Why the Black MacBook Cost More
512pixels.net
512pixels.net
"Was this modest storage upgrade worth the $200 premium? Absolutely not; Apple was charging more for the black enclosure because it could."
People are irrational, they value things that don’t necessarily cost more to make, and sometimes even the fact that they need to pay extra for it, is in fact why they want it.
I’m reminded of that silly $1000 app in the beginning of the AppStore:
If I never paid more than production cost + some "reasonable" markup I wouldn't be able to buy a lot of things that I enjoy.
A smart business sells things at roughly the price that people value them. A key job of the business is making that cost them less then the selling price.
People are boundedly rational. The client base purchasing the black enclosure valued it for a few extra hundred USD relative to other things they may choose to spend their funds on.
Especially SWEs who work in products w/ zero marginal costs shouldn't complain about market value of a product vs. BOM costs
…especially if you consider that even product that don’t end as ‘vaporware’ are often immaterial.
They’ll joke about the uselessness of philosophy, then argue the differences between == and ===.
It’s really no surprise from there that they’ve happily embraced “fiat isn’t real” conspiracies and seek to improve that terrible state of affairs with a zoo of inscrutable algorithm-money.
Just as one example, I've been using a work issued macbook for over a year and I still regularly send the screen brightness or volume off the rails because I lightly rested a finger on the stupid touchbar. But hey, it looks cool to use the volume slider!
More broadly, look at any discussion of web fonts here and you’ll find three suggestions to give everyone „three fonts and be done with it, screw those designers and the strange feelings I get when I see them on their skateboards.“
That’s not irrational. It doesn’t cost any more to make a lemon cake than a chocolate cake but a lemon cake is more valuable to me because I don’t like chocolate. Perfectly rational.
(otherwise good point)
But objectivly proofing it, would require a very complex bio-chemical anaylsis of his digestion and neurological system as well as a deep psychoanalysis. Interesting research probably, but not necessary for determining that objectivly lemon cake has a higher value to him, because he simply likes it more.
Acting against what makes you feel better is rational. I don't think that's controversial.
If you're a cake mix company that only sells chocolate cake mix, switching up production to include vanilla has expenses all by itself. You now have to manage extra ingredients in your supply chain, schedule time to switch production and all the overhead and downtime in doing so...and your factory-to-retail logistics chain is now both more complicated and split between the two products.
If you retail cake mixes, why would you dedicate capital, storage, and shelf space to something that sells at one ninth the rate?
Etc.
Given that premise, it’s still possible to value one less than the other.
Given another premise that wasn’t in the comment… we’ll you can still value one less than the other but so what?
Since some people are willing to pony up significantly more for the black, they can offer the non-black at a slightly lower cost than they otherwise would, which means they can sell MacBooks to a segment of the market that would otherwise consider them out of reach.
Any time virtually the same thing is offered at different prices, you can either complain that it's unfair one target segment has to pay more... or realise that the flip side of the coin is that less price sensitive people subsidise lower costs for more price sensitive people -- which could seem completely fair depending on ideologies.
If you're a hardcore capitalist you see it as a way for the manufacturer to expand their target market without sacrificing profitability. If you're more on the left you see it as taking from the rich and giving it to the poor, without having to resort to coercion.
Each lens/sensor theoretically costs a very similar amount of manufacturing cost to include, so theoretically if your goal was to give the customer the best value on a cheaper 2-lens phone, you would want to give them the two most used lenses: the normal wide lens and the telephoto lens.
However, Apple gates the more-desired telephoto lens to the Pro model, because it needs to balance the significant price increase with the reality that there isn't much of a manufacturing cost difference between Pro and non-Pro phones.
So, it's a market segmentation based on some desired features.
I disagree with the idea that there's any sort of a positive "flip side" to this strategy from the customers' perspective. This is how profit is maximized. Apple could sell the iPhone 13 Pro for less money and still make a profit, but they know that customers of certain income brackets will pay over a thousand bucks for a phone.
