$100 increase for Apple's redesigned Mac mini seen as disappointment - Page 7

What will you do if future DRM no longer allows you to play your digital content? That has happened more than once, so far, hasn't it?

In this case he has taken his content and ripped it into a DRM-less version, so future changes won't have a restriction on him. There have been services who killed off their DRM and left people stranded, but ripping your movies into AVI or whatever will leave you safe for the future

Of course it's a disappointment, what were they thinking with this move? I'd be shocked if they sell many of these at all. And of course there are still a few fanboys around who will defend Apple regardless of how lame and overpriced a given product is.

The problems with this machine were that it was underpowered and too expensive. It was already smaller than it needed to be. So what does apple do? They "fix" the one thing that wasn't broken, keep lousy specs, and raise the price? Could the company be any more tone deaf to what consumers want when it comes to this model?

Seriously, they went to the trouble of a redesign and put all the effort into size, still at the expense of performance and high cost? I'd almost say apple went out of their way to try and get people to NOT buy this model and go with an iMac instead, but then they wouldn't have bothered to redesign. Just amazing how clueless the company is when it comes to desktops.
So where's that affordable midtower that the lineup desperately needs?

The price was too cheap before. Apple was selling too many Mac minis and not enough iMacs; in their opinion.

It's a nice cosmetic upgrade but little in the way of things that count, like speed, memory and value.

I didn't read this properly the first time around, so you have effectively stolen all your movies, and all your music? So when someone from the MPAA, or RIAA comes a knocking, how do you prove to them that you actually own a copy of the phyisical disc when they are dragging you off to court?

Well no, in order to amass such vast profits, it means their margins are high enough to allow it, so they could make their products more affordable and still be a very profitable company.


Yeah but it's the wrong half. Helping out the poor was really Robin Hood's whole appeal as you mentioned at the end of your post.


Ok but it's not like even buying an expensive car because with computers you buy into an eco-system and with Apple a very tight-knit one. So all your apps, all your documents, filesystem, plugins and so on are invested in this platform. You have made the decision to purchase a machine from Apple at a certain price point and you are completely setup in this system. Then you look for an upgrade and Apple moves your comfortable price point. The Mini last year was £499, which is quite a comfortable price but it was £399 or £449 or something before that. It now sits at £650. The Mac Pro was once £1449 and is now £1899.

If you bought into the Mac ecosystem at £449 or £1449, where's the upgrade path? There isn't one, they just show you the door back to PC hell.


They wouldn't necessarily make no profit, they just have to make better decisions about how to build it.


We know the bill of materials for the last Mini:

http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns-Man...own-Shows.aspx

Cost to build was $376 for the $599 model. Now we don't know if those are the prices Apple pays for components and we don't know the R&D costs, software costs etc and if we assumed a $100 drop, it seems fairly certain they make next to no profit at all. But, if they built the new one with a $599 price point in mind then they could reach it as they have done in the past. The superdrive removal should reduce the cost by over $50, using a smaller HDD in the base model would save about the same. If they reduced their profits by even a small amount and threw in an extra 2GB RAM, it would have been great:

50% smaller not 25%, $599 price point, 160 or 250GB space, 4GB RAM, no optical that hardly anybody uses anyway and can be bought for $50. It has an SD slot so ship the OS on an SD card or USB stick.


Yep, we just have to accept it but it's exactly what you are saying. You won't get one, I probably won't get one but it looks like a great machine. What's the point? What's the point in building such a great machine that people won't buy? It remains to be seen if a majority of people won't buy it but I reckon it won't be the same people who bought the older models.


The HDD looks quite accessible in this picture - it's the black square at the back:

http://slideshow.techworld.com/32271...inside-look/8/

but it's not clear if it can be removed at that angle or not.


No, I mean due to the price increase of the iPhone. I won't be getting the new Mini due to the price increase. If you take a sum total of that, it would amount to over $1,000 profit margins for Apple they won't get as a result. Apparently Apple make $400 profit per phone but there will be other costs so the total of 5 phones is probably about $1,000 and the Mini would be $100-150.


