R&D for what? Selecting which hard disk to use? And Apple uses 3.5" SATA for iMac, Mac Pro, and xServe in more than sufficient enough quantity for bulk pricing. As for the durability of 2.5" SATA, they share the same density as the 3.5". 2.5" disks have worse reputation only because they are used on notebooks which are frequently moved from one place to another, often while they are spinning. Besides, many servers use 2.5" disks now.
HDDs are not the only part of the Mac Mini. If Apple is taking the MacBook components and making it a Mac Mini then there is a lot of that their engineers are well versed in already. That saves them a lot of time, and by extension money.
None. That's why I said "I suspect," because I really don't know. But the fact is we also don't know how iSuppy figures component costs. I think it's a fair guess that big buyers of components like Apple don't pay the published prices for them.
What I'm really surprised is that you don't know what the term means or have any idea towards what it means and that is indeed a relevant term. Were you just released into society? This term has been around for quite a number of years.
Yes, and it has always been a very 'low end' term and as such says more about the person using it than the person it is pointed at. Its a broad gibe intended to offend. It generalizes stupidly. It is juvenile. I really don't think it ever did have a finer point. Why else would gender come into a debate where you wish to point out that somebody is unreasonably / blindly biased?
Yes, and it has always been a very 'low end' term and as such says more about the person using it than the person it is pointed at. Its a broad gibe intended to offend. It generalizes stupidly. It is juvenile. I really don't think it ever did have a finer point. Why else would gender come into a debate where you wish to point out that somebody is unreasonably / blindly biased?
To put it another way, it's an insult -- and an insult is not an argument.
Here comes the "But I don't want cheap hardware" argument. Apple PC's use the same hardware, intel processors, nvidia graphics.. Now if they could only fix those display problems...
You imply that since Apple uses the same hardware parts in their computers, that some how it should make them equal, in price and performance, to generic PCs. That's pure hogwash. If this was remotely true, there wouldn't be the famous brand loyalty for you trolls to enjoy. Apple makes better computers using generic parts, yes, but with quality in software and hardware design. Apple computers are the envy of the computer market, even if the MS trolls are in denial.
I'm not a fanboy to Apple Inc. I AM a fanboy to their computers. Plain & Simple. They can charge what the market will bear. I'll be buying, still.
One thing people don't seem to account for is that Apple puts a lot more effort into the industrial design process than most companies. You pay for that. You pay for the salaries of talented industrial designers who spend many man hours making decisions about things other companies don't bother with. I imagine them fretting over every little radius and angle. Arguing for days over choice of plastic for the case or the jacket for the cables. Look inside a Mac and see how the inside is often as beautiful as the outside. Pay attention to how they feel and sound. Etc Etc Etc. The cost of the 3rd party components is only part of the expense of a Mac.
Some humans care about these sort of details and are willing to pay for it. Others don't care and think it is silly to pay for such things. That seems to always be the argument that is at the center of every Mac vs El Cheapo computer discussion here. NEWSFLASH FOR EL CHEAPOS: Apple will never make the douchey, craptastic products you want them to make. Nothing to see here. Move along.
What I'm really surprised is that you don't know what the term means or have any idea towards what it means and that is indeed a relevant term. Were you just released into society? This term has been around for quite a number of years.
This is too funny coming from the same person who, just a couple of days ago, chided another poster about sourcing from Wikipedia:
Quote:
And for future reference, I wouldn't be posting links from Wiki for definitions. I would use something a trifle more accurate like Webster's- just so you know.
HDDs are not the only part of the Mac Mini. If Apple is taking the MacBook components and making it a Mac Mini then there is a lot of that their engineers are well versed in already. That saves them a lot of time, and by extension money.
I don't follow. Apple makes Macs using desktop components. Besides, desktops are much easier to engineer, with cheaper components, and better understood than notebooks (they are not exclusive knowledge).
You imply that since Apple uses the same hardware parts in their computers, that some how it should make them equal, in price and performance, to generic PCs. That's pure hogwash. If this was remotely true, there wouldn't be the famous brand loyalty for you trolls to enjoy. Apple makes better computers using generic parts, yes, but with quality in software and hardware design. Apple computers are the envy of the computer market, even if the MS trolls are in denial.
I'm not a fanboy to Apple Inc. I AM a fanboy to their computers. Plain & Simple. They can charge what the market will bear. I'll be buying, still.
