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points by jmull 3 days ago | 0 comments

AI Doomer: AI is going to rise up and destroy humanity!

AI Optimist: AI is going usher in an era of unparalleled productivity and achievement

The reality: RAM/Chip prices are way, way up. The starter iPad mini is $700.

The cheapest configuration of the original model was $329 in 2012 [0]. Even when corrected for inflation, that would still be less than $500 in today's money -- so quite a bit less than $700!

Is the comparison unfair because today's model is much more powerful than the one from 14 years ago? Perhaps. But perhaps it shouldn't be compared to the past, but to its relative competitors?

[0] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2012/10/23Apple-Introduces-iP...

[–] mahboi 3 days ago

In 2012, that iPad mini ran YouTube videos at the same resolution as today but without ads!

[–] 650REDHAIR 3 days ago

…progress?

[–] HumblyTossed 3 days ago

Oh I long for the days when every 2 years prices for compute FELL.

[–] Gigachad 3 days ago

On the plus side, devices are designed to last longer, be more repairable and be updated for longer than they were in 2012.

The upfront cost of a device is less important than the total cost of ownership, which highly depends on the lifespan of the device. An ipad that lasts 2.5 years needs to be half the price of one that lasts 5 years.

[–] rcoder 2 days ago

Sorry, but as someone who's owned a v1, the first 12" Pro, a Mini, and now an M4 Pro: hahahaha, no.

Durable, yes. Given how many hours each of my iPads has spend in my kids' hands I can't really complain on that front.

But repairable? Not in any meaningful way. When the battery gets too weak you can use it as a tethered control panel for media or smart home apps; when the screen cracks you can slap a protector on it. Aside from that, any hardware fault outside of warranty means it's DOA.

[–] xattt 3 days ago

Not really unfair, as the basic use case is still the same for either model.

A toilet from a hundred years ago in the same product tier serves the same function as one today. Old models were also more expensive when adjusted for inflation, but today's toilets can tackle more turds with less water.

[–] qlte 3 days ago

The alternative approach leads to those "costs have dropped by 7 orders of magnitude in the last 50 years" style of deceptive graphs popular among people with an agenda to insist AI memory price inflation isn't a real problem.

[–] mahboi 2 days ago

The CPI component for IT does also get adjusted based on quality, but it's not linear. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1WYYo Hm, would you say computers are similar in cost:utility as late 2022? I think that's fair if you aren't looking specifically at GPUs.

[–] mrweasel 3 days ago

> RAM/Chip prices are way, way up

So that cloud providers can have servers and GPUs sitting unpowered in warehouses and datacenters.

[–] dofm 3 days ago

Right. The prices are up for Nvidia’s benefit (and Micron, Sandisk by extension).

I know it’s now a trope to say “an incoming Democratic Congress should…” but there are really serious questions to ask about the means by which Nvidia is securing such a radically high value buy-and-hold strategy, and whether it amounts to deceptive channel stuffing.

The whole tech industry is using apparent demand for Blackwell GPUs as a proxy for AI demand, when this is a wholly broken metric because Nvidia seems to be gaming it, and everyone (consumer and business alike) is paying more as a result.

[–] paxy 3 days ago

How does AI explain the mini being $250 more expensive than the regular 11-inch iPad?

[–] m463 3 days ago

> How does AI explain

  12 reasons why the iPad Mini is $250 more expensive than iPad 11-inch:

  1) ...

[–] hbn 3 days ago

The iPad mini is not a mini version of the base model iPad. It's more or less a scaled down iPad Air.

[–] paxy 3 days ago

Sure, but that tells you that the upgraded specs and pricing is a conscious decision made by Apple, not something forced by AI. Making an entry-level small screen equivalent of the 11-inch iPad is always an option. They’re choosing not to take it.

[–] hbn 3 days ago

Memory and storage is expensive as hell, so they're gonna ration it for their more expensive devices.

Same reason this year, for the first time ever, Apple announced their new Pro phones (and the ultra-expensive Duo) but no base-model iPhone 18. They're paying more for memory so they're gonna use it on the devices where they make more on a sale.

[–] dofm 3 days ago

When did Apple last refresh that? (not a rhetorical question sorry!)

[–] paxy 3 days ago

It got a price bump 3 months ago.

[–] asdff 3 days ago

The whole supply demand spherical cow model of capitalism really breaks down when suppliers decide they'd collectively use their cartel to not engage in demand and instead gouge prices.

[–] KetoManx64 3 days ago

It doesn't, capitalism is the free association without coercsion. When the government can mandate that you cannot sell certain GPUs to customers in specific areas or that your model is too scary and you must shut it down and can give or take government contracts that are work hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, and the federal reserve will bail out the banks If they make mistakes, you have a crony capitalist environment that has very little to do with the free market.

[–] flaunf221 3 days ago

> The reality: RAM/Chip prices are way, way up. The starter iPad mini is $700.

This has tiny 128 GB of storage and unknown but obviously not too high amount of RAM. At best 16, but probably less.

That's just Apple beeing greedy as usual.

[–] spiderice 3 days ago

Apple was "greedy" before too and were able to sell it cheaper. So obviously they're being impacted by increased storage/memory/whatever prices.

[–] flaunf221 3 days ago

More like they were not able to find a pretext to sell it for more.

I can open my local store and will see shitty 8/128 Android tablets for less than 150 euro. If memorypocalypse was the main reason for pricing new ipad mini as it is, the budget tablet segment would be completely dead because manufacturers just wouldn't be able to afford memory at all.

[–] mrheosuper 3 days ago

Is it new model or from last year, the shortage only began in last year.