the demand curve without having to lower their price and risk eroding their brand. Lately they have strayed from this strategy, now selling the iPad 2, iPhone 4S and last gen model of iPod touch at a small discount over the newest models. If they continue doing this it will be pretty clear they have found the tradeoff worth it, although in the long run it will probably damage their reputation, then again they could be doing it to compete with their existing customers trying to sell their old equipment in the hope of upgrading to the newest.

Anyway, by keeping their retail prices high they ensure higher margins, and create a perception of value which generally does not exist outside their computer ecosystem. Their competitors are often competing with platforms having the same parity of hardware and software specifications with each other. Apple have a competitive advantage over them in that that their operating system will not officially run outside of their own hardware, so their competitors can't as easily be compared since they run a different operating system.

Apple may not be the first to release a new feature or product, but they're large enough of a company that if they introduce it before their biggest competitors they gain First-mover advantage.

So, to answer why people buy Apple products, IMO it is because people genuinely like the interface and features Apple introduce to them and because Apple tries not to discount their products too much before being replaced there is a strong perception in value, reinforced by their higher price. Of course, there are some who just follow the herd, all the more power to them; every business loves herd mentality and each company has their own herd.

If you want to see an example of Price Elasticity in action, fix someone's computer for free or near free. Many times the person who got the free repair will question the quality of work you deliver and treat you the same as a shade-tree mechanic, and any suggestion you give them to keep their rig running will be ignored. Not all the time of course, but I'm sure anyone who does IT has experienced this.

It probably does not help that many shade-tree IT people resort to warez because the cost of including retail/OEM software would leave home built computers at a disadvantage over HP, Dell, Acer, etc...

 

[bliz]

Thank you Cranker,very informative post, i didn't know all that,reading now

 

[BeaverBender]

Yes, well said Canker.

 

[Desiato]

So, you seem to have contradictory points there. If you prefer function over form you should like more pixels... Form would suggest that you would want something just for its aesthetics. More pixels IS higher function btw.

Function over form: For me, in this context, this means the hardware and the OS. Some examples: iFixit called the Retina MBP the least repairable notebook they've disassembled; I tend to replace the battery at least once and may perform multiple upgrades and/or cleanings on each notebook I own. I do not like Apple keyboards. Apple notebooks have long sacrificed standard functions such as these, as well as thermal performance, for--IMO--aesthetics.

Personally: I prefer Windows 7 and Thinkpads.

With that said, I do not anticipate a pixel density of 220PPI would increase my productivity in any way. On the contrary, I've read of display related performance issues on Retina MBP. For example:

With the integrated Intel HD 4000 and discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics units responsible for driving 2880x1800 pixels in standard Retina mode and as many as 3840x2400 pixels before downscaling to display 1920x1200 at its highest non-Retina resolution, Apple is clearly pushing the limits of the machine's graphics capabilities.At the default setting, either Intel’s HD 4000 or NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 650M already have to render and display far more pixels than either GPU was ever intended to. At the 1680 and 1920 settings however the GPUs are doing more work than even their high-end desktop counterparts are used to.
AnandTech goes on to assess this graphics performance, noting that the Retina MacBook Pro at times struggles to maintain a "consistently smooth experience".At 2880 x 1800 most interactions are smooth but things like zooming windows or scrolling on certain web pages is clearly sub-30fps. At the higher scaled resolutions, since the GPU has to render as much as 9.2MP, even UI performance can be sluggish. There’s simply nothing that can be done at this point - Apple is pushing the limits of the hardware we have available today, far beyond what any other OEM has done.
Focusing on browser scrolling behavior, which also involves substantial CPU load, AnandTech notes that the resource-intensive Facebook news feed pages can display at over 50 frames per second on a 2011 MacBook Pro, but that the new Retina MacBook Pro struggles to hit 20 frames per second as it pushes so many more pixels.

Retina MacBook Pro Pushes the Limits of its Graphics Capabilities - Mac Rumors
AnandTech - The next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina Display Review

So no, I wouldn't consider the Retina display an example of function over form for my purposes. Perhaps to others, it's worth the drawbacks. Off the top of my head, the pixel density would be useful for smartphone and ipad 3 development, exceedingly small text for a small percentage of coders/spreadsheet users and some content developers; many content developers will not benefit from this pixel density because it is so different than most design targets. For example, if you're developing web or PC/Console gaming content, this pixel density probably doesn't help.

To each their own. Whatever works best for you.