Soli

crowley said:

Not really clear on what advantage such an OS would have over existing SiriKit, or how it would be deployed.

Incidentally, what does HomePod run, is it a version of iOS?  Does it have its own distinction, podOS, or something similar?

No idea if the tags for "audioOS" have been found in the code or stated by Apple internally, but that is what it's called. Yes, it's forked from iOS. 

• https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/AudioOS

felix01 said:

@Soli

Well, I’m not going to list my cards on an open forum but this will get you started:

https://www.creditcards.com/cash-back/

https://www.nerdwallet.com/best/credit-cards/cash-back

What cards are you referring? The one that has a massive annual fee, the ones that have it on select purchases, or the one has it as short-term introductory offer? Because those are not the same as better than 2% for all Apple Pay purchases at a minimum for a free card.

ireland said:

Seeing as 128 GB isn’t big enough for most people, this computer is no bang for your buck.

SweeTango said:

ireland said:

Seeing as 128 GB isn’t big enough for most people, this computer is no bang for your buck.

Exactly.  These minuscule SSDs are almost offensive.

Then it's a good thing for you two that this is neither the only nor largest capacity SSD available. Personally, I don't that much capacity on my portable Mac so I'm glad Apple doesn't force buyers to go for capacities they won't need. I take that back. Since I'm a 15" MBP user it does mean that I do have to get the 256 GB MBP at the entry level capacity when 128 GB would be more than enough for my portable needs. But instead of complaining about Apple is raping me or forcing me to do something against my will, I instead look at all vendor products, determine which fits my needs best, and then move on with my decision.

eightzero said:

Looking forward to Apple Card. I will likely never use the physical one, might not even carry it with me…

That's my plan and what I assume Apple expects. People on these forums keep claiming that they receive better deals for an across-the-board cash back on their current card but I haven't seen a single free card that offers a minimum of 2% back for Apple Pay-based payments.

lorin schultz said:

Soli said:

Pylons said:

No changes to low tiers! Most importantly, it still costs the insulting figure of $200 to upgrade from 128 GB to 256 GB! That's $1600/TB!
High-end SSDs cost $170-300/TB (for drives that are even faster than Apple's).

Right? And it's under 3lb? Do you know much I can get back from recycling 3lb of aluminium cans? Apple is literally raping us.

You’re not honestly suggesting there’s ANY kind of justification for the price Apple charges for storage, are you? It’s ludicrous.

There are absolutely justification for their prices. and on multiple different levels at that.

For starters, to claim that some no-name retailer of some 3rd-party NAND has the same overhead as Apple when it comes to warranting a whole device solution is ridiculous. For example, I've bought plenty of 3rd-party RAM and storage over the decades for Macs. When they have been bad I have had to troubleshoot that problem myself, then contact the retailer or the manufacturer—depending on how long its been since purchase—to go though their (often) grueling customer service website and/or calling center to start an RMA. Then I may have no Mac for the time that it takes to pack up and send in my bad HW that I diagnosed and then have to wait for them verify the problem exists before resolving or sending me a replacement. They will ship back on their dime but I'm still on the hook for sending it to them even though I'm under warranty. For me, this usually is worth the risk of the small financial benefit and I love to tinker but how is this a feasible avenue for the average user that refers to parts of their device as the whatchamacallit and thingamajig?

Another clear reason for their storage costs is that it's a common demarcation for how they tier their devices, especially their iDevices. You see some standalone prices for NAND and then assume that the price should ridiculously small price jump without any consideration as to why they are scaling their devices the way they do. Using Pylon's numbers, going from 128 GB to 256 GB for $170 per TB which is 17c per GB would mean that Apple shouldn't charge more than $21.76 for the next tier up.

Finally, you need to look at the product category as a whole. That's where the investment resides and why they commonly scale using storage. You see the cheapest device for sale and think that you're already paying enough so that Apple should charge me fore more NAND at cost, but you never look at the most expensive one for sale and then consider what you could save by removing the NAND at cost or how this would completely mess up their unit sales and affect very balanced NAND availability if getting the lowest and highest priced device based on the few options you have were based solely on cost. The only way this would work would be to rise the initial price of the device to cover for the loss you people are indicating with your comments, and by work, I mean for Apple to maintain their profit margin per device but since this could completely mess up production availability due to how storage would be spaced while also reducing reducing unit sales and likely reducing revenue this would be a very bad move.

If and when we see Apple failing at figuring out their equilibrium price and having warehouses of unsold product we can start to look at legitimate concerns for Apple charging customers more than the market is willing to bear.

The bottom line is if one truly feels that a vendor's prices are too high then one should shop elsewhere.