
Apple’s $1000 monitor stand is a massive and unnecessary PR fail - okket
https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/05/1000-monitor-stand/
======
seibelj
I don’t understand why they announced the stand during the keynote at all.
It’s not something to be proud of and it isn’t cutting-edge technology. They
could have just put it for sale quietly and the outrage would have been far
less.

~~~
save_ferris
I was somewhat surprised with their entire Mac Pro strategy. With a base tower
configuration starting at $6k (about twice what I was expecting), they seemed
to signal a shift in what they consider a “pro” user to be.

They’re pretty clearly chasing after the commercial, high-end computing
market, but they’ve kinda left the high-end consumer market behind in some
ways.

Still no definitive fix to the fly switch keyboards, lots of complaints about
other design issues in MacBooks, basic spec bumps in mainstay products like
the iMac. All while they continue to (somewhat unjustifiably) raise prices.

The new Mac Pro is the coolest piece of tech they’ve built in a while, and
it’s completely unsuited for 99.9% of users. What’s the point in mass-
marketing it? It felt like watching a marketing video to buy an airplane or
something.

~~~
mcphage
> What’s the point in mass-marketing it? It felt like watching a marketing
> video to buy an airplane or something.

It's because sites like this have been complaining for years that Apple has
left the Pro market behind. This was their response to that. And now this site
is switching to complaining that Apple's definition of "Pro" is too "Pro" for
us.

~~~
wongarsu
> switching to complaining that Apple's definition of "Pro" is too "Pro" for
> us.

If by too Pro you mean someone using an 8 core CPU with 32 GB of RAM ...

The higher end models might be great, with some genuine innovation in the GPU
interface that to some will justify high prices. But I don't know who the
target demographic for a $6k PC with those specs is supposed to be.

~~~
onebyteman
It’s the rich people who can afford not thinking more than twice to make the
purchase. If that excludes almost everyone, thats fine. Apple is making a
statement that they are still the premium of the premium

~~~
save_ferris
That may be, but their recent decision to no longer disclose per-unit sales
for any of their products on earnings calls moving forward doesn't necessarily
signal good times ahead. Their revenue for the last 2 quarters is down from
the same period a year ago, and there doesn't appear to be anything on the
horizon that's going to catapult their earnings back up. iPhone sales have
been in decline for a few years now.

They're banking that the margins of these new, higher-end products offsets the
sales lost by shrinking their market. The problem with this strategy is that
it isn't very sustainable and leaves them vulnerable to losing market share.

Microsoft keeps getting more serious about Linux compatibility, and if they
ship a surface pro or something similar that can seriously compete with the
MBP, things will get interesting.

------
mortenjorck
WWDC was the wrong place to announce the 2019 Mac Pro, period. It’s not a
developer machine, at least for people developing iOS and Mac apps.

A more appropriate venue would have been a special media event in, say, Los
Angeles, amid all the high-end post houses and VFX shops that can actually
justify investing in both the Mac Pro’s pixel throughput and the Pro Display’s
reference accuracy.

------
CPLX
This is a silly criticism, it’s not a PR fail.

The monitor stand is like a $99 hamburger on the menu. For the people rich
enough to never care about the cost of a restaurant meal it’s a purchase, and
for everyone else it’s a cue that this brand is absolutely top end prestigious
and expensive.

Im counting the days until I see one in a rap video or all over rich kid
Instagram.

~~~
bubblethink
But the pricing needs to be internally consistent for the brand to be taken
seriously, whether as a luxury brand or otherwise. In other words, a $1k piece
of metal with a couple of moving parts undermines the rest of their portfolio.
It's one thing to have a uniformly expensive lineup like a watchmaker, and
entirely different thing to price your most complicated offering (phone) and
the dumbest one (metal piece) the same. Like what's the message here ?

~~~
CPLX
> Like what's the message here?

The message is that Apple shit is so top of the line that even our monitor
stand is an uncompromising work of art.

It’s really not that complicated, it’s a textbook luxury branding and pricing
strategy. Ever seen a Restoration Hardware catalog? They sell painted tree
stumps for $1000.

~~~
cynix
> it’s a textbook luxury branding and pricing strategy.