I absolutely love the design to get to the RAM. If the HDD replacement is easy then I'd say the design was worth doing but I'd have preferred them to cut costs in other ways to maintain the $599 price.

I'd wager that you could live on less money than you're making now so you wouldn't object to a salary cut, right?

If you don't like it, why should Apple shareholders?


That's a foolish argument. Just because you buy one Mac doesn't mean your next computer has to be a Mac.





First, all those prices are just guesses.

Second, you don't have any idea what the cost is for some key components - the new milled aluminum case, for example.

Third, you're ignoring all the overhead costs (your simply pulling a number out of thin air doesn't count).

Finally, and most importantly, COST DOESN'T MATTER. Apple sets the price where they think they'll get the most profit. Lower the price too much and volume goes up but profits drop. Increase it too much and profits per computer go up but total profits drop due to lower volume. Your silly "Apple is allowed to make this much margin or I'll cry" argument is worthless.



Where did you see a price increase for the phone? The phone's price hasn't changed.


Then design your own systems if you think you can do it better than Apple. They're not there to satisfy you. They're there to maximize profits by satisfying the maximum number of customers at a price that maximizes profits. Apple's entire business model for the past 10 years has revolved around NOT cutting corners to shave off a few dollars. Why should they throw out the model that has earned them tens of billions of dollars just because you and a few other whiners are cheap?

I disagree with pretty much everything you've said but this sentence is the crux of the issue and why we'll never agree. I believe in a free market system. All for-profit companies should price their goods to make as much profit as possible for themselves and their investors.

Assuming they aren't an illegal monopoly or acting anti-competitively they should price their products for their market. If they can get away with selling their goods for a premium price because the competition is poor then it's up to the competition to force them to lower their prices, not for the successful company to cripple itself. Capitalism FTW!


PS: This reminds me of the stories about schools giving the students with less aptitude and focus a better grade than they deserve to bolster their self esteem. Frak that!

Where did you ever get that from?

I could swallow that IF Apple had not stiffed consumers on necessities like RAM and storage. Many people (like me) would need more than 2Gb RAM and certainly greater than the pathetic 320Gb drive. 4Gb RAM + a 500Gb disk would add about $140 or so, depending on where you buy and the type of drive. You could sell the stock 320Gb drive for...$35 maybe?

So the new Mini is $699 + $105 for a decently equipped model. Why not just tear my heart out, Apple?

It is widely known that the Bill of Materials for most smartphones - including the 3GS, top BlackBerries, Nexus One, etc. - are around $200 per pop. However, since Apple is not selling the iPhone 4 unlocked in the States, we don't know how much retail value to attach to it.

Let's assume that the base iPhone 4 costs $350 to manufacture; in the UK it's £499 ($733), so Apple's UK profit is at least close to $400 a phone.

Generally, Apple is aiming for 150-200% profit margin on the iPhone, and I have no problem with it because the 4 is a premium product. The Mac Mini? Not so much.

Because streaming 1080p, uncompressed video is unachievable in the foreseeable future, for anyone without an absurdly expensive internet account.

I don't know about you folks, but our Shaw.ca 25mbps plan is capped at around 150Gb of data per month. We generally exceed that by quite a bit, but obviously we can't get away with going over that number by something insane like 1Tb.

Uncompressed Blu-Ray movies are generally around 30Gb. Stream that?

Yup, and the best part is we all complain about said high prices but many of us buy at such high prices hence fueling the high prices. Maybe that's capitalism, maybe its just the smooth, sexy, cool Mac/ iPad/ iPhone just beggin to be caressed.

First of all, the UK price includes VAT.

Secondly, your cost of goods do not include cost/resources for R&D, Manufacturing Organization, Customer Support, Shipping, Freight Forwarding, Customs Applications, Packaging, Patent/Government Agency/Legal/Translation/Accounting fees, Marketing/Sales print/electronic/internet materials/service, etc., etc. And note that each of the above activities have to address individual country government/business regulations.

