[HN Gopher] Why the Black MacBook Cost More
___________________________________________________________________
Why the Black MacBook Cost More
Author : ingve
Score : 112 points
Date : 2022-03-31 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (512pixels.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (512pixels.net)
| michelb wrote:
| It's also why the red Magimix appliances are more expensive.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| Because people will pay more?
| ben1040 wrote:
| Site seems down. https://archive.ph/LmBlM
| MPSimmons wrote:
| You're not missing much.
| gnicholas wrote:
| The matte finish was also great because it didn't show scratches
| like the glossy white case did.
| lemax wrote:
| When I was in middle school a friend gave me a black macbook that
| she said no one in her house used anymore after my iBook g4 was
| on its final leg. It was like, the nicest thing ever and I used
| the hell out of that thing. I was in near disbelief the day she
| came into school and pulled it out of her backpack, the fact that
| it was a _black_ macbook.
| gnabgib wrote:
| tl;dr because Apple felt like it, but they did sweeten the device
| with a larger HDD https://archive.ph/LmBlM
| poolpartee wrote:
| but it's actually price discrimination.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
| svnt wrote:
| In the first line it says price discrimination requires
| different prices in different markets. While I'm sure there
| are examples of Apple doing this, how is changing the color
| and charging more for it in the same market an example of
| price discrimination?
| calebegg wrote:
| It's a definitional distinction. The "black laptop market"
| is different from the "white laptop market", in much the
| same way as luxury good markets work (see also: the Apple
| Watch Edition). It's the same as with haircuts -- women
| have proven by and large to be willing to pay more for
| haircuts than men, so women's haircuts cost more, in
| general. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-
| based_price_discriminat...
|
| Price discrimination gets a bad rep because of the name I
| think, but as Wikipedia points out student discounts are
| probably the best example and are basically
| uncontroversial.
| Raineer wrote:
| Such a desperate, veiled attempt.
| bovermyer wrote:
| I bet a MacBook with a Vantablack or similar exterior would be
| pretty darn cool.
| tosh wrote:
| I remember the white Macbook plastic shell would turn beige and
| disintegrate after a while. I wonder if the black models had the
| same issue.
| dnissley wrote:
| Can't believe no one has mentioned the original black apple
| laptop - the PowerBook G3.
|
| Also crazy to think what $1500 in the original macbook's era
| (2006-2008) will buy you today. Almost an entry level 14" MacBook
| pro! ($2000)
| wlesieutre wrote:
| $1500 in 2006 is equivalent to about $2100 today, so go ahead
| and buy that 14" MacBook Pro!
| fetus8 wrote:
| Those 14" Pros have been known to go on sale for $1750 USD at
| some larger electronics retailers in the US! I just grabbed one
| myself.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| Where!??
| fetus8 wrote:
| Best Buy had it last week, and it appears that earlier
| today, Amazon was offering the same discount as well.
| jzebedee wrote:
| A marginal increase in utility makes it easier to rationalize
| paying a premium for style.
| zekyl314 wrote:
| I had one of these back in the day and I loved it. I sold it just
| a few years ago. Still one of my favorites. My one complaint, the
| white power cord and power brick. Come one apple, you're supposed
| be a leader in design. I realize cost justification was probably
| the reason for this.
| joezydeco wrote:
| The blogger here is 100% positive that the black case material
| was precisely the same cost as the white material? What Apple
| engineer gave them this information?
| Raineer wrote:
| Stephen Hackett worked at Apple.
|
| And the cost of the material has nothing to do with the
| argument. I don't know why you'd imply that it "costs precisely
| the same", as no two materials would ever be exactly the same.
| But you don't adjust your pricing 39 cents either direction -
| you decide on a price based on what people will pay.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MM6F3AM/A/polishing-cloth
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's the only time an Apple
| product cost more than the same configuration in another color.
| (Except for the Apple Watch, but they are made from different
| materials)
|
| The Jet black glossy iPhone 7 wasn't available in the cheapest
| configuration, but it cost the same as the other colors at the
| configurations it was available in.
|
| I think the black glossy iPhone was one of the most beautiful
| phones Apple has built. It was the closest they got to a truly
| seamless, monolithic phone. And it didn't have a stupid glass
| back that always breaks!
| CamelRocketFish wrote:
| It's not the same configuration. The article shows that the
| black one had more storage.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| The configuration I'm talking about isn't visible on the
| screenshot. You could get the white Macbook as a build to
| order option with the same specs as the black one for less
| than the black one.
| samatman wrote:
| A longstanding and consistent exception is anything Product
| Red, where the extra cost is donated.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| I thought the Product Red things all cost the same as the
| regular versions?
| dmicah wrote:
| This actually isn't true, one example off the top of my head is
| that currently the black Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic
| Trackpad all cost $20 more than their white counterparts:
| https://www.apple.com/shop/mac/accessories/mice-keyboards
| [deleted]
| hbn wrote:
| The jet black iPhone 7 was also so insanely scratch-prone that
| Apple suggested you keep it in a case at all times if you don't
| want it to scratch[1]
|
| I remember seeing reports of people who had micro-scratches all
| over the back of the phone after a day of use, just from
| keeping it in their pocket.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/9/7/12836762/ip...
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's the only time an
| Apple product cost more than the same configuration in another
| color.
|
| The space grey versions of the Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse
| were more expensive.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| I had a black macbook in 2007 which I sprung the extra $200 for
| because I didn't want to be one of "those people" with a gloss
| white macbook and the extra $500 for a macbook pro was just too
| much. It was my daily driver and I got a lot of mileage out of it
| until 2015 (with some upgrades along the way) or so when I
| replaced it with a chromebook. I was really hoping this article
| would have something insightful but it literally just says:
|
| "Was this modest storage upgrade worth the $200 premium?
| Absolutely not; Apple was charging more for the black enclosure
| because it could."
