timmillea

davidw said:

lkrupp said:

What goes up never comes down in the retail universe.

Only the price of apps didn't go up. The Apple App Store price their apps in US Dollars, in every country. And each country pays the equivalent in their own currency, based on the exchange rate of their currency. If the exchange rate goes up or down, then the changes in the price of apps (in their country) is reflected in their currency, when Apple makes the correction. But whether they end up paying more or less for the apps in their currency, they are still paying the same equivalent price in US Dollars for the apps. Apple did not raise (or lower) the price of apps in their App Store. The exchange rate between the US Dollar and other currencies, goes up and down daily. But I don't know what criteria Apple sets to determine when the changes are reflected in the Apple App Store pricing in other currencies. But I do know that when the exchange rate is not favorable for Apple, for too long, they report it in their earnings report to explain one of the reasons why earnings or profits might had taken a hit. (Remember, the exchange rate also affects the pricing of Apple hardware, in other countries.)    

What naive tosh! It is true that Apple sets prices in $US in the US. Overseas prices are based on the US prices plus local sales taxes plus a hefty margin for exchange rate variability, plus an extra profit margin, then rounded up to the next price point. 

The  example quoted by JP234 of the Mac Mini going from $699 to $599 in the US. That same Mac Mini M2 is £649 in the UK. At the current exchange rate of $1.2395/£ that is $804.43. 

Apple has always charged much higher prices outside of the US. For a high-end Mac, the difference in price will pay for a holiday to the US to buy it. 

3nM is around the theoretical limit of feasibility using silicon. I wonder if there will be associated reliability/longevity issues? I would prefer some form of ECC baked in. It won't be a good day when you discover that a small percentage of your files have been slightly corrupted by an ageing 3nM SOC. 

"Size is everything". If you have ever visited a Japanese department store you would know this to be true. The smaller, the more expensive. 

I know Americans have a reputation of being fat and wanting absolutely everything to be bigger but Apple is a global enterprise and should be more balanced. The iPhone Mini was already too big and heavy for everyday comfort. To ditch it in favour of even larger models betrays the American culture behind Apple (as does its car aspirations). 

I feel that we have passed 'Peak Apple Design', sadly. The MBA M2 was a serious design downgrade from the MBA M1, the Apple Studio an embarrassing monstrosity and the abandonment of what was called the 'Mini' of the iPhones simply a terrible mistake. Calling it the Mini in the first place was a mistake. 

We had a golden era of Apple design which appears to have now passed. Products from a year or so ago will be the collectables of the future. Buy them while you still can and keep them unopened to maximise future value. 

As to the future, Apple have signalled that design is dead and only specs count. Apple almost died like that before. Now there is no Steve Jobs figure to revive it.

leehericks said:

MacBook Air was called Air because it was significantly thinner than laptops of the time.

We don’t need an Air moniker anymore.

Just a MacBook 13/15 and MacBook Pro 14/16

I don’t know why we couldn’t just get the two sizes with the screen size as the main differentiator…

Plus a MacBook Air 12" - underpowered, one-port, non-upgradeable, non-openable, expensive but a gorgeous fete of engineering! It would, of course, be lighter than a standard iPad. 

In what way could a 15" laptop possibly be a MacBook Air? The current 13" model is already a stretch. The MBA concept is a 'premium ultraportable'. A 15" fan-less design would simply be MacBook. The new 13" should be MacBook. A new MacBook Air would be as hated by Americans as the original - small, compromised and very expensive - but loved in the Far East.