colinng said: If I were in the market for 6 cores I would get a Mac mini 2018 with the minimum storage, plug in a USB-C SanDisk 1TB for cheap, get an LG 43” 4K, and call it a day. Some people on the WayTools forum have tried that with great success, and laughed all the way to the bank with the money they saved.
If I wanted 8 cores I would wait for the Mac mini refresh.
Yeah, that's kind of what I did... but as nice as it is, it is far from ideal as it could/should be. The main problem is the thermals. If you do heavy stuff, the fans ramp up. Not only is that noisy, but I wonder about impact on longevity. But, unfortunately, that's the best option we have w/o spending boat-loads of cash. I suppose the iMac Pro is the next step up if you don't mind an all-in-one (single-use display).
Also, you pretty much have to add an eGPU (upping the package price), unless you're just doing data crunching or that kind of thing.
MacPro said: It's becoming clear to me that there are a lot of folks that would like what is basically an iMac /iMac Pro in a mid-sized tower without a screen using industry standard I/O and slots and industry standard RAM and SATA connectors. I am sure Apple could sell a boatload of these at around $2-4K depending on the BTO. The Mac Pro is a wonderful machine but I don't see any video industry pro wanting the base model they will be ordering mid to high end versions. The entry version serves no user base I can think of.
Agreed, basically the fabled xMac, possibly with less expandability/tinker-ness... though many would love that too.
I think the base Mac Pro exists just as a launching off point. Depending on what your industry is, you wouldn't want a particular aspect of it boosted unless you need it. If you're buying it mainly for the CPUs/storage, why put more than a 580X in there? If you're buying it for video production, you'll probably want a particular size storage, or the minimum is fine as you'll be using other storage anyway. If you're buying it for rendering, minimum storage might be just fine, but you'll want the better GPUs, maybe CPUs. If you're buying it as some kind of server, you might just want minimums of everything but storage, which you probably don't need to be those boot SSDs. etc.
davgreg said: I have the top CPU Mac mini and it is a nice basic desktop but is hobbled by integrated graphics and thermal issues due to the case design. Simply transcoding video spools up the fan quickly and uses significant resources, so it is not a reasonable solution to replace the work of my Cheesegrater Mac.
I will buy the standard configuration of the new Pro and maybe bump up the memory.
Yeah, same here but I just don't have the cashflow to do what you're talking about right now. If I get back in the rendering business, it might not be a no-brainer, but I'd probably do it. I spent around $3k on my mini setup, so doubling that for a bit better performance, but lots of future expandability, and being incredibly robust, might have been worthwhile.
elijahg said: How do you justify them charging 3x the market price for a 1TB Fusion drive to 512gb SSD upgrade?
The problem is that what most people are talking about isn't apples to apples. What is the market price for 512GB SSD? Any ol' SATA SSD? M.2? What Apple is actually using? While Apple's upgrades are a bit expensive, typically comparing the actual item (if available) shows the pricing isn't as inflated as some claim. (I remember a thread about the 2018 mini memory not too long ago, where when apples-to-apples was applied, the difference in $ was like 15% higher, not double as many were claiming.)
The legit complaint would be why Apple can't offer a simple Fusion drive to standard SATA SSD upgrade, which you're right, would cost like $50 or less, even for me (let alone Apple's purchasing capabilities). Apple's solution is higher end than that. But, that doesn't mean the typical user wouldn't rather have the cost savings than the highest end of parts.
melgross said: apple is not only not worse, but they’re better. Yes, you can buy cheap Wintel computers, but that’s what you’re getting. Most Wintel users won’t pay more than a minimum, so that’s what those companies make, and their margins are at the bone, so they have financial problems. Look at Dell’s problems. And look at what happened to Hp. Are those the shining examples that Apple is supposed to follow? I hope not.
No doubt. I lived (and worked though) the 'let's build our own server' phase in businesses in the 90s. Fortunately, it think *most* businesses learned their lesson from that one. They still might buy one-step-up junk to throw en masse on user-desks, but at least they have an actual company behind that for when it breaks (at least as long as that company survives, as you say).
But, this isn't what any higher end company does in the server room, nor in specialized departments with high-demand. When it comes to that, they spend big-bucks. As I mentioned in another thread, I used to spec out $30k to $50k servers to put in our racks all the time. We'd even often buy a bunch of new and get rid of the older ones at fiscal year end, to keep the budget (ie: we've gotta spend $250k somewhere so we don't get $250k less next year, so have at it).
That's one thing I'm concerned about the T2 because they bottleneck the SSD performance since both flash modules and controller keeps improving over time. Judging on the iMac Pro, I'm sure those "SSDs" are just raw flash modules, whereas the T2 chip ties the controller within. That limited any future performance improvement, but every computer with an M.2 running PCIe 3.0 have the potential to upgrade a faster SSD.
Maybe that's not a problem for a Mac Pro, but not the iMac Pro and MacBook Pros.
I'm not certain that they'll get that much faster. While the theoretical max speed of the PCI-E 3.0 x4 connector with a M.2 slot is 3600 megabytes per second or so, the reality is a bit less, perhaps 2900 megabytes per second.
I don't think that's the case. x4 should run at 3.9GB/s maximum and M.2 is just another form of it. Source?
But whether it's 3.6 or 3.9, it left both the iMac Pro and MacBook Pros lots of room for improvement.
Huh, TIL.
Still, there is NVMe storage overhead too. I just don't think there's as much leeway for growth as you do, is all.
I've talked to a friend about this and he thinks the T2 is better optimized for APFS. That might be true, but I'm not sure some software improvements will overcome hardware advancements.
Then again, I know nothing about SSD controllers. All of them could have different architectures.
There are over a half dozen major SSD controller architectures out there. New ones come around every year or two.
Right, which is why I think locking your SSD in the T2 isn’t a good idea. 1. No upgrade options, once obsolete, forever obsolete. 2. (Some) nearly impossible to remove, you’ll need to perform SMD soldering.
Change security settings after setting up the initial admin account so you can boot from "external drives" - which may allow booting from PCIe cards as well if the OS itself has built-in drives for that - worst case from an external Thunderbolt drive that could be using whatever the latest technology is.
If it's not the T2, it's another controller of some sort that handles the storage and whatever connector the motherboard comes with like M.2 that has limits as well. in the case of the T2 though, it looks like whatever apple does is just a PCIe connection to the flash chips (in the MacMini or MacBook Pro's it's soldered instead) - the T2 handles all the stuff the "on-board" SSD chip functions would do plus a more integrated encryption solution.
The SSD controller is certainly integrated into T2, obviously. I think instead having it’s own CPU cores like others, it might use those A10 cores, which might be an advantage, but the drive speed doesn’t seems any faster. I don’t worry about the Mac Pro mainly because it only serves as system drives and you can always plug one in slots, but it will be awkward for the rest of the lineups.
I think some people are taking the speed too much to heart. It’s still pretty darn fast. I’m more concerned with my data drives. Large video projects and such. If someone really needs speed, they’ll pony the money up for the RAM, and run their data there, as is done, if possible, for large databases, transactional software, CAD and video rendering.
if you opt to use one of these drives for a photoshop drive, then these will be dandy. But photoshop is still behind when opening and closing files. So that’s slower than it should be no matter how fast the drive is.
I think you can take this into different perspectives, the T2 does indeed make your files more secure with speed that’s fast enough, or trade it off with the fastest possible solutions. To me it’s hard to take when older laptops got a chance to outrun your newest equipments.
We get to a point where incremental speed increases don’t mean that much. So, going from 2.7Gb/s to 3.3GB/s isn’t really all that noticeable, and doesn’t change the workflow that much. When we went from 200MB/s with fast HDDs to 500MB/s with second generation SSDs, we noticed a big difference, because taking 5 seconds to open a big app down to 2 seconds made a very noticeable difference. The same thing for other operations, such as a restart, or turning the machine on from cold.
but that 2 second open speed is now a fraction of a second with the newest drives, and if it’s a fraction of a fraction of a second faster, so what? I think people who don’t really understand this are just drooling over the thought that faster is always noticeable, and therefore, always better. It might be if storage speeds move to another order of magnitude faster, and the computer as a whole, the OS and the individual apps can take advantage of it. But right now, none of that is true, and if it were, the cost would make the new Mac Pro seem cheap.
the ideal computer speed is where as soon as you lift you finger from the key, everything is done. In the practical sense, for a lot of tasks, that’s already true, and the drive has nothing to do with it.
Right, which is why I think locking your SSD in the T2 isn’t a good idea. 1. No upgrade options, once obsolete, forever obsolete. 2. (Some) nearly impossible to remove, you’ll need to perform SMD soldering.
I’m not so sure that the controller architecture should matter, as the computer doesn’t interact with it on a low level. I believe that Apple is doing this for security purposes. These drives are locked with the T2 chip. It’s possible that Apple has some circuit on the drive that enhances this. If so, will a third party drive work? I guess we’ll find out.
its like the Touch ID button being replaced by third party repair services. I’m sure we remember that. Apple serializes the button because it’s part of the security system involving touch and the Secure Enclave. When they were replaced by parts that may have been genuine, or maybe not, they weren’t synced with the enclave, and Touch ID didn’t work. That was where the furor over “Right to Repair” partly came from. But Apple was right. Allowing third parties to replace that button would have been a problem. If Apple sold them the equipment to sync it up, then it could have been corrupted, and the security bypassed.
no win there either way. So I think that Apple may be doing something like that here for security.