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| So saying the same thing in an _insightful_ way would have been
| acceptable? Because that's literally what it is.
|
| One can say "Apple prices are exorbitant", or "Apple offers its
| customers a premium and select pricing line".
| mcronce wrote:
| To be fair, "because the market will pay it" is entirely the
| correct answer. It's certainly not _interesting_ , but it is
| correct
| tetsusaiga wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not sure why this is notable at all really
| brimble wrote:
| This does seem to be contrary to, at least, _many people 's_
| intuition about how pricing does or should work. I've seen an
| awful lot of small business owners start out pricing at what
| seems fair to them, as a professional in their space. Turns
| out market price was 50% or more higher than what they were
| charging, every single time, and getting over "I feel like
| I'm ripping people off" is sometimes a significant hurdle for
| them. In fact, it's my understanding that notions of fairness
| hold greater sway over pricing in some cultures than they do
| in the US and similar places. That _seems_ to be closer to
| how people naturally want to operate, from what I 've
| observed.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| IMO, just price economics remains the default intuition for
| most humans. "The price is what you can sell it for" is too
| nihilistic for most people to accept.
| simonlc wrote:
| I thought the cpu was faster too?
| pdpi wrote:
| The stereotype for "those people" is that they're willing to
| pay a premium for purely cosmetic differences, but the
| emblematic white shells are just the cheapest option available.
| By paying extra for the black macbook, you ironically became
| one of "those people" by trying to not look like one. :)
| danuker wrote:
| Indeed. If, on the other hand, you had bought a cheap white
| one and used some masking tape and spray paint, you would
| have Thought Different(tm).
| DonHopkins wrote:
| FJ!!! was way ahead of the curve in 1998 with his fuzzy
| PHKL: Pink Hello Kitty Laptop.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20011212120420/http://www.exono
| m...
| [deleted]
| thegreenandgrey wrote:
| Another happy Chromebook user here. Apple has become too
| expensive when one can easily spec a PC laptop to be far better
| for less and have money left over for accessories. I can write
| code on my Chromebook (Linux), I have an SSH terminal for
| remote servers, and a great, always-on and updated machine.
| Total cost: $650 (Pixelbook Go). I've never understood why so
| many programmers and sysadmins feel the need to go straight to
| the Mac without considering any other option. I have an issued
| laptop from work running Fedora 35 and I in no way feel like
| I'm missing out. I'm not impugning Mac users, but it sometimes
| feels as if some of them have a holier-than-thou attitude
| towards anything not Apple.
| bnt wrote:
| Where can I learn more about web development on Chromebooks?
| I thought it was just Chrome made to boot as an OS, not that
| you have full Linux access.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| ChromeOS has natively supported running full linux
| containers for a several years, with basically full GUI
| support. You can essentially treat it as a normal linux dev
| machine whose browser lives outside your chroot.
| dijit wrote:
| I guess running gitpods or code-server counts?
|
| I'll admit to salivating over this way of working, all the
| grunt happening somewhere else but my keystrokes being low
| latency (since they're locally rendered and lazily synced
| by the web browser).
|
| But anyone who says a chromebook is comparable to a macbook
| is smoking something.
|
| I'm not even saying that as an Apple Lover, I use linux,
| but I'm aware of the limitations of the platforms.
|
| IME most people use macs not because they think they're
| better than everyone else; but because the development
| experience is very "happy path" -- and the hardware build
| quality is high.
| opan wrote:
| With the M1 line being ARM, they are now offering something
| unique, but in the past I would basically agree with you. I'm
| probably going to buy my first MacBook in the near future
| just to have an ARM laptop running GNU/Linux that's more
| powerful than the Pinebook Pro.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| Point me to one competing laptop (Windows or ChromeOS) with:
|
| - 10+ hour battery life even when working on periodic
| compiles, and easily 15+ hours web browsing
|
| - high DPI display
|
| - faster multicore CPU performance than a Ryzen 5800X desktop
| CPU
|
| - less than 5 lbs
|
| - good trackpad and keyboard
|
| - decent build quality
|
| I believe this doesn't exist outside an M1 Pro/Max MBP. My
| MBP14 uses less than 0.5W package power during a Zoom
| meeting, that's less than what modern AMD machines use at
| _idle_. My old MBP15 used over 2 watts package power at idle.
| I can hit all threads with a big C++ or Java compile and the
| fans won't even be audible, and my laptop fits in a backpack
| and is small enough to use anywhere. The extra cost (~$1000)
| is not really that big a concern when you make software
| engineer salaries and your laptop is a tool you use every day
| on side projects to improve your skills.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| >Apple has become too expensive
|
| I'd argue the new Mac mini is one of the best computer deals
| on the market.
| bertjk wrote:
| > I've never understood why so many programmers and sysadmins
| feel the need to go straight to the Mac without considering
| any other option.
|
| One reason is availability. Chances are, the PC laptop you
| took such pains to spec out are not nearly as available in
| case you need one on short notice. If I dropped my Macbook in
| the ocean this morning, I can walk into an Apple store and
| have a reasonable replacement by afternoon. Unless your PC
| specs are ok with random consumer/gaming laptops from Best
| Buy, you are likely looking at several days minimum wait,
| probably a lot more if they happen to be at the point in the
| product cycle where last year's model is in low stock and
| next year's hasn't come in yet.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Apple also have this problem. If you want a laptop with
| 2TB+ storage you must get it as a BTO option. Or if you
| want a 14" machine with 32GB RAM. You have to be happy with
| Apple's random SKU choices that go light on SSD and RAM
| choices but heavy on CPU performance. Either pay a bunch
| more to get CPU performance you may not want or need to get
| the storage and RAM you do need or wait.
|
| At least with a lot of PCs you can upgrade RAM/SSD yourself
| and get it quick from Amazon rather than wait two weeks for
| the factory in China to do it for you.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I personally don't like osx, but I see why developers and
| sysadmins go for them. it's nice to have a product with "good
| enough" posix compatibility that is supported by a large
| company. the price doesn't really matter to the individual
| when it's paid by their employer. and a wise employer
| recognizes that a brand new MBP is still a very small part of
| the total cost to employ an FTE.
| bitwize wrote:
| What are you talking about? Apple offers the most powerful
| laptop on the market, with the lowest power draw and longest
| battery life, for the price of a midrange PC laptop.
