I'm sorry, but given Apple's direction in recent years, anything, including names and nomenclatures, lends themselves to justifying the increasingly expensive pricing.
Apple's current business model is that of luxury brands. There is no difference here whether the product is a computer, phone or a watch band.
Here's how it works: the luxury-brand companies sell a leather purse for the price of a car to people who want to imitate the rich and give the same purse to really wealthy people to consolidate status.
We saw this clearly happening at the time of the Apple Watch release. And we see today, with each product release, Apple giving influencers units for free so they can use and evangelize about the wonders and status that these products provide.
The watch was the test balloon. Bringing this expertise to Apple was the role given to Angela. And the instrumentation was done by Jony, turning the products into decorative objects (see the Butterfly keyboard and end of the utility product lines, like routers and monitors).
The next step was to stop advertising the sales volume of any product to focus solely on profit. Then we had an average 30% price increase for just about everything from products to AppleCare services. The stores have also been converted into high-end boutiques.
The transition from product company to luxury product company has been achieved. The current administration assumes this status openly and without any embarrassment.
Therefore it is important to understand that any action within Apple, including the adoption of nomenclature for products and services, nowadays will always be to reinforce and refine the luxury brand perception.
So when the first Mac (with just a floppy) sold for $2495 in 1984 ($6282 in current dollars), that wasn't a luxury product? The Apple II+, without drives or monitor was $1195 in 1979 ($4241 in current dollars). Sounds pretty luxurious to me.
While prices have increased, Apple was never the low- or medium- cost leader. Apple was always expensive. It's up to each consumer to decide whether it was worth it. And I say that as someone who was pretty frustrated with what I had to pay for my last MBP.
The only iPhone Pro feature that could make me consider buying one is pencil support. Other than that I don't need the speakers on my phone to sound amazing, I have a HomePod and AirPods and Sony headphones if I need to listen to music. I don't need the screen to be mind blowing, I have Thunderbolt monitors for graphic design work, and a 70 inch 4K TV for watching movies and TV. I kinda care about the camera, but I honestly don't even take many photos anymore.
Realistically professionals who are on their phone all day for the most part don't need the iPhone's most impressive features outside of battery life and screen size. Nobody in their right mind is editing large video projects or doing graphic design on their phones. Maybe MAYBE on an iPad Pro, but on the iPhone? Unless you're gonna let me plug that iPhone Pro into an external monitor and hook it up to a legit keyboard, what do I even need an iPhone past the iPhone 7 for these days? (Don't get me wrong I have a XR, but I got it because FaceID is awesome and my SE was getting old.)
Apple needs to figure out something that people could need a more powerful phone for. AR is one thing, but the market for that is mostly people who have tons of time to sit around playing games that are largely targeted at kids. I don't think your pro market is 12 year olds. Sure they're working on pushing gaming with Apple Arcade, but they also plan on making all of those games work on the Apple TV and Apple TV 4K (at which point your games need to be able to run on an A8 processor) so that service isn't likely to PUSH the limits as opposed to just providing a better experience with newer hardware.
The iPad Pro has room to grow in terms of doing more on your phone. But the reason somebody will be upgrading to a new iPhone for the next few years is probably mostly going to centre on them being sick of their old device and just wanting a new one, wanting one that is a different colour, or that they've broken their old phone. Especially now that phone companies are moving away from subsidizing devices. Apple would be wise to push the high end but keep around a very capable and value focused model like the XR. Because while I used to be the one who would buy the highest end iPhone, I'd probably be entirely happy to move from my XR back to an SE if I needed to.
I'm sorry, but given Apple's direction in recent years, anything, including names and nomenclatures, lends themselves to justifying the increasingly expensive pricing.
Apple's current business model is that of luxury brands. There is no difference here whether the product is a computer, phone or a watch band.
Here's how it works: the luxury-brand companies sell a leather purse for the price of a car to people who want to imitate the rich and give the same purse to really wealthy people to consolidate status.
We saw this clearly happening at the time of the Apple Watch release. And we see today, with each product release, Apple giving influencers units for free so they can use and evangelize about the wonders and status that these products provide.
The watch was the test balloon. Bringing this expertise to Apple was the role given to Angela. And the instrumentation was done by Jony, turning the products into decorative objects (see the Butterfly keyboard and end of the utility product lines, like routers and monitors).
