Why Apple computers are so damn expensive

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I game on my ipad / ipad mini.

Modern Combat 3/4, Arc Squadron, and Order and Chaos online do me just fine.

Graphics wise, MC 3/4 is to me, CoD competitive in the way of look and feel.

With the Apple PC line, you're essentially paying extra for the brand and sleek appearance. But under the hood is a low powered machine which you could match spec for spec for less than half the price by assembling a custom build PC. Even iPhones have been increasing in price, despite being out powered by numerous other devices which cost less. I've never used OSX a great deal, especially not in recent times to judge it. But it seems like a pretty good, easy to use O/S.

It's the form factor. All the Windows-based all-in-one iMac clones are priced similarly to that of the iMac, often with lower specs and WAY less style.

The new iMacs are freakin' gorgeous!

If it's only about performance for the price, the drawback is a big ol' box.

Because they can and people still buy them. Thats the only reason they are so expensive. Just look at iphones. They cost usually about 150 to make yet sell for over 800 (before carrier subsidy). Why? because they can.

apple products are for people aspiring to belong to the upper class.

Its a matter of branding. Apple long ago established a reputation for making easy to use products that "just work". That's less of an issue than it used to be, but even today there are legions of people who are intimidated by computers and aren't really comfortable with them (like the way most aspies are more comfortable with computers than with people, its the reverse for many NT's). These people are willing to pay a premium for something that won't lead to them realizing their worst fears of buying a computer that they can't use. OS X is probably not really any easier to use than Windows in most respects, but its perceived that way. And since all out of the box Mac hardware comes from Apple, device drivers and everything like that tends to be much more seemless on a Mac.

Couple that with the fact that OS X only runs on Apple hardware (vs. Windows which runs on hardware by all sorts of manufacturers who are thus competing for Windows business), at least without a lot of hacking that would defeat the purpose for most people in buying a Mac, and Apple is in a great position to charge inflated prices.

Another less important reason is that many of the programs used is some art-related professions have historically been better on the Mac or not existent at all under Windows - Photoshop, Lightroom, ProTools, tons of graphic arts applications, etc. Macs have clearly been a better choice in those industries for some time.

One big reason to stay away from Apple in my opinion is because they try to control everything. They only want you to buy equipment from them at premium prices.

That is really what gave Microsoft such a big edge for years -- freedom. You were free to use whatever hardware you wanted instead of being tied into one company for everything.

These days, Apple is turning more and more into the courts because they are having trouble competing. Only a year ago, I would still recommend Apple to people, but no longer -- I don't see any reason to do business with Apple at all these days.

Honestly, Microsoft is turning INTO Apple with their current machinations.

They produced their own tablet , which runs their own proprietary OS, upon which the only software that can be purchased for it is from their App store. Not to mention the fact that when you buy a 32 gig Microsoft Surface, your getting really a 20 gig tablet (because the OS and Recovery partitions take up 30% of the drive space alone). This is a drastically hard comparison to Apple's Ipad (OS is about 3 gig ish in size, so a 32 gig tablet gives you a 28.5 gig device).

As far as Windows 8's performance, and its wide array of available hardware upon which it can run, it doesnt seem to help Microsoft's margins that much. There are still major high level corps and gov entities that are stuck using XP. If for no other reason, the fact that iterations past Windows XP have not be "securable" by a reasonable standard. Working in the Netsec field for as long as I have, I can profess this to be the case and is very true. Vista was a nightmare (almost as bad or worse than Microsofts Windows ME release). Windows 7 wasnt much better either (and even to entice its users to buy it they offered a Windows XP compatibility layer, near exactly like Macintosh had done with the Transition from OS9 to OSX).

From a vulnerability perspective, Windows 8 is itself a nightmare, corps will probably not even touch it, neither will the gov entities either.

Microsoft's rather silly desire to hold on to ActiveX controls and DOM controls means that systems upon it are still highly vulnerable. Dont get me wrong, all systems are just as vulnerable, but Microsoft products, from a vulnerability perspective are just easier to hit. Any buffer can be overflown. How a subsystem deals with that is what makes it more or less secure.

On 27 November 2012, Microsoft announced that it has sold 40 million licenses of Windows 8 in the first month, surpassing the pace of Windows 7. However, according to research firm NPD, sales of devices running Windows in the United States have declined 21 percent compared to the same time period last year.

What does this mean in short writing?

Its time for Steve Ballmer to retire. Hes running the company into the ground. Unless he really thinks he can turn the company into Apple Inc.

Microsoft has got to be kicking themselves over this. They did everything "right" by creating a platform and getting developers to use it. They grew a huge software ecosystem around Windows, used well-known languages like C++ and BASIC, and perfected things like Visual Studio to help developers create software. And Apple comes along and does everything "wrong" by creating barriers to entry (expensive hardware, paying to provision devices, etc) and trying to discourage developers, and they're wildly successful. More and more people flock to develop for the Apple platform and learn Objective-C. Microsoft has to be asking themselves why Apple is so popular!

exactly

That is like asking how is a computer supposed to connect to a printer without a parallel port. Although you cannot connect an optical cable to an ethernet port anyway and will always be limited by your adapter's speed. As other technologies improve so do the required connections. Just as USB replaced the parallel port for connecting to printers.