Thanks for bolding the word 'parts' as I probably wouldn't have been able to understand otherwise. Apple makes better computers with generic parts? How? By distancing those parts different or something? The envy of the computer market? This is why I come here. For pure laughs. Scoreboard.
When someone says for 2 years that the iPhone doesn't need or want MMS, video, or cut and paste and then champions it only because Apple then provides it, how else do you make a deduction and what do you call it? When posters defend Apple's ommission of firewire on a MAcBook and it gets added back on and won't admit Apple made a mistake- what do you call that? The same thing for matte screens. Remember - they were supposed to be nevermore according to the fanboys because Apple wasn't giving them. The comes the 17"- and it gets matte. And watch the others will also get matte(I'd bet) because it is far superior (glare does suck) regardless of fanboys assertion that noobody wants matte. They only say what Apple currently provides is what you need. Meanwhile netbooks sales are through the roof yet fanboys were saying, whenever I mentioned it, that a small formed device between 7-11" was no good - the MBA was all we needed. Then the rumours leaked and they all embrace it. It is a very sad train of thought actually.
The term is real and alive.
Yeah this really bugs me too. It's funny the number of people who said that auto-focus cameras and video were so not needed on the iPhone, yet they were all falling over themselves to buy the 3GS when it came out to have an auto-focus camera and video. It cracks me up that whatever product Apple currently sells is the absolute pinnacle of excellence, with all the features that anyone would ever need, at a price that's perfectly justifiable. This view then conveniently changes as soon as Apple announces their next product. I've posted in and observed the AppleInsider forum for a long while now, and it's truely like watching a herd of sheep following each other around. It's sad really, as it's like these people simply don't have a mind of their own.
I don't follow. Apple makes Macs using desktop components. Besides, desktops are much easier to engineer, with cheaper components, and better understood than notebooks (they are not exclusive knowledge).
The Mac Pro, not exactly a consumer machine, is the only Mac that uses a non-notebook-grade processor in the entire Mac line.
Yeah this really bugs me too. It's funny the number of people who said that auto-focus cameras and video were so not needed on the iPhone, yet they were all falling over themselves to buy the 3GS when it came out to have an auto-focus camera and video. It cracks me up that whatever product Apple currently sells is the absolute pinnacle of excellence, with all the features that anyone would ever need, at a price that's perfectly justifiable. This view then conveniently changes as soon as Apple announces their next product. I've posted in and observed the AppleInsider forum for a long while now, and it's truely like watching a herd of sheep following each other around.
I can do without camera altogether, but there is a huge divide between saying Apple is doomed and that they are screwing the customers by not including everything under the sun in the first release, as opposed to stating that it’s not the most important feature for the device. If Apple came out of the gate trying to make a phone that did everything and was available to all carriers the sales would have been higher at the start but I don’t think we’d be talking about the success of the iPhone today and I don’t think we’d have seen a change in the way OEMs and carriers do business. It would be just like every other feature rich but poorly developed device. Shrinking OS X is not the same as running a mobile OS designed for much older and slower HW.
To claim that Apple sucks and are artificially holding back copy/paste and MMS and video recording when jailbreakers have technically done it is short-sided and illogical. Most of us knew these features were eventually coming, even if we don’t care for some of them *cough* MMS is a ripoff *cough* but we didn’t make hyperbolic accusations as to why Apple didn’t include them when “every phone has had these features for 20 years”.
The $387.14 is purely the cost of the hardware. There are also cost to assemble it, packaging, cost of the software (there's still cost even if the software is in house), cost of marketing and distribution.
I can do without camera altogether, but there is a huge divide between saying Apple is doomed and that they are screwing the customers by not including everything under the sun in the first release, as opposed to stating that it’s not the most important feature for the device. If Apple came out of the gate trying to make a phone that did everything and was available to all carriers the sales would have been higher at the start but I don’t think we’d be talking about the success of the iPhone today and I don’t think we’d have seen a change in the way OEMs and carriers do business. It would be just like every other feature rich but poorly developed device. Shrinking OS X is not the same as running a mobile OS designed for much older and slower HW.
To claim that Apple sucks and are artificially holding back copy/paste and MMS and video recording when jailbreakers have technically done it is short-sided and illogical. Most of us knew these features were eventually coming, even if we don’t care for some of them *cough* MMS is a ripoff *cough* but we didn’t make hyperbolic accusations as to why Apple didn’t include them when “every phone has had these features for 20 years”.
I'm not making any judgments as to why Apple did or didn't do what they did. I'm merely commenting on how the rest of the pack always seem to blindly follow the leader, belittling and deriding those who don't do the same, then quickly backtracking when the leader takes a new course.
