Le Big Mac said:
But, while it is overpriced, in any business there are people willing to pay for the convenience of having everything packaged together or available at one-stop shopping. Probably particularly true with many mac purchasers. Indeed, if your upgrade is say from 512MB to 1GB, you might figure the extra $40 or so it costs from apple is worth it just to have them install it.
Exactly how my father and I felt when purchasing my iMac... why fuss when it can come configured as I'd like?
Le Big Mac said:
Obviously for an educated consumer who can install RAM themselves, it's not worth it. But Apple isn't trying to make money on volume, and never has.
Underline emphasis is mine because I take offense to that statement... I feel that I was 'educated' in my purchase, so why did I bother to pay the extra cost? Because 1) I didn't have to deal w/ ordering the RAM from elsewhere, deal w/ installing it, deal w/ it in case it was not compatible, but most importantly, 3)it would be covered by Apple's AppleCare so that if issues ever arose, I only need to service my computer at one place... Why does that make me uneducated?
:edit: I did upgrade the RAM on my PB myself... so it's not because I am 100% incapable of doing
anything to a computer that I shelled out extra $$$ for Apple RAM on my iMAc, especially because I also have friends/family willing to help out if need be.