| tomrod wrote:
| > the most powerful laptop on the market
|
| In what way?
| dijit wrote:
| Unsure where you've been for the last year, but there's
| no laptop that has a better single thread performance or
| GPU.
|
| Even at twice the power draw and expense, there's nothing
| quite as good as a macbook at the moment.
|
| However, this requires you to be using ARM and not x86,
| and it requires you to use MacOS which has _interesting_
| performance characteristics for certain workloads.
| hu3 wrote:
| M1 is a beast.
|
| But Intel 11th and 12th gen laptop processors beat M1 in
| single-core processing. See chart:
| https://i.imgur.com/KoNjGq5.png
|
| Here's an article from 3 months ago comparing them:
| https://www.pcworld.com/article/608419/laptop-brawl-
| apples-m...
|
| (that intel laptop beat M1 Pro in multi-core too)
|
| (and M1's integrated GPU got destroyed by RTX 3080
| laptops in OpenCL but that could be due to
| architecture/emulation)
|
| I think it's not a fair comparison since M1 runs much
| more efficiently. Almost different purposes.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| Yes, the article shows a Geekbench win of 3% in single
| core performance. It fails to detail the enormous power
| consumption penalty Intel is paying to get that
| performance. That makes a huge difference in laptop
| usability.
| [deleted]
| hu3 wrote:
| Indeed the Geekbench was much closer. And I agree, the M1
| does it with much better efficiency.
|
| I wonder that gives Cinebench an advantage of almost 24%
| to Intel.
| dijit wrote:
| You might be right but your citations of cinebench are
| misleading, geekbench has much different performance
| numbers, the m1 is only beaten by a brand new and much
| more power hungry/thermal cpu.
|
| It's also not exactly an indicator of real world
| performance which is why I avoided linking to benchmarks.
|
| It's possible the M1 has been dethroned for single core
| performance, but what you link is not a good comparison.
|
| Claims of future performance are going to be met with a
| clear _shrug_ because ultimately I 've been able to put
| my hands on an M1 for over a year, theoretical future
| CPUs are absolutely no consequence.
|
| Additionally what is failed to mention here is how much
| battery life you get. Which, Apple is easily leading on.
|
| I'm quite envious of the M1 to be perfectly honest, for
| the thermal envelope it's unbeaten, and its barely being
| challenged one year on. But you'll take my Dell Precision
| and my Linux installation from my cold dead hands.
| hu3 wrote:
| I have Cinebench R23 installed and I can tell you 1T
| means 1 thread, thus single core as the article
| mentioned.
|
| You can set how many threads the renderer will use.
| https://i.imgur.com/kBNvLe1.png
|
| And it is pure CPU render. No GPU is used. It would be
| borderline comical if the article used a GPU benchmarking
| tool to measure CPU performance.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > Claims of future performance are going to be met with a
| clear shrug because ultimately I've been able to put my
| hands on an M1 for over a year, theoretical future CPUs
| are absolutely no consequence.
|
| It is not theoretical. They ran their tests on a laptop
| that is already available for purchase.
| dijit wrote:
| When I replied there was commentary about AMDs upcoming
| 5nm CPU which seems to be gone now.
|
| In fact, the entire tone of the comment has changed, not
| it's much more balanced.
| smoldesu wrote:
| (if your use case is running MacOS and using compiled-for-
| ARM software)
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I mean for _most_ users, Rosetta + the ever expanding
| number of apps /games build for MacOS over the last
| decade, means it really isn't the barrier it used to be.
| Plus there's always parallels.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > the ever expanding number of apps/games build for MacOS
| over the last decade
|
| I was under impression that the number was shrinking
| after Mojave cut support for 32-bit apps/libraries, since
| many developers never bothered to update their apps and
| games to 64-bit, much less native ARM.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| That's a fair point, though ultimately everything will be
| 64-bit in time so there's a bit of an asterisk there.
|
| Hell Apple has ultimately been vindicated going whole-hog
| on USB-C. Anyone who's made the swap got over the dongle
| stuff pretty quickly.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| >I've never understood why so many programmers and sysadmins
| feel the need to go straight to the Mac without considering
| any other option.
|
| One reason I like my Mac is because the number of options is
| so limited. More or less, all modern Macs are pretty good.
| Solid machines, good OS, good long-term support, few
| surprises. Just pick your price range.
|
| Chromebooks? Well, I'm glad you found one that you like, but
| from what I've seen of others' choices, it's a bit of a mixed
| bag. Some are okay, some are great, some are crappy, and
| there isn't necessarily a good cue (like price) to tell the
| difference.
|
| I've done laptop Linux in the past (well, Linux and various
| BSDs), and the top recommendation for any problem you have
| with it is to change distros. When I was 26, okay, yeah, I
| liked doing that. I'm well and truly over that now. I'm aware
| that it's a heck of a lot better these days, but even so, it
| still seems like a bit of a moving target.
|
| Another thing in Apple's favor is their hardware is quite
| good. The $600 Chromebook will be worth zip in a year, while
| I could probably get a significant percentage of the sticker
| price for my Macbook. Not that I'd sell it, because my
| previous 2011 Macbook lasted (with some upgrades) as my main
| axe for a decade. That's not nothing.
|
| I think the sysadmins and programmers aren't just moo-mooing
| like cattle when they go for the Mac. They often have
| particular and very good reasons. E.g., in my case, I'd
| rather go back to a clay tablet and pointy stick than give up
| BBEdit.
| thegreenandgrey wrote:
| You make some good points. For me, my Chromebook, if still
| working in a couple of years, will be handed down to my
| kids to watch YouTube and surf the net. I rarely sell
| computers once I've used them. While Apple does offer
| iCloud as a backup, I dislike storing anything locally.