I'm not making any judgments as to why Apple did or didn't do what they did. I'm merely commenting on how the rest of the pack always seem to blindly follow the leader, belittling and deriding those who don't do the same, then quickly backtrack when the leader takes a new course.
There are some on both sides that are mostly all or nothing in their comments, usually pushing comments that are worded as absolutes, but I think most people here are more rational about their expectations even though they get pushed into the opposing category by those at the extreme ends who can’t see the middle ground.
Constantly complaining that it doesn’t have the HW you want should not be confused with speculating what the next HW upgrade will likely be.
Manufacturing was included but not packing material (cardboard box, manual, etc.) but that is probably not much, maybe around $10 or $20 (or even less, I have no idea really).
What is missing from this information is indeed how much an Apple retailer is paying for these. In Europe, a VAT between 15 and 25% has to be factored in as well.
Assuming a reseller has a $50 margin, Apple would get $550 for the base mini. If you factor in, packaging and transport and distribution, Apple is paying at least $400 to ship one base mini to a retailer. In other words a $150 'raw' margin. Now, factor in the OS, $120 (assuming that is what Apple would get from a retailer for the OS), and you end up with a grand total of $30 from which to finance the whole hardware development and testing. And only after that comes profit.
What is obvious, is that Apple is essentially able to sell their OS (where a lot of their genius is) at different prices to different people. Those buying a cheap Mac 'pay' much less for the OS, those getting a top-of-the-line pay a lot more. That is how their business works. Their biggest assets is software and by bundling it with hardware they can extract the maximum price in each market segment.
Those are direct costs. There are indirect costs, too. Equipment and plant amortizement, overhead, staff salaries, advertising, etc.
What I don't like, and I've bellyached about in other threads is the high cost of memory. Apple pays $10 for a GB, but if you opt for 4 GB's, the charge is $150 (plus that original $10 for the first GB)). That's actually $160. If Apple pays $40 (which I doubt), that's 300% profit.
Comments
R&D for what? Selecting which hard disk to use? And Apple uses 3.5" SATA for iMac, Mac Pro, and xServe in more than sufficient enough quantity for bulk pricing. As for the durability of 2.5" SATA, they share the same density as the 3.5". 2.5" disks have worse reputation only because they are used on notebooks which are frequently moved from one place to another, often while they are spinning. Besides, many servers use 2.5" disks now.
HDDs are not the only part of the Mac Mini. If Apple is taking the MacBook components and making it a Mac Mini then there is a lot of that their engineers are well versed in already. That saves them a lot of time, and by extension money.
Any links to show proof of this ?
None. That's why I said "I suspect," because I really don't know. But the fact is we also don't know how iSuppy figures component costs. I think it's a fair guess that big buyers of components like Apple don't pay the published prices for them.
What I'm really surprised is that you don't know what the term means or have any idea towards what it means and that is indeed a relevant term. Were you just released into society? This term has been around for quite a number of years.
Yes, and it has always been a very 'low end' term and as such says more about the person using it than the person it is pointed at. Its a broad gibe intended to offend. It generalizes stupidly. It is juvenile. I really don't think it ever did have a finer point. Why else would gender come into a debate where you wish to point out that somebody is unreasonably / blindly biased?
Yes, and it has always been a very 'low end' term and as such says more about the person using it than the person it is pointed at. Its a broad gibe intended to offend. It generalizes stupidly. It is juvenile. I really don't think it ever did have a finer point. Why else would gender come into a debate where you wish to point out that somebody is unreasonably / blindly biased?
To put it another way, it's an insult -- and an insult is not an argument.
Teckstud, you are a troll, believe me.
- You seem to hate everything Apple, and especially love to attack the iPhone (by the way, how's your new Pre doing?)
- Your English is second grade level: ... they'er still to high... (Sigh)
- With all the bitching, you still add the slogan "Once you go Mac, you never go back" to your postings.
But please don't leave us, we would miss you tremendously!
Trust me, using the "Block User" feature here on AI is a lifesaver.
Here comes the "But I don't want cheap hardware" argument. Apple PC's use the same hardware, intel processors, nvidia graphics.. Now if they could only fix those display problems...
You imply that since Apple uses the same hardware parts in their computers, that some how it should make them equal, in price and performance, to generic PCs. That's pure hogwash. If this was remotely true, there wouldn't be the famous brand loyalty for you trolls to enjoy. Apple makes better computers using generic parts, yes, but with quality in software and hardware design. Apple computers are the envy of the computer market, even if the MS trolls are in denial.