It's not built the way you think it is.
The flash modules in the MP are like the flash chips on the MBPs: raw flash. There is no separate flash controller, that entire function is built into the T2.
The T2 has upsides and downsides. Some of those downsides (like occasional crashes) are on their way out, as Apple fixes up their software. However they're unlikely to be able to improve flash read/write speed, as that's something they would have put a ton of effort into right up front, optimizing software + hardware, and probably even putting fixed-function blocks into the T2 for this purpose. You're not going to speed up those with software.
I don't have anything against the T2 per se, it's that it prevents us from using a faster SSD (with onboard controller). And that's because you can't give the T2 an NVMe flash drive, it wants raw flash. (Edit: I mean, using the builtin flash slots. As I said elsewhere, you can always drop in a single PCIe card holding 4x NVMes if you like, as the T2 isn't involved in that.)
Note that this could be fixed by Apple, with a trivial update to the T2, such that it could also talk NVMe. (Edit: That would degrade I/O latency to the NVMe compared to direct PCIe connection, but probably not by all that much.) Or they could built a wider T2X for the next nnMP with more throughput (you'd want that in your MBPs by 2021 anyway, to compete with PCIe 4/5 NVMe). But it doesn't work right now. They could also simply provide a couple of NVMe slots in addition to whatever builtin flash they provide. I'd prefer that, but I consider it unlikely.
Who knows though? There are two SATA connectors in the nnMP, and I'd have given 2:1 odds they're do SAS instead. Still no clue why they used SATA.
I think some people are taking the speed too much to heart. It’s still pretty darn fast. I’m more concerned with my data drives. Large video projects and such. If someone really needs speed, they’ll pony the money up for the RAM, and run their data there, as is done, if possible, for large databases, transactional software, CAD and video rendering.
That's a very good point. And yet, when you're buying premium, it's annoying to get something that's a bit behind the times. It's not enough to matter much, and I think it won't change any purchasing decisions (at least in rational purchasers, which will be nearly everyone shelling out for the nnMP). But It's still not a great look.
We’re not talking about anything serious. I can pretty much guarantee that those buying these machines won’t care in the slightest about the small difference in drive speed. For the purpose for running the OS, and software, much of which will be running in RAM, as most high performance software has, at least in the parts needed, for years now, a bit more speed on the part of these drives is nothing more than a trivia question.
No, what's he saying up until the detour to taxes is accurate and factual, not opinion, except for one sentence ("shenanigans" was opinion). I'm OK with paying Apple's higher prices, for the most part - I own a 2018 MBP with top configuration. Except... it's not really the top config, it's got 1TB SSD instead of 4TB, because Apple's SSD prices are *nuts*. RAM prices too, but they're easier to stomach and harder to work around. No RAM on thunderbolt, after all. I also own a 2013 Air, and I was seriously unhappy when the SSD died and I couldn't source a replacement (that ebay connector board is fairly new). Didn't change my mind about the value of the Mac when I first bought it - I knew about the SSD connector then.
I think Apple's making a mistake pricing their upgrades as high as they do - I think they'd grow their market, and improve cust sat rate, by dropping RAM prices some and SSD prices a LOT (given the cratering of SSD costs/prices in the last year). Oh, and get rid of the HD-only iMac option, that's seriously stupid. But in the end, you buy the package or you don't, and getting angry about it is silly. Either it's worth it or it's not, and that includes option prices and whatever standard or non-standard parts and ports are in the machine.
As for taxes... That was a bizarre digression, and unrelated to the main topic. I like your restaurant analogy.
Over the years, Apple HAS been dropping their RAM and drive prices closer to market. But they can’t follow market pricing. Apple, and other large organizations, buy memory some time in advance, at fixed prices. If prices drop, or rise, they charge the same. After a year, or two, they get new pricing, and their prices reflect that. But they’re always a good year behind, because they have to wrap this up early to make sure they have the supply they need. It’s not like us buying from OWC, or from someone on eBay.
They have been notoriously slow at price corrections. Apple is *famous* for playing the contract and spot markets like a concert violin. They're better at it than anyone. And yet, their SSD pricing is somewhat high even by Dell/HP/Lenovo standards. For example, bumping an MBP SSD from 512GB to 1TB runs $400, and to 2TB is $1k. HP, selling NVMe drives for their high-end workstations (the ones that can configure to 40-50k easily), charge $250 and $940. However, that just changed a few months ago - previously the Apple price for 2TB was dramatically higher. At that time, HP was much lower on the 2TB.
When you look at them, the prices for HP and Dell are not that much lower than Apple's for RAM and SSD. But there's a big difference: With HP and Dell, I can order them with no or minimal SSD, and then buy a better one for a LOT less. I wouldn't necessarily do that, but I might, and others certainly would, and we all resent having that option taken away from us.
Well, they’re very big. So that’s to be expected. But still, they don’t play the spot markets unless they’re supplies are short. Why do you think they invested in the Toshiba bailout? They buy memory a year in advance of anticipated needs. That’s why they’re slow to drop prices. In addition, as you know, memory prices, for bi=oth RAM and NAND, are volatile. It drops for a year, or two, then right supplies cause it to rise, then buildouts cause it to drop again.
no responsible manufacturer can afford to follow those pricing trends. Once you lower the price of the device because of a drop, you can’t raise that model’s price again when memory rises, as it inevitably will. The same thing for additional memory pricing. Once you drop it, that’s it. I get that some manufacturers sell on price, but Apple doesn’t. Thosevothers hardly make a profit, and Apple does. Because so many manufacturers are perpetually on the brink of failure, partly because of thatbpricing model the follow, doesn’t mean that Apple should follow them down the precipice.
well, resent whatever you want, but it’s not an option that’s been taken away from you because Apple has never offered it as an option. Don’t point to Dell and Hp. They have nothing to do with what Apple does.
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
for those who do understand it, professional level equipment is always expensive. While Apple gets pilloried for a $995 monitor stand that’s a machined, large piece of metal, with a complex, and supposedly reliable mechanism, RED charges $500 for a simple aluminum handle for their video cameras. Others charge similarly for simple parts. I had automatic paper cutters in my lab. A small circuit board, about 3” x 5” cost $1,000 as a replacement part before 2004 (when we sold the lab). There was nothing special about that part. Agfa charged $1,200, for a power supply, that I found out later, could be bought from the manufacturer for $250. And even worse, all of the broken ones I had were still under original manufacturer’s warrantee! They told me to send them in, and they repaired them for free.
apple is not only not worse, but they’re better. Yes, you can buy cheap Wintel computers, but that’s what you’re getting. Most Wintel users won’t pay more than a minimum, so that’s what those companies make, and their margins are at the bone, so they have financial problems. Look at Dell’s problems. And look at what happened to Hp. Are those the shining examples that Apple is supposed to follow? I hope not.
as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
Let's be fair. 'pure drivel'?
Not at all. He provided a balanced opinion and supported it clearly. It was totally valid.
Is there anything in there that wasn't actually true? I'd be more interested in that angle.
I was nodding in agreement to almost all of it as we share largely the same opinion.
Now, if you have anything factual to dismantle the argument I'd be interested in hearing that too.
No, it wasn’t valid. Most wasn’t true. I’m not going to argue with you, because it’s not worth it.
That's one thing I'm concerned about the T2 because they bottleneck the SSD performance since both flash modules and controller keeps improving over time. Judging on the iMac Pro, I'm sure those "SSDs" are just raw flash modules, whereas the T2 chip ties the controller within. That limited any future performance improvement, but every computer with an M.2 running PCIe 3.0 have the potential to upgrade a faster SSD.
Maybe that's not a problem for a Mac Pro, but not the iMac Pro and MacBook Pros.
I'm not certain that they'll get that much faster. While the theoretical max speed of the PCI-E 3.0 x4 connector with a M.2 slot is 3600 megabytes per second or so, the reality is a bit less, perhaps 2900 megabytes per second.
I don't think that's the case. x4 should run at 3.9GB/s maximum and M.2 is just another form of it. Source?
But whether it's 3.6 or 3.9, it left both the iMac Pro and MacBook Pros lots of room for improvement.
Huh, TIL.
Still, there is NVMe storage overhead too. I just don't think there's as much leeway for growth as you do, is all.
I've talked to a friend about this and he thinks the T2 is better optimized for APFS. That might be true, but I'm not sure some software improvements will overcome hardware advancements.
Then again, I know nothing about SSD controllers. All of them could have different architectures.
There are over a half dozen major SSD controller architectures out there. New ones come around every year or two.
Right, which is why I think locking your SSD in the T2 isn’t a good idea. 1. No upgrade options, once obsolete, forever obsolete. 2. (Some) nearly impossible to remove, you’ll need to perform SMD soldering.
Change security settings after setting up the initial admin account so you can boot from "external drives" - which may allow booting from PCIe cards as well if the OS itself has built-in drives for that - worst case from an external Thunderbolt drive that could be using whatever the latest technology is.
If it's not the T2, it's another controller of some sort that handles the storage and whatever connector the motherboard comes with like M.2 that has limits as well. in the case of the T2 though, it looks like whatever apple does is just a PCIe connection to the flash chips (in the MacMini or MacBook Pro's it's soldered instead) - the T2 handles all the stuff the "on-board" SSD chip functions would do plus a more integrated encryption solution.