| This is where Google really shines. If something happens to
| this Chromebook that's fatal, I take a ball peen hammer to
| the SSD and screen, chuck it in the trash, buy a new one,
| and in less than 5 minutes, I am back up and running with
| almost nothing to configure. This is hard to beat. Since I
| do most of my work on remote servers, I really don't need
| more than this, but I understand why others do and can
| appreciate it. I guess I'm just tired of quite a few people
| I work around looking at me and my choices with disdain
| because they're not Apple. I have nothing against Apple HW
| or SW. It's not my need or want, but I understand why
| others feel differently.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| >If something happens to this Chromebook that's fatal, I
| take a ball peen hammer to the SSD and screen, chuck it
| in the trash, buy a new one, and in less than 5 minutes,
| I am back up and running with almost nothing to
| configure.
|
| This is a compelling feature, and I get it. I'm old
| school enough that I much prefer having things local. I'm
| also contrary enough that I don't like how much clout
| Google has, and paranoid enough that I don't trust
| Google. But I definitely get the appeal.
|
| Way back in the day, Sun came around to the corporate
| office where I used to work to demo the Sun Ray. Most of
| the tech people dismissed it out of hand as a gigantic
| heap of crap (and as it turned out, they were right, or
| at least in agreement with the free market), but I
| understood the appeal.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| I tried chromebook for quite a while and I could just
| never quite get it to match my workflow.
|
| One thing that always messed with me was how much work it
| was to set up. If you step off the yellow brick road, the
| work arounds get to be really funky and hard to automate.
| So I had android apps that I'd download and then log
| into. For a lot of years my password safe didn't work
| well with it. Signal was an issue for a long time until
| they got the linux containers or whatever working, though
| for that you'd have to reset to dev mode and get a bunch
| of stuff installed.
|
| I really like the idea. I run a linux machine, (usually
| whatever flavor $work is willing to provide), and at the
| end of the day, I run a bunch of terminals with tmux, a
| web browser, and signal. So in theory that seems like it
| should work. And, it seems like that was getting better
| last I tried. But you really have to be bought in on the
| google way to make it go.
|
| I haven't messed with it for a couple years so maybe I
| should fire up my pixel book and give it another shot.
| godot wrote:
| I would've written something just like this a few years ago,
| but when the M1 was released, things really changed. It
| really is a lot faster than most other laptops for many types
| of work, and especially so for its price point.
| torginus wrote:
| I'm not sure - what makes a Chromebook cheaper than similarly
| specced regular laptop? I've looked at price/perf/quality and
| they seem to be fairly comparable.
|
| Why not just buy a regular laptop and put Chrome OS on it?
| thegreenandgrey wrote:
| You can't just put Chrome OS on any laptop. It's cheaper by
| far, and there's not dealing with cruft building up,
| updates mangling your install, patch Tuesday nonsense,
| slowing down over time, drive-by downloads, you name it. I
| admit that I do most of my work on remote machines, so I
| don't have to have a machine with heaps of horsepower to
| crunch code, compile, etc. I also don't use an IDE. I write
| code in a terminal window. I'm not a pure programmer, more
| dev/ops. I do work with a fair amount of code, but it's all
| Linux (Bash, Python) or PowerShell based, meaning the
| majority of my work is done in terminal windows. This
| approach doesn't work for everyone. My work-issued laptop
| runs Fedora 35 and it's a lower-end machine (i5 processor,
| 8GB RAM, run-of-the-mill Dell workstation laptop). I can
| use Remmina for RDP stuff, and the rest I can do with a
| terminal window.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| As a frequent Chromebook user, Google does a lot of work on
| the touchpad drivers to make it a pleasant experience that
| you don't usually see outside Apple.
| 7speter wrote:
| The real hack was to get the black macbook off the refurb store
| for the same price of the new white macbook. Same warranty and
| apple gave all their refurbs a look over. Sure you didnt get
| the white box but the regular brown box isn't bleached but no
| one cared in 2007 anyways so maybe i'm wrong
| amatecha wrote:
| yeah I bought a certified refurb a couple times. saves some
| money, item is indistinguishable from used
| focusedone wrote:
| On the note of exclusivity, remember when the trash can MP
| shipped with black Apple stickers? Think I still have a stash
| of those somewhere.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Yeah my initial thought was "because people are willing to pay
| more for it"; I'm happy to hear that that was somewhat the
| conclusion of the article.
|
| People are irrational, they value things that don't necessarily
| cost more to make, and sometimes even the fact that they need
| to pay extra for it, is in fact why they want it.
|
| I'm reminded of that silly $1000 app in the beginning of the
| AppStore:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich
| caycep wrote:
| Aesthetic benefits, perceived at least, are worth $200 to
| some people...and that black thing looked cool.
|
| Especially SWEs who work in products w/ zero marginal costs
| shouldn't complain about market value of a product vs. BOM
| costs
| KarlKemp wrote:
| It's quite a phenomenon that tech seems culturally
| committed to a disdain for anything it deems "not real",
| such as emotions, aesthetics, law, or philosophy.
|
| ...especially if you consider that even product that don't
| end as 'vaporware' are often immaterial.
|
| They'll joke about the uselessness of philosophy, then
| argue the differences between == and ===.
|
| It's really no surprise from there that they've happily
| embraced "fiat isn't real" conspiracies and seek to improve
| that terrible state of affairs with a zoo of inscrutable
| algorithm-money.
| rurp wrote:
| I agree with some of this but totally disagree with the
| point about aesthetics. Form over function is a major
| strain of modern design, especially within Apple
| specifically.
|
| Just as one example, I've been using a work issued
| macbook for over a year and I still regularly send the
| screen brightness or volume off the rails because I
| lightly rested a finger on the stupid touchbar. But hey,
| it looks cool to use the volume slider!
| KarlKemp wrote:
| Yes, ,,form follows function" is the version of
| aesthetics best suited for the enjoyment of people who
| are unwilling to admit that they can enjoy something
| without the need to legitimize their emotions with a
| sciency backstory.
|
| More broadly, look at any discussion of web fonts here
| and you'll find three suggestions to give everyone
| ,,three fonts and be done with it, screw those designers
| and the strange feelings I get when I see them on their
| skateboards."
| [deleted]
| kevincox wrote:
| I don't think that valuing something different from the
| production cost is irrational.