Also only Apple laptop computers come without an inbuilt ethernet port, and if you need a permanently wired connection then you would be better off using a desktop model instead anyway. A Mac mini with a monitor would cost less than a MacBook and be more powerful.

But the newer MacBooks without ethernet ports all have thunderbolt ones. This provides provides four 10Gbit/sec channels supporting up to 6 daisy-chained devices. And from the launch of those models Apple has sold a gigabit ethernet to thunderbolt adapter for times when you do need the benefits of a faster connection that wifi allows. Thunderbolt also allows for docking stations which connect everything through a single thunderbolt cable.

Well, no. As far as I know, a printer won't gain anything in particular from using parallel port over USB ( as far as I know, at least. ) And as for ethernet ports, wired lines will always be faster than wireless. And in some cases you won't have a wireless net to connect to. Maybe some day everything will be wireless and none uses wire networks, but that day hasn't come yet.

The thunderbolt to ehternet adapters seems like a somewhat subtle way of making money; Apple is the main producers of thunderbolt devices, so if someone does need a wired connection, the only option is to buy yet another Apple product.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Apple hater. Their products are sturdy and works well. But buying an Apple product often forces you into buying more Apple products ( at least if you want the devices to communicate. )

I can see that ethernet ports kan be skipped to make the macs a hair thinner, but frankly, I'd much rather have an ehternet port than a machine I can break with my bare hands.

I've been a Windows owner for over twelve years, and a Mac owner now for five years. I still own computers with both systems, but more with Windows than Macs for one simple reason.

Four of the Windows computers are bricks. Only one still works. Every single Windows computer degraded seriously within two years. I've got only one left. and the only reason it's still running is because I hardly ever use it.

The Macs are both still running like new five years later.

Why did I pay a higher price for the Macs? Simple. It's called cost effective spending. These Macs will still be running fine five years from now.

Windows requires far more maintenance to keep running well. Windows machines off the shelf never come with enough hardware for significant program installation and upgrades. Macs do.

For me, it has nothing to do with computer snobbery, or prejudice. It's all about productivity. I never have to maintain my Macs.

Oh, sorry, yes I do once in a while. I have Windows installed on both with Bootcamp, and those occasionally have to be reinstalled due to corruptions.

The Mac OS's? Haven't touched them once. They update and take care of themselves, leaving me free to get stuff done. THAT is why they are worth the money.

To your cred MrXxx,

Ive seen Tiger installs that are still running, and in good order. My spouse has a Tiger install, still runs, doesnt complain, and does what it needs to do for them.

Those Windows machines.... would they work perfectly again if the hard drives were completely wiped and Windows reinstalled? Or is it dead from a hardware-level?

I know Windows corrupts VERY easily - I've been a PC guy since my Tandy 1000 over 20 years ago. Hardware rarely dies... Windows does.

MacOS just lives forever, for the most part.

If I didn't love tinkering so much, and reinstalling Windows every 6-12mos anyway, I'd move to Mac for the same reason of stability and productivity.

I'd still rather do that than go Win8.

And dang... the iMac is so sexy! It doesn't cost more than comparable all-in-ones either.

Yup. Not surprised. If you want to talk dollar for dollar, this is a rough breakdown of what I've spent over thirteen years of computer ownership:

$5,000 on six different Windows PC's (three desktops and three laptops, Two HP's, three Compaq's, and an Ace). Five are completely dead now, all but the one Compaq still running were factory reset at least twice, losing all programs and files (other than those backed up). Every time that was done, untold hours of updates had to be reinstalled. Add to that the plethora of program updates, OS updates, conflicts caused by the ridiculous number of updates, rendering certain program features, and sometimes entire programs unusable for either days, weeks or months, and occasionally forever. Add to that the fact that much of what comes on many PC's are trial programs, full of advertising and interdependent with other programs, all seemingly designed to lead users toward programs developed by large corporations, many of which are intentionally interconnected with "buddy companies" all supportive of leading users into a shielded world of programming controlled by them and their cronies. Anti virus software companies are the worst at that kind of crap. They're in on the game too, refusing to list perfectly safe programs that don't want to pay them exorbitant prices to stay off their lists of "potentially hazardous malware."

Apple does have a little of that going on too, I admit, but it's nowhere near as bad as with PC's.

I would say as a rough estimate that before I bought Macs, at least 30% of my time was spent upgrading, maintaining and fixing conflicts and performance problems on PC's.

$5,000 on two Macs. Have had one for six years, and the second for five years. I did reinstall the OS on one of them once, but that was only because I screwed up something while trying to upgrade it to a new OS (Leopard to Snow Leopard). The entire operation from start to screw up to successfully installed Snow Leopard took all of forty five minutes, and not a single file or program was lost. That was the longest time period spent on maintenance for both computers since I've bought them.

So essentially, I spent $5000 dollars on Windows PC's, and have only one to show for it, that doesn't run very well anymore, and still requires tons of maintenence, so I hardly ever use it.

I spent the same amount of money on two Macs, both of which after six and five years still run like tops and require virtually no maintenance.

You tell me which was the more expensive of the two brands.