The SSD controller is certainly integrated into T2, obviously. I think instead having it’s own CPU cores like others, it might use those A10 cores, which might be an advantage, but the drive speed doesn’t seems any faster. I don’t worry about the Mac Pro mainly because it only serves as system drives and you can always plug one in slots, but it will be awkward for the rest of the lineups.
I think some people are taking the speed too much to heart. It’s still pretty darn fast. I’m more concerned with my data drives. Large video projects and such. If someone really needs speed, they’ll pony the money up for the RAM, and run their data there, as is done, if possible, for large databases, transactional software, CAD and video rendering.
if you opt to use one of these drives for a photoshop drive, then these will be dandy. But photoshop is still behind when opening and closing files. So that’s slower than it should be no matter how fast the drive is.
I think you can take this into different perspectives, the T2 does indeed make your files more secure with speed that’s fast enough, or trade it off with the fastest possible solutions. To me it’s hard to take when older laptops got a chance to outrun your newest equipments.
We get to a point where incremental speed increases don’t mean that much. So, going from 2.7Gb/s to 3.3GB/s isn’t really all that noticeable, and doesn’t change the workflow that much. When we went from 200MB/s with fast HDDs to 500MB/s with second generation SSDs, we noticed a big difference, because taking 5 seconds to open a big app down to 2 seconds made a very noticeable difference. The same thing for other operations, such as a restart, or turning the machine on from cold.
but that 2 second open speed is now a fraction of a second with the newest drives, and if it’s a fraction of a fraction of a second faster, so what? I think people who don’t really understand this are just drooling over the thought that faster is always noticeable, and therefore, always better. It might be if storage speeds move to another order of magnitude faster, and the computer as a whole, the OS and the individual apps can take advantage of it. But right now, none of that is true, and if it were, the cost would make the new Mac Pro seem cheap.
the ideal computer speed is where as soon as you lift you finger from the key, everything is done. In the practical sense, for a lot of tasks, that’s already true, and the drive has nothing to do with it.
I agree, it shouldn’t be that much of the difference, certainly not night and day Though it kills the opportunity to upgrade, and everyone else can easily surpass it when technology improves, that’s my gripe here. I guess we’ll see because Apple gives different speed rating across their lineup, maybe swapping the flash module will change the speed somehow.
DuhSesame said: and everyone else can easily surpass it when technology improves, that’s my gripe here.
Maybe I'm just shortsighted here, but aren't these things getting so fast there is little in the way of 'easily surpass' to be had (at least w/o a whole new architecture)?
Also, I think it was on Mac Break Weekly podcast, they were talking about the CPU being on some kind of card into the backplane... so I wonder how much of this machine that kind of design applies to. Maybe if/when faster stuff comes along, there is some flexibility in upgrading the storage aspect (including the slots, etc.) too?
In the end, though, I think people like probably you and I who would dream about buying one of these and keeping it competitive for 10 years, doesn't match the expectations of the target market. They will just move on to the next thing when it comes. The flexibility here, is the ability to architect the system to their exact needs, not so much that they can upgrade it forever.
DuhSesame said: and everyone else can easily surpass it when technology improves, that’s my gripe here.
Maybe I'm just shortsighted here, but aren't these things getting so fast there is little in the way of 'easily surpass' to be had (at least w/o a whole new architecture)?
Also, I think it was on Mac Break Weekly podcast, they were talking about the CPU being on some kind of card into the backplane... so I wonder how much of this machine that kind of design applies to. Maybe if/when faster stuff comes along, there is some flexibility in upgrading the storage aspect (including the slots, etc.) too?
In the end, though, I think people like probably you and I who would dream about buying one of these and keeping it competitive for 10 years, doesn't match the expectations of the target market. They will just move on to the next thing when it comes. The flexibility here, is the ability to architect the system to their exact needs, not so much that they can upgrade it forever.
I know, maybe they’re thinking to preserve what they thinks is the best for their machines, chose the “perfect” flash chips and sticks that way. Though, if you bought a XPS15 even in 2016, you can swap their OEM drive out for a 970 PRO, maybe 980 in the future too. It’s not night and day, but still faster and outperform Macs you’ve bought earlier, which used to be faster.
Not a whole lot people does that unless you’re buying it from eBay as used product, people usually worried about their files more years after, but that still irks me when I thinks about it.
Right, which is why I think locking your SSD in the T2 isn’t a good idea. 1. No upgrade options, once obsolete, forever obsolete. 2. (Some) nearly impossible to remove, you’ll need to perform SMD soldering.
I’m not so sure that the controller architecture should matter, as the computer doesn’t interact with it on a low level. I believe that Apple is doing this for security purposes. These drives are locked with the T2 chip. It’s possible that Apple has some circuit on the drive that enhances this. If so, will a third party drive work? I guess we’ll find out.
its like the Touch ID button being replaced by third party repair services. I’m sure we remember that. Apple serializes the button because it’s part of the security system involving touch and the Secure Enclave. When they were replaced by parts that may have been genuine, or maybe not, they weren’t synced with the enclave, and Touch ID didn’t work. That was where the furor over “Right to Repair” partly came from. But Apple was right. Allowing third parties to replace that button would have been a problem. If Apple sold them the equipment to sync it up, then it could have been corrupted, and the security bypassed.
no win there either way. So I think that Apple may be doing something like that here for security.
It's not built the way you think it is.
The flash modules in the MP are like the flash chips on the MBPs: raw flash. There is no separate flash controller, that entire function is built into the T2.
The T2 has upsides and downsides. Some of those downsides (like occasional crashes) are on their way out, as Apple fixes up their software. However they're unlikely to be able to improve flash read/write speed, as that's something they would have put a ton of effort into right up front, optimizing software + hardware, and probably even putting fixed-function blocks into the T2 for this purpose. You're not going to speed up those with software.
I don't have anything against the T2 per se, it's that it prevents us from using a faster SSD (with onboard controller). And that's because you can't give the T2 an NVMe flash drive, it wants raw flash. (Edit: I mean, using the builtin flash slots. As I said elsewhere, you can always drop in a single PCIe card holding 4x NVMes if you like, as the T2 isn't involved in that.)
Note that this could be fixed by Apple, with a trivial update to the T2, such that it could also talk NVMe. (Edit: That would degrade I/O latency to the NVMe compared to direct PCIe connection, but probably not by all that much.) Or they could built a wider T2X for the next nnMP with more throughput (you'd want that in your MBPs by 2021 anyway, to compete with PCIe 4/5 NVMe). But it doesn't work right now. They could also simply provide a couple of NVMe slots in addition to whatever builtin flash they provide. I'd prefer that, but I consider it unlikely.
Who knows though? There are two SATA connectors in the nnMP, and I'd have given 2:1 odds they're do SAS instead. Still no clue why they used SATA.
I’d like to see evidence of that.
Evidence of what?
In any case, just spend ten minutes doing basic research. This has already been documented (by Apple), and reported on (probably here, among other places) after the T2 first came out. It's not speculative, and I'm not drawing on secret sources.
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
for those who do understand it, professional level equipment is always expensive. While Apple gets pilloried for a $995 monitor stand that’s a machined, large piece of metal, with a complex, and supposedly reliable mechanism, RED charges $500 for a simple aluminum handle for their video cameras. Others charge similarly for simple parts. I had automatic paper cutters in my lab. A small circuit board, about 3” x 5” cost $1,000 as a replacement part before 2004 (when we sold the lab). There was nothing special about that part. Agfa charged $1,200, for a power supply, that I found out later, could be bought from the manufacturer for $250. And even worse, all of the broken ones I had were still under original manufacturer’s warrantee! They told me to send them in, and they repaired them for free.
apple is not only not worse, but they’re better. Yes, you can buy cheap Wintel computers, but that’s what you’re getting. Most Wintel users won’t pay more than a minimum, so that’s what those companies make, and their margins are at the bone, so they have financial problems. Look at Dell’s problems. And look at what happened to Hp. Are those the shining examples that Apple is supposed to follow? I hope not.
as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
Let's be fair. 'pure drivel'?
Not at all. He provided a balanced opinion and supported it clearly. It was totally valid.
Is there anything in there that wasn't actually true? I'd be more interested in that angle.
I was nodding in agreement to almost all of it as we share largely the same opinion.
Now, if you have anything factual to dismantle the argument I'd be interested in hearing that too.
No, it wasn’t valid. Most wasn’t true. I’m not going to argue with you, because it’s not worth it.
I don't understand. You seem like a reasonable guy with mostly reasonable points. Why are you backing yourself into a corner over this nonsense? Most of the post was factual, with a slight smattering of emotional reaction. You might not react the same way he does, but the post *is* *true*. The hardware is as he states.
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
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as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
No, what's he saying up until the detour to taxes is accurate and factual, not opinion, except for one sentence ("shenanigans" was opinion). I'm OK with paying Apple's higher prices, for the most part - I own a 2018 MBP with top configuration. Except... it's not really the top config, it's got 1TB SSD instead of 4TB, because Apple's SSD prices are *nuts*. RAM prices too, but they're easier to stomach and harder to work around. No RAM on thunderbolt, after all. I also own a 2013 Air, and I was seriously unhappy when the SSD died and I couldn't source a replacement (that ebay connector board is fairly new). Didn't change my mind about the value of the Mac when I first bought it - I knew about the SSD connector then.