I'm not a fanboy to Apple Inc. I AM a fanboy to their computers. Plain & Simple. They can charge what the market will bear. I'll be buying, still.
Some humans care about these sort of details and are willing to pay for it. Others don't care and think it is silly to pay for such things. That seems to always be the argument that is at the center of every Mac vs El Cheapo computer discussion here. NEWSFLASH FOR EL CHEAPOS: Apple will never make the douchey, craptastic products you want them to make. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Bias is they key ingredient. Nothing Apple does is ever considered wrong or average.
From Wiki:
read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_(aficionado)
What I'm really surprised is that you don't know what the term means or have any idea towards what it means and that is indeed a relevant term. Were you just released into society? This term has been around for quite a number of years.
This is too funny coming from the same person who, just a couple of days ago, chided another poster about sourcing from Wikipedia:
And for future reference, I wouldn't be posting links from Wiki for definitions. I would use something a trifle more accurate like Webster's- just so you know.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...6&postcount=74
This is too funny coming from the same person who, just a couple of days ago, chided another poster about sourcing from Wikipedia:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...6&postcount=74
Game. Set. Match.
HDDs are not the only part of the Mac Mini. If Apple is taking the MacBook components and making it a Mac Mini then there is a lot of that their engineers are well versed in already. That saves them a lot of time, and by extension money.
I don't follow. Apple makes Macs using desktop components. Besides, desktops are much easier to engineer, with cheaper components, and better understood than notebooks (they are not exclusive knowledge).
You imply that since Apple uses the same hardware parts in their computers, that some how it should make them equal, in price and performance, to generic PCs. That's pure hogwash. If this was remotely true, there wouldn't be the famous brand loyalty for you trolls to enjoy. Apple makes better computers using generic parts, yes, but with quality in software and hardware design. Apple computers are the envy of the computer market, even if the MS trolls are in denial.
I'm not a fanboy to Apple Inc. I AM a fanboy to their computers. Plain & Simple. They can charge what the market will bear. I'll be buying, still.
Thanks for bolding the word 'parts' as I probably wouldn't have been able to understand otherwise. Apple makes better computers with generic parts? How? By distancing those parts different or something? The envy of the computer market? This is why I come here. For pure laughs. Scoreboard.
The reason I see bias is because there is bias.
When someone says for 2 years that the iPhone doesn't need or want MMS, video, or cut and paste and then champions it only because Apple then provides it, how else do you make a deduction and what do you call it? When posters defend Apple's ommission of firewire on a MAcBook and it gets added back on and won't admit Apple made a mistake- what do you call that? The same thing for matte screens. Remember - they were supposed to be nevermore according to the fanboys because Apple wasn't giving them. The comes the 17"- and it gets matte. And watch the others will also get matte(I'd bet) because it is far superior (glare does suck) regardless of fanboys assertion that noobody wants matte. They only say what Apple currently provides is what you need. Meanwhile netbooks sales are through the roof yet fanboys were saying, whenever I mentioned it, that a small formed device between 7-11" was no good - the MBA was all we needed. Then the rumours leaked and they all embrace it. It is a very sad train of thought actually.
The term is real and alive.
Yeah this really bugs me too. It's funny the number of people who said that auto-focus cameras and video were so not needed on the iPhone, yet they were all falling over themselves to buy the 3GS when it came out to have an auto-focus camera and video. It cracks me up that whatever product Apple currently sells is the absolute pinnacle of excellence, with all the features that anyone would ever need, at a price that's perfectly justifiable. This view then conveniently changes as soon as Apple announces their next product. I've posted in and observed the AppleInsider forum for a long while now, and it's truely like watching a herd of sheep following each other around. It's sad really, as it's like these people simply don't have a mind of their own.
I don't follow. Apple makes Macs using desktop components. Besides, desktops are much easier to engineer, with cheaper components, and better understood than notebooks (they are not exclusive knowledge).
The Mac Pro, not exactly a consumer machine, is the only Mac that uses a non-notebook-grade processor in the entire Mac line.
Yeah this really bugs me too. It's funny the number of people who said that auto-focus cameras and video were so not needed on the iPhone, yet they were all falling over themselves to buy the 3GS when it came out to have an auto-focus camera and video. It cracks me up that whatever product Apple currently sells is the absolute pinnacle of excellence, with all the features that anyone would ever need, at a price that's perfectly justifiable. This view then conveniently changes as soon as Apple announces their next product. I've posted in and observed the AppleInsider forum for a long while now, and it's truely like watching a herd of sheep following each other around.