The next step was to stop advertising the sales volume of any product to focus solely on profit. Then we had an average 30% price increase for just about everything from products to AppleCare services. The stores have also been converted into high-end boutiques.
The transition from product company to luxury product company has been achieved. The current administration assumes this status openly and without any embarrassment.
Therefore it is important to understand that any action within Apple, including the adoption of nomenclature for products and services, nowadays will always be to reinforce and refine the luxury brand perception.
So when the first Mac (with just a floppy) sold for $2495 in 1984 ($6282 in current dollars), that wasn't a luxury product? The Apple II+, without drives or monitor was $1195 in 1979 ($4241 in current dollars). Sounds pretty luxurious to me.
While prices have increased, Apple was never the low- or medium- cost leader. Apple was always expensive. It's up to each consumer to decide whether it was worth it. And I say that as someone who was pretty frustrated with what I had to pay for my last MBP.
You’re serious, right? You think that utterly revolutionary device was a “luxury”?
I’ve seen some dumb comments in my time, but that takes the cake. Were the creators of that marvelous product not supposed to make a profit? Without a profit, how could Apple grow? What are you, one of the deluded who thinks creativity, guts, and willingness to take a chance shouldn’t have an opportunity to be rewarded? You know who the people are who think that? They’re the people who don’t have what it takes.
In 1984, my wife and I barely managed to secure the credit to buy that first little Mac and a printer, with it’s two programs, MacWrite and MacPaint. It literally changed our lives. And you sit here, decades later, in a cornucopia of computer capability, and have the unmitigated gall to claim that product, of all products, a LUXURY???
I just had to comment on the "for the rest of us" slogan from 1984. I believe it was used as a slogan to tell the public that a simpler computer was now available for the general public. Computers in 1980's were somewhat difficult for non technical people to use and few had them.
This is a great point to bring up here. It should’ve been in mind when this laborious editorial was written, and I also wish I had mentioned it myself in my prior comment in this thread.
Ugh, so you saw some people arguing on a forum so decided to write a thousand self-righteous words from a pulpit about how they're stupid? Not a good discussion piece.
It's not even really from here. This conversation is everywhere.
It’s “everywhere” because Apple’s marketing is everywhere. The problem is theirs.
Language changes over time. When it’s driven by culture, we adapt. It’s just part of civilization. Words have meaning, even as the sounds and the usage shifts over time. The people and the culture enact the meaning.
Marketing, on the other hand, abuses language to influence society. It does it in the short term, for short-term gains. Marketing implies one definition of a word and then the company claims another definition when called out in court. They will then try to use the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the laws originally intended to protect consumers from abuse (and that’s if the laws got to the point of being enacted without preemptive corporate lobbying corrupting them into supporting corporate interests).
Blowing it off as “just a marketing term” and an attitude problem with “certain people” just promotes the abuse and misses the point.
TL;DR: Long time reader, love what you do, but (IMVHO) this article wasn’t one of your best 🙁.
I agree with the sentiment of those who are wondering why this article exists, although I won’t cause a scene about it.
It’s just a strange, meandering combination of seemingly random thoughts that I couldn’t make much sense of. In other words, I actually couldn’t figure out what the authors’ point was; something like ‘The word Pro is a marketing term’? But what is the conclusion here? It seems like the conclusion is the same as the premise.
There have been a few of these pieces popping up lately and I don’t even have any good constructive feedback to give you apart from the fact that for some reason these editorials are increasingly difficult to understand, or they seem to concentrate on very uninteresting points.
Don’t want to be negative, but when the comments section turns into you guys having to kind of restate your arguments, it’s clear people don’t understand what your point is (as I also didn’t)—although they could probably state that with more decorum haha
Anyway, all that aside, I like what you guys do so would love to see these editorials tightened up a bit so I enjoy coming here for a good read of interesting stuff rather than it feeling like a bit of a slog haha
Apple’s first use of “Pro” was in software: “System 7 Pro” (7.1.1)
It could do more than the standard 7.1 because it came with a suite of “Pro” tools like PowerTalk 1.0 (the original Apple email client, including the first version of what would later become Keychain) and AppleScript 1.0. To run these smoothly, you needed a recent system with maxed out RAM. It wasn’t free, either. You had to buy it. $150.