I think Apple's making a mistake pricing their upgrades as high as they do - I think they'd grow their market, and improve cust sat rate, by dropping RAM prices some and SSD prices a LOT (given the cratering of SSD costs/prices in the last year). Oh, and get rid of the HD-only iMac option, that's seriously stupid. But in the end, you buy the package or you don't, and getting angry about it is silly. Either it's worth it or it's not, and that includes option prices and whatever standard or non-standard parts and ports are in the machine.
As for taxes... That was a bizarre digression, and unrelated to the main topic. I like your restaurant analogy.
Over the years, Apple HAS been dropping their RAM and drive prices closer to market. But they can’t follow market pricing. Apple, and other large organizations, buy memory some time in advance, at fixed prices. If prices drop, or rise, they charge the same. After a year, or two, they get new pricing, and their prices reflect that. But they’re always a good year behind, because they have to wrap this up early to make sure they have the supply they need. It’s not like us buying from OWC, or from someone on eBay.
Really? I've not noticed any downward trend in the past say, 10 years. Apple buys enough RAM that the overall market trends won't have much of an effect, they'll be paying at most half the price the average consumer can get it for, and most likely much less than that. What about the flash in iPhones? A 64GB flash chip is a couple of dollars. A 128GB one is about $5. And yet Apple charges $100 for the upgrade. You can guarantee that if market prices suddenly rose versus when Apple bought the RAM, they'd up their prices too. So why not when the prices fall?
Well, it has, and it’s been commented upon. The price of a product at retail is between 2.5 to 3.5 the part cost. So if Apple pays $100 for memory, you will pay between $250 and $350. That’s standard markup. If they have to do something g extra to it, such as certify the system with it, the price will be higher. We’ve discussed manufacturing here as well, over the years.
what are you expecting, that Apple charges you the same thing they pay? What company is that stupid?
That's funny, why is it then the 2015 MBP's RAM prices actually increased by the time it was discontinued in mid 2017?
Nah, just charging $100 for a $5 chip - a 20x markup - seems a bit much.
Apple charges $200 for 16GB RAM in the 27" 5K iMac. They use two 8GB modules and don't just add two more 4GB modules so they're effectively saving on the modules they've taken out since two 8GB modules are cheaper than four 4GB ones. Two 8GB modules totals $74 retail on crucial.com. If Crucial is charging 2.5x the part cost then they're paying $30 for the pair. Apple is likely buying way more RAM than Crucial so would be getting a better price. And despite you claiming Apple won't be able to follow trends, they'd be stupid to buy a year long supply of RAM when prices are high so they likely do so in shorter intervals, until prices are low. But assuming the same cost price as Crucial means Apple is charing 6.7x cost price. A lot more than the 2.5-3.5x. Even if Apple bought their RAM at retail prices it's still over double anyone else. Either still seems a tad much, no?
elijahg said: How do you justify them charging 3x the market price for a 1TB Fusion drive to 512gb SSD upgrade?
The problem is that what most people are talking about isn't apples to apples. What is the market price for 512GB SSD? Any ol' SATA SSD? M.2? What Apple is actually using? While Apple's upgrades are a bit expensive, typically comparing the actual item (if available) shows the pricing isn't as inflated as some claim. (I remember a thread about the 2018 mini memory not too long ago, where when apples-to-apples was applied, the difference in $ was like 15% higher, not double as many were claiming.)
The legit complaint would be why Apple can't offer a simple Fusion drive to standard SATA SSD upgrade, which you're right, would cost like $50 or less, even for me (let alone Apple's purchasing capabilities). Apple's solution is higher end than that. But, that doesn't mean the typical user wouldn't rather have the cost savings than the highest end of parts.
Absolutely, people do that all the time with Macs vs PCs. The cheapest PC you can find is always and will always be way cheaper than a Mac. But that's because it's pretty crap, and Apple doesn't sell crap configurations with for instance cheapo Celerons... Apart from the 5400RPM non-Fusion HDD iMac that is. That thing is embarrassingly slow, but I digress... Base config Macs aren't that expensive. But they usually are as soon as you choose pretty much any BTO options, some worse than others. Oftentimes it's simply because Apple barely ever drops their BTO prices, even after years on the market.
The M.2 NVME SSDs Apple uses aren't anywhere near as expensive as they were when they first appeared in the 2015 MBP. Crucial (who aren't particularly cheap) sell a 1TB 2000MB/sec read/write M.2 NVME drive that's just $119, the one in my 2019 iMac is about 2300mb/sec. Apple charges you $100 for the privilege of losing the 2TB HDD, 32GB SSD and installing a 500GB SSD instead. Oh and the other thing, is I'm not sure how they justify how the SSD upgrades in the desktops are double the price of the ones in the laptops..
They have also been bastards in the past preventing DIY upgrades by actually producing entire extra lines of logic boards just so they can install some without the SATA connection if people get NVME SSDs, and vice versa; without the NVME connector for the low end SATA-only iMacs. That really is twattish behaviour, as even with economies of scale it'd be more expensive to double up on the number of logic board/CPU combinations just to have some with NVME connector and some without than it would just to keep the connector on all boards.
As you say, it would be good for Apple to make available the lower end parts for various BTO options as people don't always need top end. But I guess there's not as much profit to be made on a $50 SATA SSD upgrade as there is on a $100 one. There are slower M.2 NVME SSDs for $69 which are 550mb/sec R/W which is absolutely fine for most people, and I'd honestly be happy with.
That's one thing I'm concerned about the T2 because they bottleneck the SSD performance since both flash modules and controller keeps improving over time. Judging on the iMac Pro, I'm sure those "SSDs" are just raw flash modules, whereas the T2 chip ties the controller within. That limited any future performance improvement, but every computer with an M.2 running PCIe 3.0 have the potential to upgrade a faster SSD.
Maybe that's not a problem for a Mac Pro, but not the iMac Pro and MacBook Pros.
I'm not certain that they'll get that much faster. While the theoretical max speed of the PCI-E 3.0 x4 connector with a M.2 slot is 3600 megabytes per second or so, the reality is a bit less, perhaps 2900 megabytes per second.
I don't think that's the case. x4 should run at 3.9GB/s maximum and M.2 is just another form of it. Source?
But whether it's 3.6 or 3.9, it left both the iMac Pro and MacBook Pros lots of room for improvement.
Huh, TIL.
Still, there is NVMe storage overhead too. I just don't think there's as much leeway for growth as you do, is all.
I've talked to a friend about this and he thinks the T2 is better optimized for APFS. That might be true, but I'm not sure some software improvements will overcome hardware advancements.
Then again, I know nothing about SSD controllers. All of them could have different architectures.
There are over a half dozen major SSD controller architectures out there. New ones come around every year or two.
Right, which is why I think locking your SSD in the T2 isn’t a good idea. 1. No upgrade options, once obsolete, forever obsolete. 2. (Some) nearly impossible to remove, you’ll need to perform SMD soldering.
Change security settings after setting up the initial admin account so you can boot from "external drives" - which may allow booting from PCIe cards as well if the OS itself has built-in drives for that - worst case from an external Thunderbolt drive that could be using whatever the latest technology is.
If it's not the T2, it's another controller of some sort that handles the storage and whatever connector the motherboard comes with like M.2 that has limits as well. in the case of the T2 though, it looks like whatever apple does is just a PCIe connection to the flash chips (in the MacMini or MacBook Pro's it's soldered instead) - the T2 handles all the stuff the "on-board" SSD chip functions would do plus a more integrated encryption solution.
The SSD controller is certainly integrated into T2, obviously. I think instead having it’s own CPU cores like others, it might use those A10 cores, which might be an advantage, but the drive speed doesn’t seems any faster. I don’t worry about the Mac Pro mainly because it only serves as system drives and you can always plug one in slots, but it will be awkward for the rest of the lineups.
I think some people are taking the speed too much to heart. It’s still pretty darn fast. I’m more concerned with my data drives. Large video projects and such. If someone really needs speed, they’ll pony the money up for the RAM, and run their data there, as is done, if possible, for large databases, transactional software, CAD and video rendering.
if you opt to use one of these drives for a photoshop drive, then these will be dandy. But photoshop is still behind when opening and closing files. So that’s slower than it should be no matter how fast the drive is.
I think you can take this into different perspectives, the T2 does indeed make your files more secure with speed that’s fast enough, or trade it off with the fastest possible solutions. To me it’s hard to take when older laptops got a chance to outrun your newest equipments.
We get to a point where incremental speed increases don’t mean that much. So, going from 2.7Gb/s to 3.3GB/s isn’t really all that noticeable, and doesn’t change the workflow that much. When we went from 200MB/s with fast HDDs to 500MB/s with second generation SSDs, we noticed a big difference, because taking 5 seconds to open a big app down to 2 seconds made a very noticeable difference. The same thing for other operations, such as a restart, or turning the machine on from cold.
but that 2 second open speed is now a fraction of a second with the newest drives, and if it’s a fraction of a fraction of a second faster, so what? I think people who don’t really understand this are just drooling over the thought that faster is always noticeable, and therefore, always better. It might be if storage speeds move to another order of magnitude faster, and the computer as a whole, the OS and the individual apps can take advantage of it. But right now, none of that is true, and if it were, the cost would make the new Mac Pro seem cheap.
the ideal computer speed is where as soon as you lift you finger from the key, everything is done. In the practical sense, for a lot of tasks, that’s already true, and the drive has nothing to do with it.
