
Apple’s stagnant product lines mostly reflect the state of the computer industry - firloop
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/233058-apples-stagnant-product-lines-mostly-reflect-the-state-of-the-computer-industry
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pawadu
But Joel Hruska ignores the fact that Byford's original article was not about
technology:

 _" But there’s no excuse for selling four-year-old hardware for $1,099. (Yes,
Apple charitably dropped the price by one hundred whole dollars two years
ago.) The 2012 MacBook Pro still runs okay today, but not that okay."_

Furthermore, despite Joels claim the PC industry has done great improvements
in the last 2-3 years: we now have significantly better graphics, battery life
and security in addition to touch support and all that in low and mid-end
segments.

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mixedCase
GPUs are still subject to Moore's law; CPUs, while not getting much faster are
becoming more energy efficient; SSD price per gigabyte goes down and down...

It's not the state of the computer industry, it's Apple and the people willing
to buy anything with its logo on it and justify it with "it's good enough".
You know what's good enough? An 8 year old thinkpad with an SSD in it and
maybe some extra RAM. And that one doesn't set you down 1100 USD.

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cooper12
The fact that you say that a thinkpad with an 8-year old cpu suffices only
proves the author's point. Why is it a bad thing when this is good enough for
Apple users, but a good thing for you?

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tdkl
Because they are selling components inside as new (+ Apple tax) and not per
market value.

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rbanffy
One of the points the article makes is that the newer components (mind you the
parts inside are new, just not from the latest generation) don't have
performance improvements that warrant the retooling and update.

At least for me, Apple doesn't sell the fastest computers. It sells well built
computers with a polished OS. With all the stories about malware built into
Thinkpads, I am somewhat relieved there is someone building malware free solid
and reliable computers I can expect to use for many years.

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pawadu
I think what parent is trying to say is that Apple charges $1100 for 4 year
old technology, something no other company is able to do.

I recently paid $90 for a six year old ThinkPad and it works flawlessly. If we
are going to settle for old technology (which both you, OP and the author
claim is good enough), then why not also pay less?

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tdkl
Precisely. Apple just realized it can sell whatever they want at high margins
and get away with it.

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pawadu
I don't think Apple needs to "realize" anything. They will try to sell
hardware with huge profit margins and unless people stop buying them there is
really no reason for Apple to change.

This was what the Verge articles was trying to highlight, which in turn was
what the author here was trying to criticize (?!).