If the iPhone 13 had a telephoto lens instead of the ultra-wide lens, and the ProMotion display, the iPhone 13 wouldn't cost a dime more to manufacture. In this configuration, there would be very little reason for most people to upgrade to the Pro model.
I.e., if the 13 and 13 Pro were nearly identical, yeah, there'd be no reason to upgrade to the pro model, and so Apple, being sensible, would instead offer one model. And the price of that one model would fall somewhere between the 13 and the 13 Pro; meaning that some people who can justify paying for a 13 now would not buy one at all (and you're not extracting as much as you could from those willing to spend more as you could by segmenting it).
By segmenting it, though, the (obviously highly inflated, still super high margin) cost of the 13 is lower, and Apple can put the cost of the 13 Pro higher, because each segment now has its own point of highest profitability (the point where price * number of people who will purchase it at that price is highest; generally the higher the former the lower the latter).
This is also why some graphics cards, for instance, were all made to the higher end specs, and then had chips locked away, damaged, or etc, just to create market segmentation. Even with the fixed margin costs, segmenting the market allows the company to maximize profit, but by doing so it also allows the lower segment to come in at a lower cost than if they were trying to maximize profits with a single segment. It's a "win/win" from an availability/affordability of goods and a corporate profit maximization perspective, even if it feels stupid and unfair to pay extra for the high end card, or be purchasing a 'crippled' card.
I believe this choice is because of another much more desired feature: Night Mode™
IIRC It works by overlaying and processing the two images from the ultrawide and wide angle lenses. It's why Night Mode is limited to the wide angle lense, and not available on the ultrawide, as the wide angle lense doesn't provide enough coverage for the ultrawide to produce a Night Mode image.
If Apple included only wide and telephoto, then Night Mode (As currently implemented) would be limited to the telephoto images, which would be a lot less desirable.
I think it would be irrational to value things based on how much they cost to make. The rational thing would be to value something based on utility to you. Why should you care how much it cost to make, unless you have as an alternative the ability to make it yourself?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting#Rome
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.In what way?
Even at twice the power draw and expense, there's nothing quite as good as a macbook at the moment.
However, this requires you to be using ARM and not x86, and it requires you to use MacOS which has _interesting_ performance characteristics for certain workloads.
But Intel 11th and 12th gen laptop processors beat M1 in single-core processing. See chart: https://i.imgur.com/KoNjGq5.png
Here's an article from 3 months ago comparing them: https://www.pcworld.com/article/608419/laptop-brawl-apples-m...
(that intel laptop beat M1 Pro in multi-core too)
(and M1's integrated GPU got destroyed by RTX 3080 laptops in OpenCL but that could be due to architecture/emulation)
I think it's not a fair comparison since M1 runs much more efficiently. Almost different purposes.
It’s also not exactly an indicator of real world performance which is why I avoided linking to benchmarks.
It's possible the M1 has been dethroned for single core performance, but what you link is not a good comparison.
Claims of future performance are going to be met with a clear shrug because ultimately I've been able to put my hands on an M1 for over a year, theoretical future CPUs are absolutely no consequence.
Additionally what is failed to mention here is how much battery life you get. Which, Apple is easily leading on.
I'm quite envious of the M1 to be perfectly honest, for the thermal envelope it's unbeaten, and its barely being challenged one year on. But you'll take my Dell Precision and my Linux installation from my cold dead hands.
You can set how many threads the renderer will use. https://i.imgur.com/kBNvLe1.png
And it is pure CPU render. No GPU is used. It would be borderline comical if the article used a GPU benchmarking tool to measure CPU performance.
It is not theoretical. They ran their tests on a laptop that is already available for purchase.
In fact, the entire tone of the comment has changed, not it's much more balanced.
I wonder that gives Cinebench an advantage of almost 24% to Intel.
I was under impression that the number was shrinking after Mojave cut support for 32-bit apps/libraries, since many developers never bothered to update their apps and games to 64-bit, much less native ARM.
Hell Apple has ultimately been vindicated going whole-hog on USB-C. Anyone who’s made the swap got over the dongle stuff pretty quickly.