...and this is an excellent justification for Apple making available different tiers of SSD speed, from cheap SATA options to fast NVME solutions. And even more a justification for putting a damn SSD in that poor low-end iMac. Hell, a smallish SSD is less than a damn 1TB HDD now anyway.
No, what's he saying up until the detour to taxes is accurate and factual, not opinion, except for one sentence ("shenanigans" was opinion). I'm OK with paying Apple's higher prices, for the most part - I own a 2018 MBP with top configuration. Except... it's not really the top config, it's got 1TB SSD instead of 4TB, because Apple's SSD prices are *nuts*. RAM prices too, but they're easier to stomach and harder to work around. No RAM on thunderbolt, after all. I also own a 2013 Air, and I was seriously unhappy when the SSD died and I couldn't source a replacement (that ebay connector board is fairly new). Didn't change my mind about the value of the Mac when I first bought it - I knew about the SSD connector then.
I think Apple's making a mistake pricing their upgrades as high as they do - I think they'd grow their market, and improve cust sat rate, by dropping RAM prices some and SSD prices a LOT (given the cratering of SSD costs/prices in the last year). Oh, and get rid of the HD-only iMac option, that's seriously stupid. But in the end, you buy the package or you don't, and getting angry about it is silly. Either it's worth it or it's not, and that includes option prices and whatever standard or non-standard parts and ports are in the machine.
As for taxes... That was a bizarre digression, and unrelated to the main topic. I like your restaurant analogy.
Over the years, Apple HAS been dropping their RAM and drive prices closer to market. But they can’t follow market pricing. Apple, and other large organizations, buy memory some time in advance, at fixed prices. If prices drop, or rise, they charge the same. After a year, or two, they get new pricing, and their prices reflect that. But they’re always a good year behind, because they have to wrap this up early to make sure they have the supply they need. It’s not like us buying from OWC, or from someone on eBay.
They have been notoriously slow at price corrections. Apple is *famous* for playing the contract and spot markets like a concert violin. They're better at it than anyone. And yet, their SSD pricing is somewhat high even by Dell/HP/Lenovo standards. For example, bumping an MBP SSD from 512GB to 1TB runs $400, and to 2TB is $1k. HP, selling NVMe drives for their high-end workstations (the ones that can configure to 40-50k easily), charge $250 and $940. However, that just changed a few months ago - previously the Apple price for 2TB was dramatically higher. At that time, HP was much lower on the 2TB.
When you look at them, the prices for HP and Dell are not that much lower than Apple's for RAM and SSD. But there's a big difference: With HP and Dell, I can order them with no or minimal SSD, and then buy a better one for a LOT less. I wouldn't necessarily do that, but I might, and others certainly would, and we all resent having that option taken away from us.
Well, they’re very big. So that’s to be expected. But still, they don’t play the spot markets unless they’re supplies are short. Why do you think they invested in the Toshiba bailout? They buy memory a year in advance of anticipated needs. That’s why they’re slow to drop prices. In addition, as you know, memory prices, for bi=oth RAM and NAND, are volatile. It drops for a year, or two, then right supplies cause it to rise, then buildouts cause it to drop again.
no responsible manufacturer can afford to follow those pricing trends. Once you lower the price of the device because of a drop, you can’t raise that model’s price again when memory rises, as it inevitably will. The same thing for additional memory pricing. Once you drop it, that’s it. I get that some manufacturers sell on price, but Apple doesn’t. Thosevothers hardly make a profit, and Apple does. Because so many manufacturers are perpetually on the brink of failure, partly because of thatbpricing model the follow, doesn’t mean that Apple should follow them down the precipice.
well, resent whatever you want, but it’s not an option that’s been taken away from you because Apple has never offered it as an option. Don’t point to Dell and Hp. They have nothing to do with what Apple does.
It was an option once upon a time, when Macs had some accessibility. You'd order the cheapest configuration and upgrade yourself, selling the parts you removed. Since the glued-shut 2012 iMacs, DIY upgrades have become much more difficult, Apple plugged that loophole. I'd argue that now upgrades are more important than ever, with CPU and other core component speeds increasing much more slowly and longer lasting machines being more environmentally friendly, upgrading things like RAM and SSDs over time makes sense.
In the end, though, I think people like probably you and I who would dream about buying one of these and keeping it competitive for 10 years, doesn't match the expectations of the target market. They will just move on to the next thing when it comes. The flexibility here, is the ability to architect the system to their exact needs, not so much that they can upgrade it forever.
I think this is where the fabled xMac would fit in for a lot of traditional Mac aficionados and enthusiasts that love Apple but also love tinkering with their machine. It's a real shame Apple has ditched their Woz-inspired tinkering roots. Apple is very um, "good" at forcing people to use the workflows they decide are best, and deviations of that are frowned upon and even shut down in some instances... *cough* Back to my Mac.
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
for those who do understand it, professional level equipment is always expensive. While Apple gets pilloried for a $995 monitor stand that’s a machined, large piece of metal, with a complex, and supposedly reliable mechanism, RED charges $500 for a simple aluminum handle for their video cameras. Others charge similarly for simple parts. I had automatic paper cutters in my lab. A small circuit board, about 3” x 5” cost $1,000 as a replacement part before 2004 (when we sold the lab). There was nothing special about that part. Agfa charged $1,200, for a power supply, that I found out later, could be bought from the manufacturer for $250. And even worse, all of the broken ones I had were still under original manufacturer’s warrantee! They told me to send them in, and they repaired them for free.
apple is not only not worse, but they’re better. Yes, you can buy cheap Wintel computers, but that’s what you’re getting. Most Wintel users won’t pay more than a minimum, so that’s what those companies make, and their margins are at the bone, so they have financial problems. Look at Dell’s problems. And look at what happened to Hp. Are those the shining examples that Apple is supposed to follow? I hope not.
as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
Let's be fair. 'pure drivel'?
Not at all. He provided a balanced opinion and supported it clearly. It was totally valid.
Is there anything in there that wasn't actually true? I'd be more interested in that angle.
I was nodding in agreement to almost all of it as we share largely the same opinion.
Now, if you have anything factual to dismantle the argument I'd be interested in hearing that too.
No, it wasn’t valid. Most wasn’t true. I’m not going to argue with you, because it’s not worth it.
I don't understand. You seem like a reasonable guy with mostly reasonable points. Why are you backing yourself into a corner over this nonsense? Most of the post was factual, with a slight smattering of emotional reaction. You might not react the same way he does, but the post *is* *true*. The hardware is as he states.
He's run out of answers to counter the points put across, and rather than admitting Apple aren't perfect and the points put across are valid, he's excused himself.
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
[deleted]
as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
No, what's he saying up until the detour to taxes is accurate and factual, not opinion, except for one sentence ("shenanigans" was opinion). I'm OK with paying Apple's higher prices, for the most part - I own a 2018 MBP with top configuration. Except... it's not really the top config, it's got 1TB SSD instead of 4TB, because Apple's SSD prices are *nuts*. RAM prices too, but they're easier to stomach and harder to work around. No RAM on thunderbolt, after all. I also own a 2013 Air, and I was seriously unhappy when the SSD died and I couldn't source a replacement (that ebay connector board is fairly new). Didn't change my mind about the value of the Mac when I first bought it - I knew about the SSD connector then.
I think Apple's making a mistake pricing their upgrades as high as they do - I think they'd grow their market, and improve cust sat rate, by dropping RAM prices some and SSD prices a LOT (given the cratering of SSD costs/prices in the last year). Oh, and get rid of the HD-only iMac option, that's seriously stupid. But in the end, you buy the package or you don't, and getting angry about it is silly. Either it's worth it or it's not, and that includes option prices and whatever standard or non-standard parts and ports are in the machine.
As for taxes... That was a bizarre digression, and unrelated to the main topic. I like your restaurant analogy.
Over the years, Apple HAS been dropping their RAM and drive prices closer to market. But they can’t follow market pricing. Apple, and other large organizations, buy memory some time in advance, at fixed prices. If prices drop, or rise, they charge the same. After a year, or two, they get new pricing, and their prices reflect that. But they’re always a good year behind, because they have to wrap this up early to make sure they have the supply they need. It’s not like us buying from OWC, or from someone on eBay.
Really? I've not noticed any downward trend in the past say, 10 years. Apple buys enough RAM that the overall market trends won't have much of an effect, they'll be paying at most half the price the average consumer can get it for, and most likely much less than that. What about the flash in iPhones? A 64GB flash chip is a couple of dollars. A 128GB one is about $5. And yet Apple charges $100 for the upgrade. You can guarantee that if market prices suddenly rose versus when Apple bought the RAM, they'd up their prices too. So why not when the prices fall?
Well, it has, and it’s been commented upon. The price of a product at retail is between 2.5 to 3.5 the part cost. So if Apple pays $100 for memory, you will pay between $250 and $350. That’s standard markup. If they have to do something g extra to it, such as certify the system with it, the price will be higher. We’ve discussed manufacturing here as well, over the years.
what are you expecting, that Apple charges you the same thing they pay? What company is that stupid?
You've changed the numbers. Using the numbers you're replying to:
The 64GB to 128GB storage upgrade cost was $5-$3=$2. Hell, let's assume the small chip gets thrown away and take it as $5.
Applying your 3.5 multiplier makes $17.50.
Apple charges $100.
Does it cost $82.50 extra to certify an iPhone with 128GB storage compared to what it cost to certify an iPhone with 64GB storage?