The problem is that this 10x overpricing strategy doesn't apply to their
entire lineup, but that's not made explicit. As a result, people might
mistakenly generalise it to their other products such as iPhones, leading
people to think that their phones are also 10x overpriced and are actually
only worth $100, thus diminishing its value.

~~~
onebyteman
Haha, no. The average person does not think that deeply or use that much math.

~~~
piva00
I think the average person who is an iPhone owner can look at their phone and
to this monitor stand and think "why do they cost almost the same?" easily.

Price is one thing that most people are quite sensitive about.

------
inflatableDodo
Might as well buy some Tellurium Q Silver Diamond Digital Streaming Ethernet
Cables to go along with it. A snip at only £1200.00 per metre.
[https://telluriumq.com/silver-diamond-digital-streaming-
cabl...](https://telluriumq.com/silver-diamond-digital-streaming-cable/)

~~~
mathieubordere
the HiFi world really is something else

~~~
inflatableDodo
In my darker moments I have considered designing things for it. Insulating
layers made from woven hemp flax impregnated with powdered crystal, to avoid
orgone buildup interfering with the latency, that kind of thing. Thankfully, I
have avoided this impulse so far.

------
lelf
PR fail? Everybody is talking about it.

~~~
ab071c41
Everybody and their mother knows that Apple has a new monitor by now. You
can't buy that much publicity.

------
heavymark
I imagine many will be using the Vesa mount in this market, so if they did
what you recommend, then I imagine people would have been much more upset that
they are paying for a 1K stand they will never use, which would have been even
worse. From a PR perspective people might not have made that connection right
away, but shortly after the event still would have been horrible reaction,
since its one thing it itemized its another thing to charge 1K more for no
extra value. Now what they should do is the same thing they do with iMac, is
sell a version with the stand for 6K and one with vesa for 5200. Problem
solved, no PR issue. The reason they didnt presumably is they have no idea how
many want vesa vs not vesa so they may end up with a lot of unused inventory
or not enough of one. And of course makes logistics for making and selling
harder, etc, but I think had they known the reaction they may have considered
it. They will probably ride it out but if it continues they will simply switch
to that iMac method of selling it.

~~~
buchanan
For that situation, i think they can market it as $6k monitor. For vesa, get
the addon mount for $200. Basically, don't separately price the stand.

The way that its currently broken out is quite puzzling. As a fun conjecture,
perhaps they are planning a range lower spec monitors and want to upsell the
stand.

------
jessaustin
The $200 VESA adapter seems worse to me.

------
tomglynch
It's generated so much extra exposure for WWDC and their other announcements.
Although they aren't pronouncing it, I'm sure their marketing department
disagree.

~~~
happytoexplain
I know any press is good press, but come on. You can't just excuse any too-
expensive product this way.

~~~
toyg
Does anybody have to "excuse" the sticker price on luxury cars? You can
obviously get cheaper (and likely more comfortable) 4-wheeled transportation
instruments elsewhere, but that's hardly the point.

~~~
theelous3
there is nothing luxury avout the stand, it's essentially identical to any
other stand, which is not the point of the cars in your analogy.

~~~
freetime2
> there is nothing luxury avout the stand, it's essentially identical to any
> other stand

Some of the features that make it "luxury" in my mind are:

* Build materials / quality

* Small footprint

* Magnetic connector (no screws)

* Ease of adjusting height / rotating (according to Apple)

For a 32-inch, 16 lb monitor that may need to be moved around a lot and shared
amongst multiple people, I can see how those qualities might be important
enough to justify the price for some.

And if it's really identical to any other stand out there, can you show
something comparable at a lower price?

~~~
zeroimpl
They probably are also not be expecting to sell as many of these stands as
other stand manufacturers, so their manufacturing costs could be significantly
higher considering it uses a unique design.

------
dwighttk
Apple isn’t going to sell a cheap display. If you want a cheap display go
somewhere else. From their page about the display[1] a use case for this stand
is to have “one on set and one in the studio” and move your display back and
forth. Additionally Apple sells a VESA mount adapter for people who have
“unique mounting setups for their displays”

There is almost certainly no one who might actually buy this display who is
complaining about the price.

[1][https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/](https://www.apple.com/pro-display-
xdr/)

------
toyg
ITT: people who don't know how luxury branding works.

Without the stand, all headlines would have been on how Apple _finally_
listened and produced a great MacPro - something only us geeks care about.
Whereas this $1k-stand trolling generates mainstream headlines which reinforce
the luxury-brand image that actually makes them the big money.

It's entirely possible that people will now buy this monitor _even if they don
't need it_ simply so that they can flaunt the "famous" $1k stand.