Why not just buy a regular laptop and put Chrome OS on it?
I'll admit to salivating over this way of working, all the grunt happening somewhere else but my keystrokes being low latency (since they're locally rendered and lazily synced by the web browser).
But anyone who says a chromebook is comparable to a macbook is smoking something.
I'm not even saying that as an Apple Lover, I use linux, but I'm aware of the limitations of the platforms.
IME most people use macs not because they think they're better than everyone else; but because the development experience is very "happy path" -- and the hardware build quality is high.
One reason I like my Mac is because the number of options is so limited. More or less, all modern Macs are pretty good. Solid machines, good OS, good long-term support, few surprises. Just pick your price range.
Chromebooks? Well, I'm glad you found one that you like, but from what I've seen of others' choices, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Some are okay, some are great, some are crappy, and there isn't necessarily a good cue (like price) to tell the difference.
I've done laptop Linux in the past (well, Linux and various BSDs), and the top recommendation for any problem you have with it is to change distros. When I was 26, okay, yeah, I liked doing that. I'm well and truly over that now. I'm aware that it's a heck of a lot better these days, but even so, it still seems like a bit of a moving target.
Another thing in Apple's favor is their hardware is quite good. The $600 Chromebook will be worth zip in a year, while I could probably get a significant percentage of the sticker price for my Macbook. Not that I'd sell it, because my previous 2011 Macbook lasted (with some upgrades) as my main axe for a decade. That's not nothing.
I think the sysadmins and programmers aren't just moo-mooing like cattle when they go for the Mac. They often have particular and very good reasons. E.g., in my case, I'd rather go back to a clay tablet and pointy stick than give up BBEdit.
One thing that always messed with me was how much work it was to set up. If you step off the yellow brick road, the work arounds get to be really funky and hard to automate. So I had android apps that I'd download and then log into. For a lot of years my password safe didn't work well with it. Signal was an issue for a long time until they got the linux containers or whatever working, though for that you'd have to reset to dev mode and get a bunch of stuff installed.
I really like the idea. I run a linux machine, (usually whatever flavor $work is willing to provide), and at the end of the day, I run a bunch of terminals with tmux, a web browser, and signal. So in theory that seems like it should work. And, it seems like that was getting better last I tried. But you really have to be bought in on the google way to make it go.
I haven't messed with it for a couple years so maybe I should fire up my pixel book and give it another shot.
This is a compelling feature, and I get it. I'm old school enough that I much prefer having things local. I'm also contrary enough that I don't like how much clout Google has, and paranoid enough that I don't trust Google. But I definitely get the appeal.
Way back in the day, Sun came around to the corporate office where I used to work to demo the Sun Ray. Most of the tech people dismissed it out of hand as a gigantic heap of crap (and as it turned out, they were right, or at least in agreement with the free market), but I understood the appeal.
also, not sure if you meant this literally — would you please consider taking any destroyed computers to electronics recycling instead of throwing in the trash, if at all possible based on your location? these things contain stuff that’s not really desirable to go into landfills - heavy metals, batteries, etc
I’d argue the new Mac mini is one of the best computer deals on the market.
One reason is availability. Chances are, the PC laptop you took such pains to spec out are not nearly as available in case you need one on short notice. If I dropped my Macbook in the ocean this morning, I can walk into an Apple store and have a reasonable replacement by afternoon. Unless your PC specs are ok with random consumer/gaming laptops from Best Buy, you are likely looking at several days minimum wait, probably a lot more if they happen to be at the point in the product cycle where last year's model is in low stock and next year's hasn't come in yet.
At least with a lot of PCs you can upgrade RAM/SSD yourself and get it quick from Amazon rather than wait two weeks for the factory in China to do it for you.