And where did you ever hear that, "Apple is aiming for [a] 150-200% profit margin on the iPhone?"

A 320 GB drive for $35? Where?

For all your needs, why are you thinking mini? Doesn't your MPB suffice?

And since you spend over $96 a month, what?, to download 30 GB movies, which would take nearly 3 hours to download over your High Speed Warp service, you are complaining about $105?

For a faster processor, better graphics, double the drive, great power efficiencies, SD Card Slot, HDMI output, improved wireless performance, etc.,* who is trying to stiff whom here?

Somehow, I will take Macworld's review* over your observations. At least, they got one in their hands before proclaiming their opinion.

*http://www.macworld.com/article/1520...10handson.html

Most of the European posters will acknowledge and account for the VAT - what they often overlook are the higher inherit costs of doing business due to extra government regulation.

Although we seem he'll bent on closing that gap too \

I like my BluRay - and I do buy the occasional mob and more likely a documentary like Life. But most of my movies come from Netflix, and sometimes redbox. Very few movies are worth watching more than once. And if I do buy a BluRay, I just ensure it has the digital copy option. I had no problem getting StarTrek to work with ituenes or my Apple TV.

As much as I loath physical media, I hate to admit that BR will be with us for a while. It's just too cost effective in terms of storage.

I guess I will find out, I have a new Seagate sitting in a box waiting door me to install. I anticipate a huge difference under windows just because windows caching SUCKS - even if you have tons of RAM. OS X appears to be much better, but I think it will still help. We'll see...

Blu-Ray isn't about rebuying old movies; it's about getting the best quality possible for all of a person's purchases and rentals moving forward. Since Blu-Ray players are backwards compatible with DVDs, I dont know why you think you would need to repurchase everything. It's absolutely nothing like the move from VHS to DVD in that regard.

The most likely scenario is that the margins on the new model are the same and the aluminum case costs more so this argument doesn't hold up because inevitably fewer people will buy at this price point so the shareholders make less anyway.

As I said, simply absorbing costs from other profits isn't the solution but to build the product with the lower price points in mind. The Mini didn't really need a unibody enclosure.


Say you bought a £1449 Mac Pro and iwork, Final Cut Pro and Logic and you work for 2 years on projects. You're saying it's trivial to switch to a Windows PC and migrate all that work over when Apple remove your upgrade path?


What Apple have done year after year is move the models down, this year the lowest end handset is £70 higher than last year. It would be more accurate to say that the price hasn't dropped this year. This year's 3GS costs the same as last year's, although it might be slightly more since they cut the storage in half this time from 16GB to 8GB.


Take the old Mini design, make it smaller vertically, add 4 screws on the bottom so you can open it easily. Put in the new internals. Leave it at the same price points. The Macbook went through the same internal spec upgrade and stayed the same price so the cost is the enclosure.


The whole competition thing doesn't really work with Apple on the computer side. With phones it currently does because you can switch from one to another in a single day very easily.

I agree Apple shouldn't hold themselves back from making certain products if they feel they have a market but there has to be limits. What if they had made a $999 Mini and that was all they offered. Would you all be defending the decision? Probably not, so just because you don't have an issue with the current decisions made doesn't mean no one has any right to have a problem with it.

With the low entry price, it was fairly easy to tell a family member to get a Mini, now it's almost impossible once you have to explain that the Mini + monitor + keyboard and mouse will be around £850. That is the cheapest machine you can get from Apple outside of the refurb section and it used to be £650. £650 was already a high entry level when netbooks are £200-300 but Apple don't go with Atom CPUs, which is fine.


http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Makes...ticle15528.htm


That's right. My upgrades on my old Mini came to the price of the new one but now I'd have to upgrade starting at that price. In my case I can use the same parts but it means I have to putty knife the old one, take out the parts and almost gut the new one to put the bits in again and after all that, it would still cost over £300 for the upgrade and the only benefit is the 320M GPU.


Almost none of those things should add to the cost though. The hardware is old, Core 2 Duo is the last generation and the Macbook got the same spec upgrade at the same price. It didn't need a 320GB drive if they had made it easy to access. The current price point is what the second Mini was, except it was 2.53GHz with 4GB RAM. Apple pretty much cut out the low end model.

