same happened with the Mac pro 2009 model had to be redesigned, for the new xeons which takes lot of money. soon we will see more reasonable prices.
if you look at all the reasonable products from apple - Imac - ipod touch
they havent been updated in regards to design for a while so now there more reasonable
Mac Pro hasn't had a real redesign in literally years, it's just got a new CPU.
The iMac DID have a big external redesign including a new display, so that's that one out of the window.
Also, EVERY product gets designed - it's not like Apple are the only company to have designers. Sure, their designers might be
better, but every single product from a clothes peg to a jumbo jet gets R&D. If a company redesigns something, it comes out of existing profit - they don't tack it on top.
I think a lot of people are missing my point in this thread.
Entry level Macs have gone up by hundreds of pounds for no apparent reason, and their increases have gone up more, in many cases, than the prices of other products affected by the same external factors (exchange rate).
They are approaching completely pricing out lower end customers - a lot of them switchers. Switchers are Apple's biggest market. Yeah, they know they have their loyal customers in the bag, but new Mac users have always found the higher pricing a little hard to stomach, understandably - Apple are only increasing that. Making the main obstacle even bigger, and with no discernible benefit in my eyes.
My beef is not with Apple's pricing in general - I'm a believer that you get what you pay for and am absolutely of the belief that the extra money you spend on a Mac is absolutely worth it.
I struggle, however, to just include these price hikes in that rationale. £649 for a Mac Mini? It's in the exact same position in the market the first Mac Mini was - a lower cost, entry level Mac designed to take the sting out of the switch, both financially and as far as upheaval. You can use some of your kit with it, so the switch isn't so drastic, and if you don't like it, just sell it on and plug your old machine back in. You can switch between your PC and your Mini quite easily, 3/4 cables. The financial part has completely vanished now, in my estimation.
Same with the base level iMac. £799 for a great machine, fantastic. Two years on, yes it's better, but all machines are better than two years ago - they haven't all jumped in price by £170. That's more than a 20% increase in price for a machine that occupies the same slot in the market - it's effectively the same machine.
£1500 for the lowest spec 15" MBP? I know it's a high spec machine, but why do you have to pay so much for a 15" screen? It always irked me before, but now the gap is just enormous. I speak to customers who have poor eyesight or need a large screen for some other reason, but Apple say no, no they don't need a big screen unless they're a power user with tons of money. White Macbook for you sir, you're too poor for a 15" laptop.
Other manufacturers don't do this.
I'm a huge fan of Apple's products but some of their practices, especially recently, are starting to wind me up somewhat. You have to have this, you have to have this if you want this too. Choices are beginning to be taken away.
I know the products and I know the customers inside out, having sold to and trained Apple users for years now, and it's not just me that finds it frustrating.
I've got a Macbook that cost me £699 and it's still going strong after 3.5 years, used daily by my parents, and by me quite often. Can't have that any more though, got to pay £849 for a machine which actually, if we're honest, is almost of a lower spec than my old one, comparatively. No Firewire. You want Firewire? You need the Macbook PRO, because only PROS need Firewire. £999, ta. In fairness, my £699 Macbook was when the Pound was stomping all over the Dollar. That's what I want to work out.
I honestly do hope it's all down to the exchange rate and it settles down, other people in this thread have said the same thing about a few products, cars and pushbikes for example, and I do hope it's just a global company going 'meh, let the consumer take the exchange rate', because at least that means it could settle at some point. The OP I made was also to try and find out from people who know whether this is the case or not, and it does seem like it could genuinely be a large contributing factor.
I'm just a tiny bit worried that it's Apple saying 'no **** it, make them pay more'.
For example, I personally think the iPad is absolutely absurdly priced. We're still not even remotely close to supplying the demand for it though, seeing as Apple ****ed all the Resellers by deciding at the last minute to slash their allocations and give them to DSGi instead :/