|
| If I never paid more than production cost + some "reasonable"
| markup I wouldn't be able to buy a lot of things that I
| enjoy.
|
| A smart business sells things at roughly the price that
| people value them. A key job of the business is making that
| cost them less then the selling price.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I mean it's a little unfair to compare it to the "I am Rich"
| app because there _was_ a functional difference - a
| substantial increase in internal storage. 90gb may not seem
| like much but in 2008, going 160gb- >250gb? That was a decent
| chunk. Worth $200? No. Worth something? Absolutely.
| bko wrote:
| > People are irrational, they value things that don't
| necessarily cost more to make, and sometimes even the fact
| that they need to pay extra for it, is in fact why they want
| it.
|
| I think it would be irrational to value things based on how
| much they cost to make. The rational thing would be to value
| something based on utility to you. Why should you care how
| much it cost to make, unless you have as an alternative the
| ability to make it yourself?
| [deleted]
| Fatnino wrote:
| If I understand you correctly, "my kingdom for a horse" is
| actually a good economic decision.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Maybe not economical, but definitely rational.
| paxys wrote:
| Could also be economical depending on how much you value
| your life
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| The better aphoristic horse-kingdom-related summation is
| probably For Want Of A Nail: For want of
| a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the
| horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was
| lost. For want of a rider the message was lost.
| For want of a message the battle was lost. For want
| of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the
| want of a horseshoe nail.
| ballenf wrote:
| If a horse is the sole means of surviving an attack, the
| horse is worth way more than 100 kingdoms because what
| use is a kingdom to a dead man?
| User23 wrote:
| It's an effective business model if you can pull it off.
| For example a variation thereof made Marcus Licinius
| Crassus the richest man in Rome[1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting
| #Rome
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > People are irrational, they value things that don't
| necessarily cost more to make
|
| That's not irrational. It doesn't cost any more to make a
| lemon cake than a chocolate cake but a lemon cake is more
| valuable to me because I don't like chocolate. Perfectly
| rational.
| naoqj wrote:
| I don't see how not liking chocolate could be by any
| stretch of the imagination "rational".
| maicro wrote:
| In continued good-spirited-conversation - if you get sick
| every time you eat something containing chocolate, I
| think it's completely rational to form an aversion to it.
| naoqj wrote:
| I get pimples!
| chrisseaton wrote:
| You can swap it out for any other preference - that's not
| the important bit.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| This is clearly irrational. Chocolate cake is way better
| ...
|
| (otherwise good point)
| tomrod wrote:
| > People are irrational
|
| People are boundedly rational. The client base purchasing the
| black enclosure valued it for a few extra hundred USD
| relative to other things they may choose to spend their funds
| on.
| paxys wrote:
| You may say spending $200 extra for a black enclosure is
| irrational, but then most of the world will say spending
| $1500+ on _any_ MacBook is itself irrational. Ultimately
| people have their own reasons and justifications for spending
| their own money.
| kqr wrote:
| This is important in another way, too: by offering almost the
| same thing at two different prices, consumers get to self-
| select based on how price sensitive they are.
|
| Since some people are willing to pony up significantly more
| for the black, they can offer the non-black at a slightly
| lower cost than they otherwise would, which means they can
| sell MacBooks to a segment of the market that would otherwise
| consider them out of reach.
|
| Any time virtually the same thing is offered at different
| prices, you can either complain that it's unfair one target
| segment has to pay more... or realise that the flip side of
| the coin is that less price sensitive people subsidise lower
| costs for more price sensitive people -- which could seem
| completely fair depending on ideologies.
|
| If you're a hardcore capitalist you see it as a way for the
| manufacturer to expand their target market without
| sacrificing profitability. If you're more on the left you see
| it as taking from the rich and giving it to the poor, without
| having to resort to coercion.
| [deleted]
| lostcolony wrote:
| I have a minor quibble with the term 'subsidizing', since
| it is still being sold at a profit. It's just a lower
| margin, because the point of maximal profit in the lower
| end of a segmented market is necessarily lower than the
| point of maximal profit in a non-segmented market. It's not
| going to go into negative profit (and thus enable the
| customer to buy it "at a loss" for the business, whereby
| the business is effectively paying part of the cost of the
| thing on behalf of the customer) as a result of
| segmentation. So it's neither costing the business profit,
| nor is it offering the good at a per unit loss. It -is-
| offering the good at a lower margin than would make sense
| in an unsegmented market.
| kqr wrote:
| You're right, of course. That was a sloppy choice of
| words on my part.
| dangus wrote:
| You might say this is why the iPhone is missing a telephoto
| lens rather than missing the ultra-wide lens.
|
| Each lens/sensor theoretically costs a very similar amount
| of manufacturing cost to include, so theoretically if your
| goal was to give the customer the best value on a cheaper
| 2-lens phone, you would want to give them the two most used
| lenses: the normal wide lens and the telephoto lens.
|
| However, Apple gates the more-desired telephoto lens to the
| Pro model, because it needs to balance the significant
| price increase with the reality that there isn't much of a
| manufacturing cost difference between Pro and non-Pro
| phones.
|
| So, it's a market segmentation based on some desired
| features.
|
| I disagree with the idea that there's any sort of a
| positive "flip side" to this strategy from the customers'
| perspective. This is how profit is maximized. Apple could
| sell the iPhone 13 Pro for less money and still make a
| profit, but they know that customers of certain income
| brackets will pay over a thousand bucks for a phone.
|
| If the iPhone 13 had a telephoto lens instead of the ultra-
| wide lens, and the ProMotion display, the iPhone 13
| wouldn't cost a dime more to manufacture. In this
| configuration, there would be very little reason for most
| people to upgrade to the Pro model.
| lostcolony wrote:
| So the theory is basically that if they were to not
| segment the market this way, the price point of maximal
| profitability if they offered only one model would be
| higher than the price point of maximal profitability of
| the lower segment(s) achieved by segmenting it.