If this was iPhone OS v1.x I'd agree with you, but with the App Store I don't think it's that easy anymore and for the same reasons you have for it being harder for customers to switch PC OSes. I have spent more money on iPhone OS apps than I have on Mac OS apps. I install and use very few paid apps for Mac OS X, which include iStat Menus and 1Password. Perhaps I'm unusual in this case, but I don't play computer games and don't often need Office or iWork, so the trial works for me or those few and far between uses.

dell: base studio XPS 7100- 500$: Athlon2 x4 proccessor (2.8 ghz 2mb), ATI 4200 intigrated (128mb) 3GB DDR3 1333 ram, 500GB 7200 rpm HDD.

dell inspiron 15 (laptop): $978 (would be less, but u can't custimize i3 laptops)- 2.53 ghz C2D 3mb cache, 4GB ram (DDR2, can't custimize i3 laptops >.<) 256mb graphics (dedicated) this is a LAPTOP and a worse version (startd at celron, probably coulda saved a bit)

dell studio 15: (laptop): $894- i3 laptops (basic 2.13 ghz, better then C2D at high clock due to L3 and 32nm) 1GB ATI 5470, 4GB DRR3 1066

HP: Dv6z: 829 (may change HP is always between 100-300 off on most notebooks): AMD Phenom 2 x2 2.8GHz (2mb) 512 ATI 5470 (switchable) 320Gb 7200 rpm, 4GB DDR3

HPDv5t: 879 (see last pharagraph for info): 4GB DDR3, 2.26GHZ i3 3mb L3, 320GB 7200 HDD, 512 ATI 5470 (switchable)

i did not add in win7 ult as some1 else did, but its laptops beating a desktop (with laptop parts) however laptops have screens!!! mine all had 15.4 or 15.6 i believe, and then the desktop- (oh shit its huge, world is ending!) is $500 and beats mini in everything but GPU (could be upgraded to an ATI 5450 for $50, and a superior phenom + the 5770 for $220 (same clock, 512kb L2 and 4mb L3 + better architecture)

and as for using ult edition- hp and dells prices are different... just checked MS and win7 ult is $100 more then win7 home premium (added $100 to all prices)

this also makes your zino cost 593.99. also every mb of cache increases performance like 3-8%... a show of what affects % performance is: cores> clock > cache (you should have 2+ m fo cache for games and 1+ for everyday multitasking (word/ie/ppt) and 512 is fine for a task, maybe two.

also article talked about using i7's... its pointless... xeon better performance at same clock than i7's

I guess this will replace the ridiculous AppleTV.

Well said.

To Ohka, our family shares the connection, so it's not like I pay the $100 bill by myself. I am not in the market for a Mac Mini, but I can spot a rip off when I see it. Apple is charging $100 more just for the unibody case. Everything else should be expected as a regular refresh/update WITHOUT a price increase. Almost every Mac DROPS in price from time to time.

As for the $35 comment, good luck trying to sell a used 320Gb drive for much more than that. You might find a buyer at $45 if you hold out long enough.

Of course BoM doesn't include anything outside of the materials, but if the Foxonn situation has proven anything, it's that these GNCs pay virtually nothing for each electronic device manufactured. R&D and marketing are the biggest expenses aside from the materials, but Apple made far more than $400 per iPhone 3G and 3GS when you consider how much AT&T charges for termination fees, plans, etc..

150% is a reasonable baseline target for profit margins. I never said that Apple publicly announced that number, did I?

Getting back on topic, how much money has Apple had to spend on R&D and marketing for the Mac Mini in the past few years? I sincerely doubt very much at all.

they probably realized that they need ed to update it like a month ago and rushed to make it smaller and shinier

Call me crazy, but when APple releases a new iPhone, I compare the price for the new model with the launch price of the model before it. 16GB 3GS was 200, 32GB was 300. No price difference here in the US. If you are saying that the 3GS costs more to buy after the iPhone 4 is out than a 3G costs to buy after the 3GS was released...who gives a shit about last generation? Seriously if that is the reason you are using to not buy a Mini, that makes no sense.