Your numbers and excuses are not adding up. Apple makes a disproportionate profit off of upgrades. There's nothing all that wrong with that, it's just a consumer gripe. Why are you trying to worm out of it?
Your numbers aren’t right either. Yes, there are cheap chips. But there are expensive chips too. Look at high end SD cards for cameras. They can cost hundreds because they use high performance chips. It’s not as simple as you say.
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
for those who do understand it, professional level equipment is always expensive. While Apple gets pilloried for a $995 monitor stand that’s a machined, large piece of metal, with a complex, and supposedly reliable mechanism, RED charges $500 for a simple aluminum handle for their video cameras. Others charge similarly for simple parts. I had automatic paper cutters in my lab. A small circuit board, about 3” x 5” cost $1,000 as a replacement part before 2004 (when we sold the lab). There was nothing special about that part. Agfa charged $1,200, for a power supply, that I found out later, could be bought from the manufacturer for $250. And even worse, all of the broken ones I had were still under original manufacturer’s warrantee! They told me to send them in, and they repaired them for free.
apple is not only not worse, but they’re better. Yes, you can buy cheap Wintel computers, but that’s what you’re getting. Most Wintel users won’t pay more than a minimum, so that’s what those companies make, and their margins are at the bone, so they have financial problems. Look at Dell’s problems. And look at what happened to Hp. Are those the shining examples that Apple is supposed to follow? I hope not.
as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
Let's be fair. 'pure drivel'?
Not at all. He provided a balanced opinion and supported it clearly. It was totally valid.
Is there anything in there that wasn't actually true? I'd be more interested in that angle.
I was nodding in agreement to almost all of it as we share largely the same opinion.
Now, if you have anything factual to dismantle the argument I'd be interested in hearing that too.
No, it wasn’t valid. Most wasn’t true. I’m not going to argue with you, because it’s not worth it.
I don't understand. You seem like a reasonable guy with mostly reasonable points. Why are you backing yourself into a corner over this nonsense? Most of the post was factual, with a slight smattering of emotional reaction. You might not react the same way he does, but the post *is* *true*. The hardware is as he states.
Most of the post wasn’t factual. It was statements he made, that’s all.
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
[deleted]
as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
No, what's he saying up until the detour to taxes is accurate and factual, not opinion, except for one sentence ("shenanigans" was opinion). I'm OK with paying Apple's higher prices, for the most part - I own a 2018 MBP with top configuration. Except... it's not really the top config, it's got 1TB SSD instead of 4TB, because Apple's SSD prices are *nuts*. RAM prices too, but they're easier to stomach and harder to work around. No RAM on thunderbolt, after all. I also own a 2013 Air, and I was seriously unhappy when the SSD died and I couldn't source a replacement (that ebay connector board is fairly new). Didn't change my mind about the value of the Mac when I first bought it - I knew about the SSD connector then.
I think Apple's making a mistake pricing their upgrades as high as they do - I think they'd grow their market, and improve cust sat rate, by dropping RAM prices some and SSD prices a LOT (given the cratering of SSD costs/prices in the last year). Oh, and get rid of the HD-only iMac option, that's seriously stupid. But in the end, you buy the package or you don't, and getting angry about it is silly. Either it's worth it or it's not, and that includes option prices and whatever standard or non-standard parts and ports are in the machine.
As for taxes... That was a bizarre digression, and unrelated to the main topic. I like your restaurant analogy.
Over the years, Apple HAS been dropping their RAM and drive prices closer to market. But they can’t follow market pricing. Apple, and other large organizations, buy memory some time in advance, at fixed prices. If prices drop, or rise, they charge the same. After a year, or two, they get new pricing, and their prices reflect that. But they’re always a good year behind, because they have to wrap this up early to make sure they have the supply they need. It’s not like us buying from OWC, or from someone on eBay.
Really? I've not noticed any downward trend in the past say, 10 years. Apple buys enough RAM that the overall market trends won't have much of an effect, they'll be paying at most half the price the average consumer can get it for, and most likely much less than that. What about the flash in iPhones? A 64GB flash chip is a couple of dollars. A 128GB one is about $5. And yet Apple charges $100 for the upgrade. You can guarantee that if market prices suddenly rose versus when Apple bought the RAM, they'd up their prices too. So why not when the prices fall?
Well, it has, and it’s been commented upon. The price of a product at retail is between 2.5 to 3.5 the part cost. So if Apple pays $100 for memory, you will pay between $250 and $350. That’s standard markup. If they have to do something g extra to it, such as certify the system with it, the price will be higher. We’ve discussed manufacturing here as well, over the years.
what are you expecting, that Apple charges you the same thing they pay? What company is that stupid?
That's funny, why is it then the 2015 MBP's RAM prices actually increased by the time it was discontinued in mid 2017?
Nah, just charging $100 for a $5 chip - a 20x markup - seems a bit much.
Apple charges $200 for 16GB RAM in the 27" 5K iMac. They use two 8GB modules and don't just add two more 4GB modules so they're effectively saving on the modules they've taken out since two 8GB modules are cheaper than four 4GB ones. Two 8GB modules totals $74 retail on crucial.com. If Crucial is charging 2.5x the part cost then they're paying $30 for the pair. Apple is likely buying way more RAM than Crucial so would be getting a better price. And despite you claiming Apple won't be able to follow trends, they'd be stupid to buy a year long supply of RAM when prices are high so they likely do so in shorter intervals, until prices are low. But assuming the same cost price as Crucial means Apple is charing 6.7x cost price. A lot more than the 2.5-3.5x. Even if Apple bought their RAM at retail prices it's still over double anyone else. Either still seems a tad much, no?
Just because you think something is stupid doesn’t mean it is. Apple gets the best price they can, based on their volume. But a big concern is securing supply. There’s been a lot written about securing supplies, and some companies, over the years, such as /hTC, and others, have complained that they could get memory, or cameras, for example, because bigger companies had locked in supplies. Is it more important for Apple to be able to make phones and tablets than to pay a bit more? Yes.
In the end, though, I think people like probably you and I who would dream about buying one of these and keeping it competitive for 10 years, doesn't match the expectations of the target market. They will just move on to the next thing when it comes. The flexibility here, is the ability to architect the system to their exact needs, not so much that they can upgrade it forever.
I think this is where the fabled xMac would fit in for a lot of traditional Mac aficionados and enthusiasts that love Apple but also love tinkering with their machine. It's a real shame Apple has ditched their Woz-inspired tinkering roots. Apple is very um, "good" at forcing people to use the workflows they decide are best, and deviations of that are frowned upon and even shut down in some instances... *cough* Back to my Mac.
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
for those who do understand it, professional level equipment is always expensive. While Apple gets pilloried for a $995 monitor stand that’s a machined, large piece of metal, with a complex, and supposedly reliable mechanism, RED charges $500 for a simple aluminum handle for their video cameras. Others charge similarly for simple parts. I had automatic paper cutters in my lab. A small circuit board, about 3” x 5” cost $1,000 as a replacement part before 2004 (when we sold the lab). There was nothing special about that part. Agfa charged $1,200, for a power supply, that I found out later, could be bought from the manufacturer for $250. And even worse, all of the broken ones I had were still under original manufacturer’s warrantee! They told me to send them in, and they repaired them for free.
apple is not only not worse, but they’re better. Yes, you can buy cheap Wintel computers, but that’s what you’re getting. Most Wintel users won’t pay more than a minimum, so that’s what those companies make, and their margins are at the bone, so they have financial problems. Look at Dell’s problems. And look at what happened to Hp. Are those the shining examples that Apple is supposed to follow? I hope not.
as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
Let's be fair. 'pure drivel'?
Not at all. He provided a balanced opinion and supported it clearly. It was totally valid.
Is there anything in there that wasn't actually true? I'd be more interested in that angle.
I was nodding in agreement to almost all of it as we share largely the same opinion.
Now, if you have anything factual to dismantle the argument I'd be interested in hearing that too.
No, it wasn’t valid. Most wasn’t true. I’m not going to argue with you, because it’s not worth it.
I don't understand. You seem like a reasonable guy with mostly reasonable points. Why are you backing yourself into a corner over this nonsense? Most of the post was factual, with a slight smattering of emotional reaction. You might not react the same way he does, but the post *is* *true*. The hardware is as he states.
He's run out of answers to counter the points put across, and rather than admitting Apple aren't perfect and the points put across are valid, he's excused himself.
Hey, I know Apple isn’t perfect. I criticize them here often enough. Then I get called a troll from new members. I guess I can’t win on that. But a lot of what I’m reading, while sounding reasonable, is wrong, even if stated as fact. Sometimes it’s sort of right, but not in the way that matters for the argument at hand. We talk about NAND oricing, and someone say; But this chips are just $5. Yes, true, for the cheapest, slowest chips. The fastest are more expensive. Which do you think Apple uses, the ones in a /$10 flash drive, or the ones in a $400 SD card for cameras? So, what facts are we talking about?
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
[deleted]
as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
No, what's he saying up until the detour to taxes is accurate and factual, not opinion, except for one sentence ("shenanigans" was opinion). I'm OK with paying Apple's higher prices, for the most part - I own a 2018 MBP with top configuration. Except... it's not really the top config, it's got 1TB SSD instead of 4TB, because Apple's SSD prices are *nuts*. RAM prices too, but they're easier to stomach and harder to work around. No RAM on thunderbolt, after all. I also own a 2013 Air, and I was seriously unhappy when the SSD died and I couldn't source a replacement (that ebay connector board is fairly new). Didn't change my mind about the value of the Mac when I first bought it - I knew about the SSD connector then.