It was a one-time thing. These extras were included with the standard System 7.5, and PowerTalk died soon thereafter, killed by SMTP. I could be wrong, but I don’t think “Pro” was used again until 2006, when Jobs resurrected it for the Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro.
Obviously, Jobs and Apple were aware of the earlier usage of “Pro” — one of the first things he did was rescue Keychain from System 7 Pro. So I’d define Apple’s current use of the term as follows: Pro software requires Pro hardware. Software sells systems. It’s as simple as that.
It’s got nothing to do with who’s a “Pro” and who isn’t. It’s about what software requires what hardware.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think “Pro” was used again until 2006, when Jobs resurrected it for the Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro.
If you're including software then Final Cut Pro has been around since 2000-ish, and Logic Pro since a few years after that. I think most would agree that they justify the Pro label though.
Apple’s first use of “Pro” was in software: “System 7 Pro” (7.1.1)
It could do more than the standard 7.1 because it came with a suite of “Pro” tools like PowerTalk 1.0 (the original Apple email client, including the first version of what would later become Keychain) and AppleScript 1.0. To run these smoothly, you needed a recent system with maxed out RAM. It wasn’t free, either. You had to buy it. $150.
It was a one-time thing. These extras were included with the standard System 7.5, and PowerTalk died soon thereafter, killed by SMTP. I could be wrong, but I don’t think “Pro” was used again until 2006, when Jobs resurrected it for the Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro.
Obviously, Jobs and Apple were aware of the earlier usage of “Pro” — one of the first things he did was rescue Keychain from System 7 Pro. So I’d define Apple’s current use of the term as follows: Pro software requires Pro hardware. Software sells systems. It’s as simple as that.
It’s got nothing to do with who’s a “Pro” and who isn’t. It’s about what software requires what hardware.
Just FYI to the authors again here’s an example of some more of those interesting points I mentioned that were completely missed. I think to do a piece about the ‘Pro’ moniker needed some more detail than just some tenuous links to the ‘For the rest of us’ slogan which didn’t really seem to have anything to do with your points. There’s some good discussion to be had about it!
Anyway, won’t bang on about it! But would love to see some more detailed thought pieces than what you put together here lads 👍🏼
Just wanted to add that Apple products used to be "prosumer" - the best of both worlds! That's a device with features high end enough that professionals would use them, yet with a low enough prices that enthusiastic folks at home could still afford them! Now that prices have doubled I find for the first time I'm truly priced out of the top end.
So when the first Mac (with just a floppy) sold for $2495 in 1984 ($6282 in current dollars), that wasn't a luxury product? The Apple II+, without drives or monitor was $1195 in 1979 ($4241 in current dollars). Sounds pretty luxurious to me.
While prices have increased, Apple was never the low- or medium- cost leader. Apple was always expensive. It's up to each consumer to decide whether it was worth it. And I say that as someone who was pretty frustrated with what I had to pay for my last MBP.
This provides an interesting angle: Initially, Apple did the classic "retail pricing" thing of charging triple the price of wholesale. (66% margin) Products got even more expensive when Apple reserved 50% of the cost of each product to marketing. So the real question in Apple's move from volume to profit is what's their new margins? They used to report average margins around 40% - is that the same margin they make on a $7K Macbook Pro? If so, then they're just doing the NASA thing - using expensive parts, expensive designs. FWIW, I really don't think they're inflating the price of the Mac Pro. But I REALLY have suspicions about the way they price flash storage - unless they're paying quadruple to get a 20% higher speed. They also seem to subscribe to the Porsche Pricing model - charge a reasonable price for the base model, but the options are so expensive they more than double the total cost.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think “Pro” was used again until 2006, when Jobs resurrected it for the Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro.
If you're including software then Final Cut Pro has been around since 2000-ish, and Logic Pro since a few years after that. I think most would agree that they justify the Pro label though.
Yes, originally both were “Pro” versions of software relative to lower-cost “Express” consumer versions with less demanding system requirements. When distribution moved to the App Store, then the consumer versions became no-additional-cost downloads (Garage Band and iMovie). Of course, the Final Cut story is complicated since Apple rebuilt it from the ground up, but end result is now the same.
