I am the author and I am asking that this thread be deleted. I mistakenly assumed everyone would be mature and logical in this discussion.. my bad.
Last edited:
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Resolved My take on the "Apple tax"
- Thread starter revmacian
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I appreciate your well organized and highly thought out thesis, but I have to disagree. Aside from ardent apple fans, its commonly accepted that there is an apple tax and a cursory review of apple's competition confirms this. I can get a dell XPS that include superior components, which are user upgradeable then on the MBP. The iPhone Xs is more expensive then many phones, yet those other phones have better cameras for instance.
You use apple's services to justify apple's higher price point, but many of those services require iCloud storage, which is not free (aside from a paltry free amount). Now the cost of that storage is very economical, I'll not quibble over that. I'm getting 50GB for 99 cents, yet there are other services that offer more storage for free. You also highlight music and video, but those are not free, I have to subscribe monthly, or buy the music. Videos are rent to purchase that's all. You also mention the app store, apple's hardware sales do not support that, but rather apple takes a 1/3 of each app sale as a commission, so in a effect, the software developer's are funding the app store.
Bottom line is like buying a Dell, Asus, Galaxy, or Pixel, you are only getting a product. They're no different then others, who are also selling online services themselves. The difference is apple is pushing the envelope on pricing. They are more expensive and yet it seems lately the quality has decreased.
You use apple's services to justify apple's higher price point, but many of those services require iCloud storage, which is not free (aside from a paltry free amount). Now the cost of that storage is very economical, I'll not quibble over that. I'm getting 50GB for 99 cents, yet there are other services that offer more storage for free. You also highlight music and video, but those are not free, I have to subscribe monthly, or buy the music. Videos are rent to purchase that's all. You also mention the app store, apple's hardware sales do not support that, but rather apple takes a 1/3 of each app sale as a commission, so in a effect, the software developer's are funding the app store.
Every company that makes a thing does that, Apple is no different. This is part of the overhead all manufacturer's face, and you also need to include R&D, and marketing. That's the same whether we're talking Dell, Samsung, or Apple.
Agreed, that's why online sales for many other companies are so popular, amazon, dell, etc, and why so many traditional retailers are struggling, i.e., sears, JC Penny, etc..
This is hit or miss, many people are complaining at how low of $$ they had to sell their apple watch, people dealing with wonky keyboards on the MBP are not going to get a high dollar amount, and the 10.5 iPad Pro is not getting as much money as people had hoped.
Bottom line is like buying a Dell, Asus, Galaxy, or Pixel, you are only getting a product. They're no different then others, who are also selling online services themselves. The difference is apple is pushing the envelope on pricing. They are more expensive and yet it seems lately the quality has decreased.
But how does the software run on it compared to the MBP?
A friend of mine was trying to decide between an iMac Pro and building a Windows PC. He sent me this video showing the iMac Pro outperforming a $10,000 Windows PC.
Some people will always complain about price no matter what the item cost.
I think the issue now is the perception that people are not buying a premier product anymore from Apple and that the Apple service and support is no longer special.
I myself was always willing to pay more for an Apple product knowing that it would be trouble free and would last me many years, Sadly, I no longer believe that this is the case.
Does Dell, Asus, Samsung or google provide all of the services I mentioned without advertising or selling our personal information? I haven't really seen things like Continuity and Handoff work seamlessly on machines from the manufacturers you've mentioned.
Also, thank you for pointing out the commonality of the "Logistics" bullet point. Your point is well taken.
Last edited:
That's a great point. Many users trust Apple's data collection and privacy policies over that of other companies – and even governments.
How many T2 Bridge OS crashes will your friend get on an iMac Pro ?
Performance is secondary to me. I just want a computer that works and continues to work.
The Apple tax is real and it's getting out of control...
Imagine if iOS or MacOS were available to other manufacturers like Android and Win10 are? Apple would sell almost nothing, hardware wise...
Imagine if you could get a Galaxy S9 with iOS or a Dell XPS with MacOS.... Apple will never do this as long as they can keep charging insane prices for their products...
I'd gladly pay for a MacOS license with the ability to put it on any machine I want...
The way it stands now they have no hardware competition. Want iOS and/or MacOS? You have one choice and they can charge ridiculous Apple tax prices for it..
Imagine if iOS or MacOS were available to other manufacturers like Android and Win10 are? Apple would sell almost nothing, hardware wise...
Imagine if you could get a Galaxy S9 with iOS or a Dell XPS with MacOS.... Apple will never do this as long as they can keep charging insane prices for their products...
I'd gladly pay for a MacOS license with the ability to put it on any machine I want...
The way it stands now they have no hardware competition. Want iOS and/or MacOS? You have one choice and they can charge ridiculous Apple tax prices for it..
I tried to save money by buying my wife a Windows laptop. I had to download a BIOS updates to it just so it could wake from sleep. Eventually they stopped issuing BIOS updates, so her OS couldn't be updated without fear of the issue coming back. After a year, her trackpad stopped working. I got fed up and bought her a MacBook Air. I would have saved money by just buying the MacBook in the first place.
For my line of work, performance is key, so running software that is optimized for my hardware configuration is a no-brainer.
Apple by all accounts have created a monster of an eco-system but it is worth noting that Google, Microsoft, Dell et al have tried, failed or are currently trying to get you into their eco-system. And if they can succeed they will do precisely what Apple are doing now, charge you more for being part of it.
Currently Google are trying their best with a line giving you a phone, tablet, laptop, home device and so on. Microsoft actually could and should have been in the same place as Apple right now had they acted sooner but they have effectively kissed goodbye to the Phone and wider tablet market.
Apple got there first and are reaping the rewards of doing so.
