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points by indemnity 1 day ago | 0 comments
Apple never drops prices, never. It will go straight into their margin.

I have an M1 Max but I am not paying 50% more than a few months ago to upgrade.

I have bought Apple laptops since 2004 but I can’t justify the current extortionate pricing, so I’ll sit it out (permanently if need be).

[–] nrmitchi 1 day ago
> Apple never drops prices, never.

The first gen apple TVs were $300.

The second gen was $99.

The first and second 4k gen were $179.

The third gen was $129.

They might not drop prices on existing models, but they have definitely dropped prices on new versions of product lines.

[–] FireBeyond 1 day ago
Ironic that you chose the Apple TV. There's a bit of nuance, and the 3rd gen was $149, not $129 (the latter is Wifi only, when the first two were Wifi+Ethernet).

They then bumped UP the 3rd gen: $249 (+$100) and $199 (+$70).

And the 4th gen has only one option, at $299.

So we've not only "not dropped" prices on the 4K Apple TV, but they've gone up forty per cent.

[–] yreg 1 day ago
So what, they still dropped at times. The claim was that they never drop prices.
[–] stouset 1 day ago
The pricing isn’t extortionate. It’s literally just them having to pass on the insane price of RAM (itself priced due to the massive demand and supply shortage).

And you’re right that Apple is hesitant to change prices on models. But that cuts both ways. Apple notably held off of bumping prices across their product line for a considerable amount of time, very plausibly eating the cost of RAM price increases.

It would definitely be atypical but given the unique and extreme nature of the current situation, I wouldn’t be shocked if they cut prices somewhat once the RAM situation relaxes.

[–] FireBeyond 1 day ago
Right up to the launch of the Apple Silicon Mac Pro in mid 2023, Apple would still happily charge you early 2019 prices for the 2019 Xeon processors in the previous edition, 2019 prices for memory and flash (I ordered mine with 32 and used OWC to go to 192GB, because for the exact same chips, spec, timings, OWC wanted $1,050 for 192GB, and Apple wanted $3,000 for 160GB, i.e. minus the 32GB already rolled into the price. Similar $1K to $3K margin for 8TB of SSD - I bought a PCIe card with 4x2TB Samsung Pro drives).
[–] bhouston 1 day ago
> Apple never drops prices, never. It will go straight into their margin.

They have dropped the price of the MacBook Air a few years ago and the Mac Mini as well. So your statement is categorically false.

That said, with cpu, ram and storage prices the way they are right now, prices won't be dropping soon. But there is hope long term.

[–] intrasight 1 day ago
Inflation means they drop the price by not raising the price.
[–] 2muchcoffeeman 1 day ago
Spoken like someone who’s not tried to buy any computer anywhere in the last year.

All the pricing is bad everywhere.

[–] jwilcoxson 1 day ago
They do drop prices from time to time, they just don’t do the live market pricing Dell and Lenovo do where it can change day to day.

I hear you though on the cost. The Mac Mini was a killer deal a year ago, especially if you could get it on sale for <$500. Not today though.

[–] whizzter 1 day ago
Apple knows how much of a premium they can charge vs other manufacturers, if everyone else starts dropping they will as well.