I can do without camera altogether, but there is a huge divide between saying Apple is doomed and that they are screwing the customers by not including everything under the sun in the first release, as opposed to stating that it’s not the most important feature for the device. If Apple came out of the gate trying to make a phone that did everything and was available to all carriers the sales would have been higher at the start but I don’t think we’d be talking about the success of the iPhone today and I don’t think we’d have seen a change in the way OEMs and carriers do business. It would be just like every other feature rich but poorly developed device. Shrinking OS X is not the same as running a mobile OS designed for much older and slower HW.
To claim that Apple sucks and are artificially holding back copy/paste and MMS and video recording when jailbreakers have technically done it is short-sided and illogical. Most of us knew these features were eventually coming, even if we don’t care for some of them *cough* MMS is a ripoff *cough* but we didn’t make hyperbolic accusations as to why Apple didn’t include them when “every phone has had these features for 20 years”.
The $387.14 is purely the cost of the hardware. There are also cost to assemble it, packaging, cost of the software (there's still cost even if the software is in house), cost of marketing and distribution.
Naturally Apple should not be paid for R & D. : )
I can do without camera altogether, but there is a huge divide between saying Apple is doomed and that they are screwing the customers by not including everything under the sun in the first release, as opposed to stating that it’s not the most important feature for the device. If Apple came out of the gate trying to make a phone that did everything and was available to all carriers the sales would have been higher at the start but I don’t think we’d be talking about the success of the iPhone today and I don’t think we’d have seen a change in the way OEMs and carriers do business. It would be just like every other feature rich but poorly developed device. Shrinking OS X is not the same as running a mobile OS designed for much older and slower HW.
To claim that Apple sucks and are artificially holding back copy/paste and MMS and video recording when jailbreakers have technically done it is short-sided and illogical. Most of us knew these features were eventually coming, even if we don’t care for some of them *cough* MMS is a ripoff *cough* but we didn’t make hyperbolic accusations as to why Apple didn’t include them when “every phone has had these features for 20 years”.
I'm not making any judgments as to why Apple did or didn't do what they did. I'm merely commenting on how the rest of the pack always seem to blindly follow the leader, belittling and deriding those who don't do the same, then quickly backtracking when the leader takes a new course.
I'm not making any judgments as to why Apple did or didn't do what they did. I'm merely commenting on how the rest of the pack always seem to blindly follow the leader, belittling and deriding those who don't do the same, then quickly backtrack when the leader takes a new course.
There are some on both sides that are mostly all or nothing in their comments, usually pushing comments that are worded as absolutes, but I think most people here are more rational about their expectations even though they get pushed into the opposing category by those at the extreme ends who can’t see the middle ground.
Constantly complaining that it doesn’t have the HW you want should not be confused with speculating what the next HW upgrade will likely be.
Manufacturing was included but not packing material (cardboard box, manual, etc.) but that is probably not much, maybe around $10 or $20 (or even less, I have no idea really).
What is missing from this information is indeed how much an Apple retailer is paying for these. In Europe, a VAT between 15 and 25% has to be factored in as well.
Assuming a reseller has a $50 margin, Apple would get $550 for the base mini. If you factor in, packaging and transport and distribution, Apple is paying at least $400 to ship one base mini to a retailer. In other words a $150 'raw' margin. Now, factor in the OS, $120 (assuming that is what Apple would get from a retailer for the OS), and you end up with a grand total of $30 from which to finance the whole hardware development and testing. And only after that comes profit.
What is obvious, is that Apple is essentially able to sell their OS (where a lot of their genius is) at different prices to different people. Those buying a cheap Mac 'pay' much less for the OS, those getting a top-of-the-line pay a lot more. That is how their business works. Their biggest assets is software and by bundling it with hardware they can extract the maximum price in each market segment.
Those are direct costs. There are indirect costs, too. Equipment and plant amortizement, overhead, staff salaries, advertising, etc.
What I don't like, and I've bellyached about in other threads is the high cost of memory. Apple pays $10 for a GB, but if you opt for 4 GB's, the charge is $150 (plus that original $10 for the first GB)). That's actually $160. If Apple pays $40 (which I doubt), that's 300% profit.
Mac Mini's are a gateway drug. Apple would sell them at a loss.
totally agree, first hand experence