Currently Google are trying their best with a line giving you a phone, tablet, laptop, home device and so on. Microsoft actually could and should have been in the same place as Apple right now had they acted sooner but they have effectively kissed goodbye to the Phone and wider tablet market.
Apple got there first and are reaping the rewards of doing so.
That would be less than ideal.
Both operating systems (macOS and iOS) are optimized for the hardware components they run on, and the hardware components in the devices are designed and optimized to run macOS and iOS.
Apple has always excelled at building a complete system that integrates the hardware with the software.
Companies should charge what they can get for a product.
The issue seems to be that a company can only live off of it's good reputation for so long after it's products and service / support declines.
I think that Apple has reached that point and will lose significant amounts of customers if they don't resume producing trouble free hardware and software. They also need to stop treating customers as their beta testers.
These are, as you've mentioned, hypothetical situations. And, as such, we cannot be 100% sure of the outcomes you've predicted. If I had eggs, I could have eggs and bacon.. if I had bacon.
I'm not sure macOS would work on any other machine as well as it does on a Mac. There is much to be said for the ability to control both the hardware and the software.
Thats the magic dust they want you to believe... The T2 Bridge OS crashes ect tell a different story.
Agreed.. nothing lasts forever.
You've touched on my one wish for Apple.. go back to making computers "tinkerable" again. But, alas, that doesn't seem to be attainable anymore. I wonder if this new generation of folks, that have neither time or desire, is to blame.
[doublepost=1542553514][/doublepost]
Please tell me you aren't judging an entire company on the performance of a single product.
I can only speak from my own experiences. I've owned Apple products since 2012 or so and have never seen any type of crash. The only problem I've ever had with any Apple product is a bad battery in my current Magic Keyboard - it goes from 100% to 12% in a few days. But, some problems here and there are to be expected. Humans are fallible. So long as that remains true, anything humans create will never be infallible.
I wouldn't say they are to blame. Smaller, lighter and faster is what people want now and that does not permit 'tinkering'. Sure there are a percentage who are vocal about opposing that but the silent majority really do rule here and they are who Apple and others are marketing their products towards.
Well, it seems like they have resolved it for the MBA.
Do I really need to go into all the reported issues with Samsung and Dell devices that haven't been resolved?
Not at all but I am also not pretending Apple products have some sort of magic dust sprinkled in them. Every Apple product out there has failure rates. iPhones have issues, MacBook's have issues, Apple TV's have issues ect.
What keeps me here, and paying the Apple tax is continuity and handoff... You can sorta get it elsewhere by using something like pushbullet but it's not as fluid..
Apple has zero competition if someone want iOS and/or MacOS.. If they had competition the prices of their hardware would drop to more reasonable levels and without the Apple tax...
One of the more wonderful blessings in life is the ability to change - it keeps us from stagnation. If we don't like our situation, then we should change the situation in order to be happy. If we cannot change the situation in order to be happy, then we must change ourselves. But, whatever we do, we should never do ourselves the huge disservice of arriving at a point in which we feel we no longer need to change.
All new models of Apple computers have the T2 chip and are possibly subject to the T2 Bridge OS error.
What I'm judging Apple by is that they have known about the T2 Bridge OS fault since the iMac Pro was released (a while back). They have had many samples of faulty computers along with log reports so I'm pretty sure they know what the issue is.
That being said, they have not officially acknowledged the problem, stated the cause, or come out with an approved fix. Multiple OS updates and firmware updates have somewhat mitigated the problem (looks like bandaids to correct a hardware issue).
I feel the most sorry for the Apple support people who have no idea what to do and usually just re-install MacOS. The customer then goes home and the problem re-occurs. By time the customer gets upset with service, the 14 day return window has passed and the customer is stuck with the computer. The T2 Bridge OS problem is also intermittent so customers have a very difficult time proving they have a bad machine and getting a replacement.
It's my opinion that the iPhone and iOS are in much better shape than Apple's computer line and MacOS.
Knowing about a problem is not the same as knowing how to solve that problem. Fixing a problem in one line of code could cause a new problem in a thousand other lines of code. And fixing those other problems could affect even more lines of code. So what should Apple do? Stop shipping all products until one problem is fixed? Or, continue business as usual and implement an update when one is available?
We do not know everything that is going on inside Apple. Until we do, perhaps it is best to give them the benefit of the doubt. You’d want someone to do the same for you, wouldn’t you?
For the money we are paying for the computer, Apple should treat it's customers better. I think that Apple should be honest with their customers, acknowledge the problem, and tell Apple service to immediately replace the computers that have the T2 Bridge OS faults.
From my experience very good. I know my use case is different from others, but I've had no issues. In fact some apps run more optimized and better.
Microsoft, Google and Samsung offer varying levels of services. One can make a point those that don't are more focused on providing a specific product, rather then being distracted by other non-core services. Apple sees the future on services, they want you to buy the hardware and hook you on the services.
And yet with issues in the iMac Pro and the T2, they decided to add the T2 to the MBP. Those people incurred even more problems and yet Apple added the T2 to the Mini and the MBA. I'm not sure what that says about Apple.
Well, assuming they wish to remain a going concern regarding the OS related hardware, it must speak to Apple's resolve to find and fix any T2 bridging problems, i.e., whatever they have in mind or pipeline going forward that will be based on T2 must seem worth the transitioning effort. Of course we can't see as far down the road as they do.
But they've painted themselves into a bit of a corner at least on the PR value of firmware fixes, seems like. So far the results on those as reported anecdotally seem to be all over the place.
Sometimes being in a corner does focus the mind.
Odd that Apple would voluntarily so locate themselves, though (re taking it out to the the Mini and MBA). Meanwhile tbh it all makes me consider a refurb 2017 if I have to replace my 2012 MBP.