Think about what happened the last time Apple rebuilt software from the ground up ... the OS. The shift to Mac OS X laid the foundation for, well, everything that has happened since. Now think about the 2019 Mac Pro presentation, showing how Final Cut Pro X can do unheard-of things on this new hardware — these achievements are possible not just because the Pro hardware is optimal, but also because the Pro software was redesigned with this in mind.
Comments
While prices have increased, Apple was never the low- or medium- cost leader. Apple was always expensive. It's up to each consumer to decide whether it was worth it. And I say that as someone who was pretty frustrated with what I had to pay for my last MBP.
I’ve seen some dumb comments in my time, but that takes the cake. Were the creators of that marvelous product not supposed to make a profit? Without a profit, how could Apple grow? What are you, one of the deluded who thinks creativity, guts, and willingness to take a chance shouldn’t have an opportunity to be rewarded? You know who the people are who think that? They’re the people who don’t have what it takes.
In 1984, my wife and I barely managed to secure the credit to buy that first little Mac and a printer, with it’s two programs, MacWrite and MacPaint. It literally changed our lives. And you sit here, decades later, in a cornucopia of computer capability, and have the unmitigated gall to claim that product, of all products, a LUXURY???
Unbefrickingleivable.
It’s “everywhere” because Apple’s marketing is everywhere. The problem is theirs.
Language changes over time. When it’s driven by culture, we adapt. It’s just part of civilization. Words have meaning, even as the sounds and the usage shifts over time. The people and the culture enact the meaning.
Marketing, on the other hand, abuses language to influence society. It does it in the short term, for short-term gains. Marketing implies one definition of a word and then the company claims another definition when called out in court. They will then try to use the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the laws originally intended to protect consumers from abuse (and that’s if the laws got to the point of being enacted without preemptive corporate lobbying corrupting them into supporting corporate interests).
Blowing it off as “just a marketing term” and an attitude problem with “certain people” just promotes the abuse and misses the point.
I agree with the sentiment of those who are wondering why this article exists, although I won’t cause a scene about it.
It’s just a strange, meandering combination of seemingly random thoughts that I couldn’t make much sense of. In other words, I actually couldn’t figure out what the authors’ point was; something like ‘The word Pro is a marketing term’? But what is the conclusion here? It seems like the conclusion is the same as the premise.
There have been a few of these pieces popping up lately and I don’t even have any good constructive feedback to give you apart from the fact that for some reason these editorials are increasingly difficult to understand, or they seem to concentrate on very uninteresting points.
Don’t want to be negative, but when the comments section turns into you guys having to kind of restate your arguments, it’s clear people don’t understand what your point is (as I also didn’t)—although they could probably state that with more decorum haha
Anyway, all that aside, I like what you guys do so would love to see these editorials tightened up a bit so I enjoy coming here for a good read of interesting stuff rather than it feeling like a bit of a slog haha
🤙🏼🤙🏼👍🏼😌😀
It could do more than the standard 7.1 because it came with a suite of “Pro” tools like PowerTalk 1.0 (the original Apple email client, including the first version of what would later become Keychain) and AppleScript 1.0. To run these smoothly, you needed a recent system with maxed out RAM. It wasn’t free, either. You had to buy it. $150.
It was a one-time thing. These extras were included with the standard System 7.5, and PowerTalk died soon thereafter, killed by SMTP. I could be wrong, but I don’t think “Pro” was used again until 2006, when Jobs resurrected it for the Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro.
Obviously, Jobs and Apple were aware of the earlier usage of “Pro” — one of the first things he did was rescue Keychain from System 7 Pro. So I’d define Apple’s current use of the term as follows: Pro software requires Pro hardware. Software sells systems. It’s as simple as that.
It’s got nothing to do with who’s a “Pro” and who isn’t. It’s about what software requires what hardware.
Anyway, won’t bang on about it! But would love to see some more detailed thought pieces than what you put together here lads 👍🏼
Think about what happened the last time Apple rebuilt software from the ground up ... the OS. The shift to Mac OS X laid the foundation for, well, everything that has happened since. Now think about the 2019 Mac Pro presentation, showing how Final Cut Pro X can do unheard-of things on this new hardware — these achievements are possible not just because the Pro hardware is optimal, but also because the Pro software was redesigned with this in mind.