I don't know what launch prices were in the UK, so maybe the 3GS 16GB launch price was 70 pounds cheaper than the iPhone 4 16GB, but here in the US it's 0 difference.

In the UK, the 3GS was £449 but the iPhone 4 equivalent is £499 so an increase of £50 ($75). Contract pricing has varied between carriers so it's hard to tell but typical upgrade costs are looking to be around the £200-300 mark, which is way higher than last year.


Well me because I have a 2 generation old iPhone and I would like multitasking, which isn't supported on the 3G.


As I said earlier, the reason not to buy a Mini was due to the Mini price increase (subject of the thread). My reason for not upgrading to the next iPhone is due to the iPhone price hike too.

If the 8GB 3GS had come in at £350 not £419 and the Mac Mini was £599 with 4GB RAM, I'd possibly buy both - at least one of them anyway. If they dropped the Mini to £549 (what it used to be) and had a 160GB drive, it would be fine.

Without those things, the extra cost for me would be:

Mini (£650) + 4GB RAM (£75) + iPhone 3GS 8GB (£419) - old Mini (£450) - old iPhone (£200) = £494

With those changes, the upgrade cost becomes:

Mini with 4GB RAM and smaller 160GB drive (£549) + iPhone 3GS 8GB (£349) - old stuff = £248

The latter I can stretch to, the former not so much. I could obviously pay it up over time like anything but I don't feel like it's worth investing that much in an upgrade after pretty much just one year.

I like the new designs and new features of both the Mini and iPhone as much as anyone but when the price goes up that much, it's disappointing because it's very difficult to justify buying them.


The entry price in the UK is higher too. The entry 3G currently is £350, the new entry point for the 8GB 3GS will be £419. Contracts find ways to absorb the extra by moving the tariffs or requiring longer contracts but the handset prices are higher by £50-70 over last year's options.

New 2010 Mac mini has a SDXC Card Slot! It's a 2.4GHz Intel Core Duo 2 processor a HDMI output well as MiniDisplay Port. Who cares about Blu-Ray! Amazon right now has this Mac mini for $669.99! Amazon Prime has 2-Day Shipping Free or Next Day Delivery for $3.99! What more do you want?

Well, based on the response on this forum and other comments, what many consumers want is the same machine for $600, or the $699 model with 4Gb RAM and 500Gb disk.

Once you upgrade the Mini with more storage, RAM, and a keybord/mouse combo, with the Apple remote, you are looking at around $900 before taxes. That is nearing MacBook territory, folks!

Some of the problems with the Mini can be blamed on Intel because you know that Apple wanted to put an i3/i5 in there but couldn't unless the graphics got crippled in the process. A Mini with an i5 is EMOTIONALLY easier to justify than an old CPU.

Still, no one forced Apple to increase the base price.

I think you're right on all points.

Seems to me much of the mini's increased price/cost can be blamed on the cost of the enclosure; and also probably Apple's desire not to undercut the iMacs and MacBooks.

When the G4 iMac with its swing arm was discontinued years ago, lots of people said it was due to the the excessive cost of the stainless steel arm. You'd think Apple would take cost of parts into account on their lowest cost computer, but no, it's appearance over function as usual.

I think the new Mac mini looks great but its new appearance isn't worth an extra $100 to me.

And what's with Intel? If they can't keep up in the graphics department, they should let someone else help.

They stuck with more storage too. Apple charge $50 to go from 250GB to 320GB in the Macbook. The previous Mini used to have 160GB. Small tweaks here and there would have saved the $100 and as I say, they could have reduced margins by a small amount to hit that point and increase volume. So 250GB drive to save $50 to begin, take a $25 hit in margins, make some other $25 savings somewhere and you get $599.

apple is doomed

WAIT
for700 or so bucks i can turn my 42+plasma into a super res screen mac ?????

i am so stupid