You can call it form-over-function, but form is a function. the AIO concept is very appealing to many, as the increased sales of the iMac has shown. By your assessment of the Apple Tax, anyone that pays for an OS or buying any notebook is paying too much HW and SW when their are cheaper alternatives that do basically the same stuff. Hell, even buying a new CPU is a ripoff as you can get by with older processors that are sold for a much lower price.
Yeah, but, at the moment the AIO is all apple offers anywhere near its price and performance range.
To someone who just cares about what's on the screen, and not what the screen is on, they're either horribly overpriced or disappointingly underpowered. And the Mini just doesn't have the specs to do certain home use activities well, and its price is closer to what you would expect to pay for desktop equivalents of a mid-range iMac.
Unless, of course, you simply want to ignore that whole market segment for whom AIO is not a desired feature. But the fact that Apple hasn't released a desktop with equivalent specs or prices in the iMac range suggests that even they believe that a significant fraction of iMac buyers are simply putting up with the AIO design and its extra cost in order to get what they consider is the real value of an Apple system: reliability, usability, and good support.
Yeah, but, at the moment the AIO is all apple offers anywhere near its price and performance range.
To someone who just cares about what's on the screen, and not what the screen is on, they're either horribly overpriced or disappointingly underpowered. And the Mini just doesn't have the specs to do certain home use activities well, and its price is closer to what you would expect to pay for desktop equivalents of a mid-range iMac.
Unless, of course, you simply want to ignore that whole market segment for whom AIO is not a desired feature. But the fact that Apple hasn't released a desktop with equivalent specs or prices in the iMac range suggests that even they believe that a significant fraction of iMac buyers are simply putting up with the AIO design and its extra cost in order to get what they consider is the real value of an Apple system: reliability, usability, and good support.
What you are describing in your dislike for AIOs and Apple's mini desktop using notebook-grade components is value, not something whose R&D and components are massively overpriced. If a product doesn't fit your needs then it is obviously worth substantially less value to you.
Your assumption that Apple doesn't make the elusive xMac is to protect its iMac business is without substance. You'll have to come up with a better argument before I'll consider that.
Comments
You can call it form-over-function, but form is a function. the AIO concept is very appealing to many, as the increased sales of the iMac has shown. By your assessment of the Apple Tax, anyone that pays for an OS or buying any notebook is paying too much HW and SW when their are cheaper alternatives that do basically the same stuff. Hell, even buying a new CPU is a ripoff as you can get by with older processors that are sold for a much lower price.
Yeah, but, at the moment the AIO is all apple offers anywhere near its price and performance range.
To someone who just cares about what's on the screen, and not what the screen is on, they're either horribly overpriced or disappointingly underpowered. And the Mini just doesn't have the specs to do certain home use activities well, and its price is closer to what you would expect to pay for desktop equivalents of a mid-range iMac.
Unless, of course, you simply want to ignore that whole market segment for whom AIO is not a desired feature. But the fact that Apple hasn't released a desktop with equivalent specs or prices in the iMac range suggests that even they believe that a significant fraction of iMac buyers are simply putting up with the AIO design and its extra cost in order to get what they consider is the real value of an Apple system: reliability, usability, and good support.
Yeah, but, at the moment the AIO is all apple offers anywhere near its price and performance range.
To someone who just cares about what's on the screen, and not what the screen is on, they're either horribly overpriced or disappointingly underpowered. And the Mini just doesn't have the specs to do certain home use activities well, and its price is closer to what you would expect to pay for desktop equivalents of a mid-range iMac.
Unless, of course, you simply want to ignore that whole market segment for whom AIO is not a desired feature. But the fact that Apple hasn't released a desktop with equivalent specs or prices in the iMac range suggests that even they believe that a significant fraction of iMac buyers are simply putting up with the AIO design and its extra cost in order to get what they consider is the real value of an Apple system: reliability, usability, and good support.
What you are describing in your dislike for AIOs and Apple's mini desktop using notebook-grade components is value, not something whose R&D and components are massively overpriced. If a product doesn't fit your needs then it is obviously worth substantially less value to you.
Your assumption that Apple doesn't make the elusive xMac is to protect its iMac business is without substance. You'll have to come up with a better argument before I'll consider that.