|
| I.e., if the 13 and 13 Pro were nearly identical, yeah,
| there'd be no reason to upgrade to the pro model, and so
| Apple, being sensible, would instead offer one model. And
| the price of that one model would fall somewhere between
| the 13 and the 13 Pro; meaning that some people who can
| justify paying for a 13 now would not buy one at all (and
| you're not extracting as much as you could from those
| willing to spend more as you could by segmenting it).
|
| By segmenting it, though, the (obviously highly inflated,
| still super high margin) cost of the 13 is lower, and
| Apple can put the cost of the 13 Pro higher, because each
| segment now has its own point of highest profitability
| (the point where price * number of people who will
| purchase it at that price is highest; generally the
| higher the former the lower the latter).
|
| This is also why some graphics cards, for instance, were
| all made to the higher end specs, and then had chips
| locked away, damaged, or etc, just to create market
| segmentation. Even with the fixed margin costs,
| segmenting the market allows the company to maximize
| profit, but by doing so it also allows the lower segment
| to come in at a lower cost than if they were trying to
| maximize profits with a single segment. It's a "win/win"
| from an availability/affordability of goods and a
| corporate profit maximization perspective, even if it
| feels stupid and unfair to pay extra for the high end
| card, or be purchasing a 'crippled' card.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| >However, Apple gates the more-desired telephoto lens to
| the Pro model, because it needs to balance the
| significant price increase with the reality that there
| isn't much of a manufacturing cost difference between Pro
| and non-Pro phones.
|
| I believe this choice is because of another much more
| desired feature: Night Mode(tm)
|
| IIRC It works by overlaying and processing the two images
| from the ultrawide and wide angle lenses. It's why Night
| Mode is limited to the wide angle lense, and not
| available on the ultrawide, as the wide angle lense
| doesn't provide enough coverage for the ultrawide to
| produce a Night Mode image.
|
| If Apple included only wide and telephoto, then Night
| Mode (As currently implemented) would be limited to the
| telephoto images, which would be a lot less desirable.
| icehawk wrote:
| Having own both the black and white Macbooks around that time,
| the extra $50 (over the white version with the same drive
| space) was worth it for a wrist rest that didn't look like it
| stained as fast as the top case on the white MacBook.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| OTOH, I had the original white MacBook and ended up getting
| the topcase changed for free like 3 or 4 times though the
| first few years I had that machine (while the AppleCare was
| in effect). It was annoying that it was necessary, but pretty
| spiffy to periodically get a brand new keyboard and trackpad.
| onpensionsterm wrote:
| A bargain compared to paint colours for cars.
| more_corn wrote:
| Apologies if swearing is not allowed here but "Because, fuck you.
| Pay me." Which seems to be apple's pricing/product/customer
| service strategy.
| unglaublich wrote:
| It's the same with the black Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard: an
| extra $20 for the color.
|
| Most people will choose the regular silver accessories. That
| makes the black accessories stand out even more. And as we know,
| being unique is very valuable in a secular and individualistic
| time.
| johnmorrison wrote:
| I would pay a huge premium on a current day MacBook Pro if it
| were black, and not "space grey", metal - even with no additional
| utility.
|
| Why are they all so bright?
| dehrmann wrote:
| My gripe with space gray is that there's no cable color that
| goes well with it.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://www.colorware.com/categories.aspx?category=130
| weinzierl wrote:
| A while ago there was thread that argued (amongst other things)
| that you must be crazy if you make your product white. It said
| that white is _always_ more expensive to produce because of more
| rejects along the whole production chain. It also argued that
| just because Apple could pull it off you couldn 't.
| ftio wrote:
| I worked at the Apple Store when these were available.
| Anecdotally, a lot of people bought the black MacBook because of
| how it looked. Although I thought both colors were beautiful, the
| MacBook's screen wasn't ideal. It was highly glossy and had
| pretty poor viewing angle, especially compared to the MacBook Pro
| of the time (which was still available with a matte screen on
| certain models).
|
| After using them for awhile, the palm rest on the black model
| would develop a nasty-looking sheen. The white one suffered from
| durability issues -- the palm rest would chip in the place where
| the top case met the bottom case.
|
| Those issues aside, I remember that time at the Apple Store with
| extreme fondness, especially the pre-iPhone days. We were
| slinging iMacs with Parallels and Windows XP to comfort the
| legions of switchers, all the while reassuring them that, yes,
| Macs had plenty of great software, even though its library paled
| in comparison to that of Windows. And, of course, iPods were the
| cash cow. Funny how things change.
| thom wrote:
| Yeah, the quality of the plastic was dreadful. I got the black
| one and my wife got the white one. Out of the box, I still
| think mine was the most beautiful machine I've ever owned. But
| my wife's went brown, and both cracked round the edges.
| [deleted]
| ianferrel wrote:
| I remember that when first released it was possible to configure
| a white Macbook with the same specs as a black one for $50 less.
| So you were paying $50 for black, assuming you wanted the stats
| that were baseline on the black one.
| cannam wrote:
| We had a black MacBook at work that was reserved solely for
| demos. Perfect device for that.
|
| Work was a university department, so we would never have bought
| them for individual employees.
|
| I do think the glossy white MacBook was also a pleasing object,
| more so really than the aluminium ones.
| zlkjlk43tlkj34 wrote:
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Tesla charged an extra $5k for red paint. The entire jewelry
| industry and most of the fashion industry exist by upcharging for
| the look. $50 for black. The US Department of Defense famously
| reduced eye injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan when they started
| issuing "stylish eyewear" (1).
|
| Most engineers have no idea how much misery they inflict on the
| world by indulgently claiming that ignoring UX is the higher
| road.
|
| (1) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27215881/
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Shouldn't the answer be obvious? This is Business 101. So many
| people put real effort into analyzing materials cost and then try
| to extrapolate that to what a product ought to cost at retail.
| Aside from situations where the materials are too expensive, they
| are basically not related.
| paxys wrote:
| Well no, it isn't obvious. Component and manufacturing costs do
| influence a significant part of the final sale price of a
| product, regardless of what people like to think. "Apple
| charges $200 more because they had to use a special
| manufacturing process which costs more" is an equally
| believable answer.