I think Apple's making a mistake pricing their upgrades as high as they do - I think they'd grow their market, and improve cust sat rate, by dropping RAM prices some and SSD prices a LOT (given the cratering of SSD costs/prices in the last year). Oh, and get rid of the HD-only iMac option, that's seriously stupid. But in the end, you buy the package or you don't, and getting angry about it is silly. Either it's worth it or it's not, and that includes option prices and whatever standard or non-standard parts and ports are in the machine.
As for taxes... That was a bizarre digression, and unrelated to the main topic. I like your restaurant analogy.
Over the years, Apple HAS been dropping their RAM and drive prices closer to market. But they can’t follow market pricing. Apple, and other large organizations, buy memory some time in advance, at fixed prices. If prices drop, or rise, they charge the same. After a year, or two, they get new pricing, and their prices reflect that. But they’re always a good year behind, because they have to wrap this up early to make sure they have the supply they need. It’s not like us buying from OWC, or from someone on eBay.
Really? I've not noticed any downward trend in the past say, 10 years. Apple buys enough RAM that the overall market trends won't have much of an effect, they'll be paying at most half the price the average consumer can get it for, and most likely much less than that. What about the flash in iPhones? A 64GB flash chip is a couple of dollars. A 128GB one is about $5. And yet Apple charges $100 for the upgrade. You can guarantee that if market prices suddenly rose versus when Apple bought the RAM, they'd up their prices too. So why not when the prices fall?
Well, it has, and it’s been commented upon. The price of a product at retail is between 2.5 to 3.5 the part cost. So if Apple pays $100 for memory, you will pay between $250 and $350. That’s standard markup. If they have to do something g extra to it, such as certify the system with it, the price will be higher. We’ve discussed manufacturing here as well, over the years.
what are you expecting, that Apple charges you the same thing they pay? What company is that stupid?
You've changed the numbers. Using the numbers you're replying to:
The 64GB to 128GB storage upgrade cost was $5-$3=$2. Hell, let's assume the small chip gets thrown away and take it as $5.
Applying your 3.5 multiplier makes $17.50.
Apple charges $100.
Does it cost $82.50 extra to certify an iPhone with 128GB storage compared to what it cost to certify an iPhone with 64GB storage?
Your numbers and excuses are not adding up. Apple makes a disproportionate profit off of upgrades. There's nothing all that wrong with that, it's just a consumer gripe. Why are you trying to worm out of it?
Your numbers aren’t right either. Yes, there are cheap chips. But there are expensive chips too. Look at high end SD cards for cameras. They can cost hundreds because they use high performance chips. It’s not as simple as you say.
And they have a markup like Apple's. A markup which soon declines. Unlike Apple's. IHS has found the exact flash chips Apple uses, and they're a couple of bucks. Now, given that fact, how do you excuse the vast markup Apple charges?
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
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as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
No, what's he saying up until the detour to taxes is accurate and factual, not opinion, except for one sentence ("shenanigans" was opinion). I'm OK with paying Apple's higher prices, for the most part - I own a 2018 MBP with top configuration. Except... it's not really the top config, it's got 1TB SSD instead of 4TB, because Apple's SSD prices are *nuts*. RAM prices too, but they're easier to stomach and harder to work around. No RAM on thunderbolt, after all. I also own a 2013 Air, and I was seriously unhappy when the SSD died and I couldn't source a replacement (that ebay connector board is fairly new). Didn't change my mind about the value of the Mac when I first bought it - I knew about the SSD connector then.
I think Apple's making a mistake pricing their upgrades as high as they do - I think they'd grow their market, and improve cust sat rate, by dropping RAM prices some and SSD prices a LOT (given the cratering of SSD costs/prices in the last year). Oh, and get rid of the HD-only iMac option, that's seriously stupid. But in the end, you buy the package or you don't, and getting angry about it is silly. Either it's worth it or it's not, and that includes option prices and whatever standard or non-standard parts and ports are in the machine.
As for taxes... That was a bizarre digression, and unrelated to the main topic. I like your restaurant analogy.
Over the years, Apple HAS been dropping their RAM and drive prices closer to market. But they can’t follow market pricing. Apple, and other large organizations, buy memory some time in advance, at fixed prices. If prices drop, or rise, they charge the same. After a year, or two, they get new pricing, and their prices reflect that. But they’re always a good year behind, because they have to wrap this up early to make sure they have the supply they need. It’s not like us buying from OWC, or from someone on eBay.
Really? I've not noticed any downward trend in the past say, 10 years. Apple buys enough RAM that the overall market trends won't have much of an effect, they'll be paying at most half the price the average consumer can get it for, and most likely much less than that. What about the flash in iPhones? A 64GB flash chip is a couple of dollars. A 128GB one is about $5. And yet Apple charges $100 for the upgrade. You can guarantee that if market prices suddenly rose versus when Apple bought the RAM, they'd up their prices too. So why not when the prices fall?
Well, it has, and it’s been commented upon. The price of a product at retail is between 2.5 to 3.5 the part cost. So if Apple pays $100 for memory, you will pay between $250 and $350. That’s standard markup. If they have to do something g extra to it, such as certify the system with it, the price will be higher. We’ve discussed manufacturing here as well, over the years.
what are you expecting, that Apple charges you the same thing they pay? What company is that stupid?
That's funny, why is it then the 2015 MBP's RAM prices actually increased by the time it was discontinued in mid 2017?
Nah, just charging $100 for a $5 chip - a 20x markup - seems a bit much.
Apple charges $200 for 16GB RAM in the 27" 5K iMac. They use two 8GB modules and don't just add two more 4GB modules so they're effectively saving on the modules they've taken out since two 8GB modules are cheaper than four 4GB ones. Two 8GB modules totals $74 retail on crucial.com. If Crucial is charging 2.5x the part cost then they're paying $30 for the pair. Apple is likely buying way more RAM than Crucial so would be getting a better price. And despite you claiming Apple won't be able to follow trends, they'd be stupid to buy a year long supply of RAM when prices are high so they likely do so in shorter intervals, until prices are low. But assuming the same cost price as Crucial means Apple is charing 6.7x cost price. A lot more than the 2.5-3.5x. Even if Apple bought their RAM at retail prices it's still over double anyone else. Either still seems a tad much, no?
Just because you think something is stupid doesn’t mean it is. Apple gets the best price they can, based on their volume. But a big concern is securing supply. There’s been a lot written about securing supplies, and some companies, over the years, such as /hTC, and others, have complained that they could get memory, or cameras, for example, because bigger companies had locked in supplies. Is it more important for Apple to be able to make phones and tablets than to pay a bit more? Yes.
Just because you think something isn't stupid doesn't mean it isn't. Of course they do, and that massive volume means Apple will be buying the chips at low prices. And yes those supply constraints are caused by the likes of Apple buying as many chips as they need for the next n months long at a low price, causing the prices to rise for others.
In the end, though, I think people like probably you and I who would dream about buying one of these and keeping it competitive for 10 years, doesn't match the expectations of the target market. They will just move on to the next thing when it comes. The flexibility here, is the ability to architect the system to their exact needs, not so much that they can upgrade it forever.
I think this is where the fabled xMac would fit in for a lot of traditional Mac aficionados and enthusiasts that love Apple but also love tinkering with their machine. It's a real shame Apple has ditched their Woz-inspired tinkering roots. Apple is very um, "good" at forcing people to use the workflows they decide are best, and deviations of that are frowned upon and even shut down in some instances... *cough* Back to my Mac.
Apple greed at work, they will charge 3x what other SSDs cost.
I really doubt that. Apple has shown time & again that their engineers lead with what they believe is the best solution for the product. The pundits and rumormongers just come up with their own invented reasons, which are conjecture only.
Actually, Apple has been known to just take a standard connector, flip the pins to different locations, and charge you differently. AirPort cards were just PCMCIA cards with 2 pins swapped. They started cheaper than PCMCIA cards but eventually the cost of a PCMCIA card dropped but the AirPort card stayed the same.
When it comes to flash storage, same thing.
As proof, here is a simple adapter that turns a standard SSD into one that works in your MacBook Air or Pro. The adapter is tiny because it contains no logic converters - it just, **surprise** swaps the pins!
To courageously innovate around that, in 2016 they soldered the flash straight on to the logic board - giving you no choice but to pre-buy all the storage you anxiously worried that you might need down the road - and they charged handsomely for it.
Fanboys will say nobody upgrades. Pro users will say they upgrade if they can (that is why the new Mac Pro is the most upgradeable Mac ever - a course correction against the cylindrical Mac Pro). So who is right? Would MacBook Pro users buy less flash to start with, and buy more flash later (when it dropped in price) - if they could?
A company doesn’t boast a 38% margin (while the rest of the industry struggles to get past single-digit margin) and higher ASP just because they were able to be 38% cost efficient when everyone else was only 9% cost efficient. It is very hard to be 400% better than your long-lived competitors.
I’m not saying Apple is evil. They’re just doing business. They can compete any (legal) way they want to.
What I am saying is, some of us have had enough of these shenanigans. And we have proof that is what these actions are - shenanigans.