~~~
happytoexplain
The articles are about how this hurts their PR. The threads may be full of
people who "don't get it", but the key point is that the threads are _full_ of
them, providing strong evidence for the thesis. Your assertion is a little
like Skinner blaming the children.

~~~
toyg
“People writing angry posts on the internet” is not Apple’s target market, it
never has been. People like us are like a bull to Apple marketing’s matador:
we run after the red flag so that the matador can do his job for public
enjoyment.

------
drexlspivey
> Veblen goods are types of luxury goods for which the quantity demanded
> increases as the price increases, an apparent contradiction of the law of
> demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. A higher price may make
> a product desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous
> consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because
> it is a positional good, something few others can own.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good)

------
jamexcb
All of you are seeing this from the wrong side! Apple is opening a new market.
Premium monitor stands. ;)

~~~
wongarsu
I know you are joking, but this already exists. I can get a cheap table mount
for two monitors for $40 from Amazon, or I can get a really nice one for
anything from $500 to $2000 (HumanScale's configurator has some great options
[1])

1: [https://www.humanscale.com/products/mflex-m10-monitor-arm-
co...](https://www.humanscale.com/products/mflex-m10-monitor-arm-
configurator.cfm?configuration=X1BCMSQTBPHN---12-------------------)

------
jerzyt
By itemizing the stand, they inadvertently(?) exposed how much they're
fleecing the consumer.

------
maitredusoi
For those who never saw a NeXT computer, they effectively can't understand why
their is a stand looking like this...

For me it is a A glimpse of rememberance from Steve original NeXT MegaPixel
Display ...

------
Bakary
I predict something similar to the debacle with the AirPods and the lack of a
3.5mm jack in the iPhone. Everyone made fun of the decision at the time but
the Veblen good effect asserted itself anyway and now it's a standard to be
emulated and a product that insipres envy in many.

Likewise, this product will be hailed as a status symbol in a few months
precisely because of its absurdity.

Apple will continue to be contemptuous of its consumers because it keeps being
richly rewarded for it. I am not trying to be edgy by making this claim: it
was all laid out more than a century ago by a cheeky Norwegian-American, and
more recently by patio11.

~~~
zzzcpan
Status symbols have to be visible to others, not hiding behind the monitor in
private. It cannot be a status symbol.

------
momokoko
The PR was intention. Apple is the greatest marketing company in modern
history. That stand and the entire Mac Pro now has a perception of super high
end. Where it has no compromises on quality and price. Genius yet again from
Apple. Look at how much press it is generating for them. Right when iPhone was
getting a bit stale in public mindshare.

------
Simulacra
It’s like the Apple version of the Juicero.

------
aloer
my personal take on this:

Apple did not want people to talk about other things introduced or not
introduced at WWDC. With so much attention from non-developers for a developer
event, they need to carefully handle expectations until the hardware event in
fall, with its focus on the general public, will hopefully introduce the
amazing new things everyone always expects.

This year was not a disappointment for sure but the things shown are
incremental improvements at best. Putting that stand out there will give the
public something largely irrelevant to complain about and at the same time
generate more attention for a specific niche product: the new mac pro.

And in doing so they avoid real criticism for all the other products that are
so much more important for their success. Apple does not lose anything here

side note: anyone else remember when Tim Cook thanked everyone involved in the
end and emphasized the overtime and weekends they worked through? No idea what
to make of this, does not sound like a normal thing to admit tbh as CEO. To me
that sounded like a plea for something, perhaps to be more understanding and
to wait until fall to see how everything plays out?

(timestamp 2:15:56 at [https://www.apple.com/apple-
events/june-2019/](https://www.apple.com/apple-events/june-2019/))

> these guys have given up their nights and weekends from their families

~~~
toyg
To me that sounded more of a message to his own workers, to be honest: “I know
you work unhealthy hours, but you get to be a part of this! Take a bow!”

Which is a troubling message, normalizing exploitation, but is perfectly in
line with contemporary executive-think.