| ddingus wrote:
| YES!!
|
| There is a ton that goes into products that goes well beyond
| materials.
|
| I've seen the BOM + retail argument made many times regarding
| Apple computers. Interestingly, I also hear, "I wish
| DELLHPLENOVOACER would make a machine that's more like a Mac."
|
| And that's what people are paying Apple for!!
|
| If DELLHPLENOVOACER were to make a machine more like the Mac,
| their prices would come up to Apple pricing, and that would
| happen because delivering a product is more than the BOM
| materials cost.
|
| There is a BOM for hardware and software
|
| There is a Bill of Processes
|
| And a Bill of Services
|
| Often, and should be pretty much always, there is also a Bill
| of Requirements used for quality and compliance too.
|
| Each of these things involves people, who need to get paid so
| they can continue to exist and show up for work. And they
| involve processes, materials, information, all of which are
| required to ship the product as intended.
|
| Now, all that said, it's not like the BOM cost markup to retail
| is wrong. For what I'll call reference, or baseline products,
| it's often close! Those products are lean and mean, with as few
| processes and materials and information as possible included.
| And those products are a good deal for those people who don't
| need a lot of extras.
|
| One example I can think of is the many video signal devices I
| see on Amazon. Things like VGA to HDMI boxes, for example. I've
| purchased a few, some being $20 to $30 and others approaching
| $100. The PCB is almost the same!
|
| The cheap ones often leave a feature out, and I can see the
| components not populated on the PCB. They also come in rock
| bottom packaging and have plastic cases, connectors that are
| not reinforced, and on it goes.
|
| My more expensive one has a nice metal case, all the features
| are present, included nice cables, not "will work at least
| once" cables, was packaged well, and the overall build quality
| was significantly better. I own an expensive one because the
| connector work is not good enough on the cheaper ones.
|
| I bet the number of BOM items differs by less than 10 percent,
| yet the product cost difference is 2X plus a little. Quality
| components vs shoddy ones, or ones that may fail more, or were
| not quality checked at the source make a big difference in
| product cost, and that's just one example.
|
| This is why Apple computers cost more. Apple simply does not
| ever ship a rock bottom, stripped down product. Most of the
| time, they ship exemplary products (in a given product class),
| and they add a lot of value, and most importantly, they ask
| that value be funded with purchase price dollars.
|
| And in most cases, that value added is reasonable. If it were
| not, the people would not be buying the products.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| This doesn't cover the different matte finish or how that could
| cost more at all. Shallow article.
| oceanghost wrote:
| This article has some weird colored glasses.
|
| I bought the black macbook because _IT WAS THE ONLY ONE IN STOCK_
| , the cheaper ones were unavailable anywhere. The thing was
| initially unstable (bad firmware but apple patched it). I used it
| for years and then gave it to a friend who used it for a few
| years and gave it to her sister. I think it literally lasted a
| decade.
| pram wrote:
| I had the black MacBook. Yes the "upgrade" was pretty much just
| because it looked cool, still does imo.
|
| Probably one of my most memorable computers, since I played World
| of Warcraft on it 10 hours a day for like 3 years lol
| robohoe wrote:
| After 15 years, my black MacBook is in a closet. I will admit
| that it's still looking good compared to my spouse's 2007 white
| MacBook (that we still have). Running Linux on those was
| painful due to trackpad driver issues :(. Otherwise they would
| still be doing something in my household.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| My 2007 BlackBook was, I think, my favorite computer of all time.
| As a college student, it was such a huge upgrade from my previous
| Sony Vaio (that while beautiful, quite literally
| burned/discolored/cooked my upper thigh -- it took almost two
| years for the area to stop being discolored) and I gladly paid
| the Black Tax, with the justification that it was really just $50
| if you compared it to a CTO price with the same size HDD. But
| honestly, the color WAS worth the price difference for me.
|
| To this day, I think the plastic Black MacBook design is just
| perfect. I will always love the 12" PowerBook G4, but for me,
| that black plastic is just timeless in a clean and excellent way.
|
| A side-effect of the Black Tax was that the cracked palm wrest
| issue that impacted a lot of white MacBooks, didn't seem to
| impact the Black models nearly as much (Apple replaced the top
| component I believe for people with yellowed or cracked palm
| wrests).
|
| As much as I love my 14" MacBook Pro Max, if I could have it in
| solid black, I would love it (that or bring back the true rose
| gold color and give it to the Pro machines, cowards!).
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| The article seems to be trying to not say it's not market forces,
| but that's just Apple. Want to increase the value of something?
| Just put an Apple logo on it and people will think it costs more.
| Apple marketing is brilliant and disingenuous at the same time.
| jon-wood wrote:
| There was definitely a period over the last five or so years
| where Apple went back to largely trading on their name and
| macOS, for laptops. With the M1 they're now firmly back in the
| realms of shipping significantly better hardware than the rest
| of the market. The M1 Pro MacBooks are ridiculous - fast,
| silent, and the battery will comfortably last 10 hours unless
| you're compiling software non-stop. Throw Apple's industrial
| design, which is back on form, on top of that and you've got a
| great machine. The fact it doesn't actually costs significantly
| more than an equivalently powerful Intel laptop is icing on the
| cake.
| kelsolaar wrote:
| There is not a single sourced fact in this article giving a
| reason for the more expensive price beyond the increased storage.
| pwython wrote:
| Wait until these tech bloggers hear about Rolex, or any other
| luxury brand having limited color releases marked up higher than
| the "base model" sharing the same exact components.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Because Apple produces luxury fashion accessories and not
| computers.
| skibble wrote:
| Fascinating take. So I'm typing on a scarf right now? The
| future is truly wild.
| erickhill wrote:
| I was really searching for the "Why," since the title implied the
| article held an explicit answer beyond, "Because."
| raldi wrote:
| Better headline would be, "The black MacBook cost $200 extra in
| part because it came with $150 of additional storage"
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Apple follows many of the practices of the fashion industry. For
| example, the fanfare for announcements of new colors (which are
| highlighted during keynote announcements, as opposed to being a
| footnote), and having different sets of colors for different
| colors.
|
| It fits the "luxury consumer electronics" segment they've created
| (how they've managed to create and maintain that is, I'm sure, a
| case study in business schools).
|
| Charging more for an exclusive color whose only difference _is
| that it costs more_ is classic fashion business sense.
|
| See also, the origin of black pearls as a desirable item, which
| were originally thought as defective pearls until one savvy
| person started marketing them as exclusive and expensive. Or also
| Parmentier making potatoes appealing in France by having his
| potato patches surrounded by (easily bribable) guards.
| eatbitseveryday wrote:
| If the black were metal, and used as part of the cooling, it
| might provide better thermals than white.
| ents wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220331154333/https://512pixels...
| iambateman wrote:
| I had the 2008 black MacBook and it was wonderful. Worth every
| penny.
|
| That was the last computer I "loved" to use.