While I’m expressing my disappointment, “Apple pays every tax dollar it owes” is mindless drivel. Of course it does! Else they end up in jail! But “what it owes” isn’t some fair number arrived at that is mutually beneficial to the countries it operates in - it is a number arrived at where one country (Ireland) decides to be corrupt and set an artificially low tax rate in hopes of getting some revenue and shutting out other countries.
Oh, for crying out loud. I’ve been using Macs since 1988, but PCs since 1981, and computers since 1966. I’ve seen it all. Most of what you’re saying is pure drivel. Industries that mostly use Macs don’t use them because they’re overpriced, and marketed well. If you don’t understand that, then don’t bother to be in the conversation.
for those who do understand it, professional level equipment is always expensive. While Apple gets pilloried for a $995 monitor stand that’s a machined, large piece of metal, with a complex, and supposedly reliable mechanism, RED charges $500 for a simple aluminum handle for their video cameras. Others charge similarly for simple parts. I had automatic paper cutters in my lab. A small circuit board, about 3” x 5” cost $1,000 as a replacement part before 2004 (when we sold the lab). There was nothing special about that part. Agfa charged $1,200, for a power supply, that I found out later, could be bought from the manufacturer for $250. And even worse, all of the broken ones I had were still under original manufacturer’s warrantee! They told me to send them in, and they repaired them for free.
apple is not only not worse, but they’re better. Yes, you can buy cheap Wintel computers, but that’s what you’re getting. Most Wintel users won’t pay more than a minimum, so that’s what those companies make, and their margins are at the bone, so they have financial problems. Look at Dell’s problems. And look at what happened to Hp. Are those the shining examples that Apple is supposed to follow? I hope not.
as far as taxes go. If it’s legal, then I hope a company is taking every advantage of that. The reality is that Apple did nothing illegal in Europe. Many European companies do exactly the same thing. So I say, change the laws. Companies will then be forced to follow them. But if the laws allow something, a company should do it. It’s not their responsibility to pay more taxes than they have to. It’s not like tipping in a restaurant. It’s like paying the bill itself.
Let's be fair. 'pure drivel'?
Not at all. He provided a balanced opinion and supported it clearly. It was totally valid.
Is there anything in there that wasn't actually true? I'd be more interested in that angle.
I was nodding in agreement to almost all of it as we share largely the same opinion.
Now, if you have anything factual to dismantle the argument I'd be interested in hearing that too.
No, it wasn’t valid. Most wasn’t true. I’m not going to argue with you, because it’s not worth it.
I don't understand. You seem like a reasonable guy with mostly reasonable points. Why are you backing yourself into a corner over this nonsense? Most of the post was factual, with a slight smattering of emotional reaction. You might not react the same way he does, but the post *is* *true*. The hardware is as he states.
He's run out of answers to counter the points put across, and rather than admitting Apple aren't perfect and the points put across are valid, he's excused himself.
Hey, I know Apple isn’t perfect. I criticize them here often enough. Then I get called a troll from new members. I guess I can’t win on that. But a lot of what I’m reading, while sounding reasonable, is wrong, even if stated as fact. Sometimes it’s sort of right, but not in the way that matters for the argument at hand. We talk about NAND oricing, and someone say; But this chips are just $5. Yes, true, for the cheapest, slowest chips. The fastest are more expensive. Which do you think Apple uses, the ones in a /$10 flash drive, or the ones in a $400 SD card for cameras? So, what facts are we talking about?
Perhaps then you should learn that what you are reading isn't always wrong if it doesn't fit your seemingly permanently burnt-in idea. As I said earlier, IHS has found the flash chips in iPhones are a few dollars. Are you saying the part number on the chip is not actually the right part number, or Apple is paying way over the odds for the same chips they can get for a few bucks?
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but that 2 second open speed is now a fraction of a second with the newest drives, and if it’s a fraction of a fraction of a second faster, so what? I think people who don’t really understand this are just drooling over the thought that faster is always noticeable, and therefore, always better. It might be if storage speeds move to another order of magnitude faster, and the computer as a whole, the OS and the individual apps can take advantage of it. But right now, none of that is true, and if it were, the cost would make the new Mac Pro seem cheap.
the ideal computer speed is where as soon as you lift you finger from the key, everything is done. In the practical sense, for a lot of tasks, that’s already true, and the drive has nothing to do with it.
no responsible manufacturer can afford to follow those pricing trends. Once you lower the price of the device because of a drop, you can’t raise that model’s price again when memory rises, as it inevitably will. The same thing for additional memory pricing. Once you drop it, that’s it. I get that some manufacturers sell on price, but Apple doesn’t. Thosevothers hardly make a profit, and Apple does. Because so many manufacturers are perpetually on the brink of failure, partly because of thatbpricing model the follow, doesn’t mean that Apple should follow them down the precipice.
well, resent whatever you want, but it’s not an option that’s been taken away from you because Apple has never offered it as an option. Don’t point to Dell and Hp. They have nothing to do with what Apple does.
Though it kills the opportunity to upgrade, and everyone else can easily surpass it when technology improves, that’s my gripe here.
I guess we’ll see because Apple gives different speed rating across their lineup, maybe swapping the flash module will change the speed somehow.
Also, I think it was on Mac Break Weekly podcast, they were talking about the CPU being on some kind of card into the backplane... so I wonder how much of this machine that kind of design applies to. Maybe if/when faster stuff comes along, there is some flexibility in upgrading the storage aspect (including the slots, etc.) too?
In the end, though, I think people like probably you and I who would dream about buying one of these and keeping it competitive for 10 years, doesn't match the expectations of the target market. They will just move on to the next thing when it comes. The flexibility here, is the ability to architect the system to their exact needs, not so much that they can upgrade it forever.
Not a whole lot people does that unless you’re buying it from eBay as used product, people usually worried about their files more years after, but that still irks me when I thinks about it.
Nah, just charging $100 for a $5 chip - a 20x markup - seems a bit much.
Apple charges $200 for 16GB RAM in the 27" 5K iMac. They use two 8GB modules and don't just add two more 4GB modules so they're effectively saving on the modules they've taken out since two 8GB modules are cheaper than four 4GB ones. Two 8GB modules totals $74 retail on crucial.com. If Crucial is charging 2.5x the part cost then they're paying $30 for the pair. Apple is likely buying way more RAM than Crucial so would be getting a better price. And despite you claiming Apple won't be able to follow trends, they'd be stupid to buy a year long supply of RAM when prices are high so they likely do so in shorter intervals, until prices are low. But assuming the same cost price as Crucial means Apple is charing 6.7x cost price. A lot more than the 2.5-3.5x. Even if Apple bought their RAM at retail prices it's still over double anyone else. Either still seems a tad much, no?
The M.2 NVME SSDs Apple uses aren't anywhere near as expensive as they were when they first appeared in the 2015 MBP. Crucial (who aren't particularly cheap) sell a 1TB 2000MB/sec read/write M.2 NVME drive that's just $119, the one in my 2019 iMac is about 2300mb/sec. Apple charges you $100 for the privilege of losing the 2TB HDD, 32GB SSD and installing a 500GB SSD instead. Oh and the other thing, is I'm not sure how they justify how the SSD upgrades in the desktops are double the price of the ones in the laptops..
They have also been bastards in the past preventing DIY upgrades by actually producing entire extra lines of logic boards just so they can install some without the SATA connection if people get NVME SSDs, and vice versa; without the NVME connector for the low end SATA-only iMacs. That really is twattish behaviour, as even with economies of scale it'd be more expensive to double up on the number of logic board/CPU combinations just to have some with NVME connector and some without than it would just to keep the connector on all boards.
As you say, it would be good for Apple to make available the lower end parts for various BTO options as people don't always need top end. But I guess there's not as much profit to be made on a $50 SATA SSD upgrade as there is on a $100 one. There are slower M.2 NVME SSDs for $69 which are 550mb/sec R/W which is absolutely fine for most people, and I'd honestly be happy with.
It was an option once upon a time, when Macs had some accessibility. You'd order the cheapest configuration and upgrade yourself, selling the parts you removed. Since the glued-shut 2012 iMacs, DIY upgrades have become much more difficult, Apple plugged that loophole. I'd argue that now upgrades are more important than ever, with CPU and other core component speeds increasing much more slowly and longer lasting machines being more environmentally friendly, upgrading things like RAM and SSDs over time makes sense.
I think this is where the fabled xMac would fit in for a lot of traditional Mac aficionados and enthusiasts that love Apple but also love tinkering with their machine. It's a real shame Apple has ditched their Woz-inspired tinkering roots. Apple is very um, "good" at forcing people to use the workflows they decide are best, and deviations of that are frowned upon and even shut down in some instances... *cough* Back to my Mac.
He's run out of answers to counter the points put across, and rather than admitting Apple aren't perfect and the points put across are valid, he's excused himself.
Just because you think something isn't stupid doesn't mean it isn't. Of course they do, and that massive volume means Apple will be buying the chips at low prices. And yes those supply constraints are caused by the likes of Apple buying as many chips as they need for the next n months long at a low price, causing the prices to rise for others.
Perhaps then you should learn that what you are reading isn't always wrong if it doesn't fit your seemingly permanently burnt-in idea. As I said earlier, IHS has found the flash chips in iPhones are a few dollars. Are you saying the part number on the chip is not actually the right part number, or Apple is paying way over the odds for the same chips they can get for a few bucks?