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| dkarl wrote:
| Because it looked like a ThinkPad, obviously.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| At least until you opened the lid and searched in vain for the
| missing TrackPoint!
| numpad0 wrote:
| Somehow I remember this to be the answer. First generation of
| ThinkPad devoid of IBM logo shipped the same year, and the
| black MacBook sort of signified death of the PC platform which
| Apple had been competing against.
| timbit42 wrote:
| ThinkPad Different.
| pjerem wrote:
| I wasnt yet using Macs when those macbooks were sold.
|
| But I really liked their design. I never got this "premium black"
| thing because i largely preferred the white one. Really iconic.
| I'd love if Apple (re)released computers with this design.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Aside from the color, The new 14 inch screams late 00's MacBook
| in-person. It is so subtle but I guess I'm so used to the
| tapered designs that it is like the uncanny valley, you can see
| it so clearly. Check the profile vs the G4 Ti:
| https://forums.macrumors.com/attachments/3e0fffde-93dd-4bb2-...
| And then the Last gen:
| https://help.apple.com/assets/6062258EBFC7E7487E19DBB0/60622...
|
| It is a dramatically different shape.
| jon-wood wrote:
| The new MacBook Pros hark back to those late 00's ones in
| more ways than just the appearance. You can tell that Jobs'
| permanent drive for being ever thinner, lighter, and less
| adorned with ports is finally losing its grip on the pro end
| of the range. I bought a 14" Pro recently and its so nice to
| be back in a world where the MacBook Pro is designed to get
| work done - the keyboard works properly, its got HDMI out,
| MagSafe is back, and its got a screen proportioned for work
| rather than watching films.
| danieldk wrote:
| _You can tell that Jobs ' permanent drive for being ever
| thinner, lighter, and less adorned with ports_
|
| More Jony Ive. MacBooks had useful ports during Jobs' reign
| and several years thereafter (until the MacBook Pro 2015).
| It's only after Ive left Apple in 2019 that the ports came
| back (well, in 2021, but products are in the pipeline for a
| while).
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| I bought one for EUR25 about 4 years ago. Ironically for an Apple
| product, it's just about the easiest machine to modify for
| Libreboot (no need to tinker with RasPis or other hardware):
|
| https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/macbook21.html
|
| Mine's now fully "libre", running Trisquel Lite.
|
| If anyone else has trouble installing 64-bit distros on these,
| this page is useful:
|
| https://mattgadient.com/2016/07/11/linux-dvd-images-and-how-...
| wetpaws wrote:
| The article actually does not explain why black macbook costs
| more.
| srvmshr wrote:
| The only bummer of owning a black MacBook was the charging
| Magsafe unit was still white. It's a (tiny) shame that Apple did
| not choose to color-coordinate it, like it does nowadays. The
| contrast was tough sell when considering the 'premium aesthetic'
| angle Apple was making.
|
| It looked pretty cool nevertheless by itself and the size/weight
| felt quite right. Good old memories of running Snow leopard on it
| in early grad school days
| mdmglr wrote:
| The white 2006 Intel MacBook was my first Mac. Family members
| opted for the black one. Personally I never liked the black one.
| A lot of laptops from that era had cases in shades of
| black/grey/beige. Apple's all white glossy case was very unique.
| However the black case did seem to be less prone to scratches. At
| certain angles small scratches were very visible on the white
| case. As the article points out the black model came with more
| storage but during this era of Apple computers the HDD/RAM was
| user upgradable. So for me at least the black model was not
| justified.
|
| Both of these models irked me because the plastic used was prone
| to cracking. The bottom case started forming hairline cracks near
| the screen hinge/sharp corners. The case had a lot of flex. The
| screen did not perfectly align with the bottom case. The top
| cover of the keyboard started cracking off where you'd rest your
| wrist. I was very happy to replace it with a unibody aluminum
| design in 2011.
| jgwil2 wrote:
| I always thought the white one looked cooler when it was fresh
| but aged much more poorly than the black one. Same with white
| sneakers, too much work to keep them icy white.
| achairapart wrote:
| I really wonder who came up with the black macbook
| idea/experiment (it was from Jobs?) and especially why it was
| never replicated again.
|
| At least from the people I know, most of them were just happy to
| spend a bit more for the black model. Maybe Apple was expecting a
| lot more?
| hollander wrote:
| When I bought my first Macbook in 2009 (the unibody) it had a
| 160GB harddisk. The 250GB upgrade would cost EUR150 more I
| believe. I bought the 160GB version, went to the nearest IT shop
| and bought a 320GB disk for EUR120 and got that 160GB as a spare.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Sometimes Apple's overpricing works in your favor. I killed the
| cdrom in my black MacBook with unfortunate drink spill. Out of
| warranty, I took it to Apple to get a quote for fixing it,
| which was a ridiculous $400. I then made a claim on my credit
| card extended warranty for that amount which they paid and got
| a free drive from someone and fixed it myself.
|
| I remember selling it and overall making a profit on it after 2
| or 3 years of use.
| adamc wrote:
| Pretty much an example of Apple being evil and trying to squeeze
| their customers rather than serve them.
| adamc wrote:
| You can downrate it, but charging more just because you can is
| not admirable.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-03-31 23:02 UTC)