- 10+ hour battery life even when working on periodic compiles, and easily 15+ hours web browsing
- high DPI display
- faster multicore CPU performance than a Ryzen 5800X desktop CPU
- less than 5 lbs
- good trackpad and keyboard
- decent build quality
I believe this doesn't exist outside an M1 Pro/Max MBP. My MBP14 uses less than 0.5W package power during a Zoom meeting, that's less than what modern AMD machines use at _idle_. My old MBP15 used over 2 watts package power at idle. I can hit all threads with a big C++ or Java compile and the fans won't even be audible, and my laptop fits in a backpack and is small enough to use anywhere. The extra cost (~$1000) is not really that big a concern when you make software engineer salaries and your laptop is a tool you use every day on side projects to improve your skills.
One can say “Apple prices are exorbitant”, or “Apple offers its customers a premium and select pricing line”.
https://web.archive.org/web/20011212120420/http://www.exonom...
After using them for awhile, the palm rest on the black model would develop a nasty-looking sheen. The white one suffered from durability issues — the palm rest would chip in the place where the top case met the bottom case.
Those issues aside, I remember that time at the Apple Store with extreme fondness, especially the pre-iPhone days. We were slinging iMacs with Parallels and Windows XP to comfort the legions of switchers, all the while reassuring them that, yes, Macs had plenty of great software, even though its library paled in comparison to that of Windows. And, of course, iPods were the cash cow. Funny how things change.
Both were built down to a price and it showed, including the creaky, flexing, cheap frame.
Dropping the "cheap, shitty version of a Macbook Pro" line was an excellent decision on Apple's part.
The Jet black glossy iPhone 7 wasn't available in the cheapest configuration, but it cost the same as the other colors at the configurations it was available in.
I think the black glossy iPhone was one of the most beautiful phones Apple has built. It was the closest they got to a truly seamless, monolithic phone. And it didn't have a stupid glass back that always breaks!
I remember seeing reports of people who had micro-scratches all over the back of the phone after a day of use, just from keeping it in their pocket.
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/9/7/12836762/ip...
The space grey versions of the Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse were more expensive.
Probably one of my most memorable computers, since I played World of Warcraft on it 10 hours a day for like 3 years lol
Apple's driver did a great job of masking that with fuzzing and (I believe) predictive movement, that's the reason it seemed good in Mac OS X. But you can even tell in OS X if you're really looking for it!
Most engineers have no idea how much misery they inflict on the world by indulgently claiming that ignoring UX is the higher road.
There is a ton that goes into products that goes well beyond materials.
I've seen the BOM + retail argument made many times regarding Apple computers. Interestingly, I also hear, "I wish DELLHPLENOVOACER would make a machine that's more like a Mac."
And that's what people are paying Apple for!!
If DELLHPLENOVOACER were to make a machine more like the Mac, their prices would come up to Apple pricing, and that would happen because delivering a product is more than the BOM materials cost.
There is a BOM for hardware and software
There is a Bill of Processes
And a Bill of Services
Often, and should be pretty much always, there is also a Bill of Requirements used for quality and compliance too.
Each of these things involves people, who need to get paid so they can continue to exist and show up for work. And they involve processes, materials, information, all of which are required to ship the product as intended.
Now, all that said, it's not like the BOM cost markup to retail is wrong. For what I'll call reference, or baseline products, it's often close! Those products are lean and mean, with as few processes and materials and information as possible included. And those products are a good deal for those people who don't need a lot of extras.
One example I can think of is the many video signal devices I see on Amazon. Things like VGA to HDMI boxes, for example. I've purchased a few, some being $20 to $30 and others approaching $100. The PCB is almost the same!
The cheap ones often leave a feature out, and I can see the components not populated on the PCB. They also come in rock bottom packaging and have plastic cases, connectors that are not reinforced, and on it goes.
My more expensive one has a nice metal case, all the features are present, included nice cables, not "will work at least once" cables, was packaged well, and the overall build quality was significantly better. I own an expensive one because the connector work is not good enough on the cheaper ones.
I bet the number of BOM items differs by less than 10 percent, yet the product cost difference is 2X plus a little. Quality components vs shoddy ones, or ones that may fail more, or were not quality checked at the source make a big difference in product cost, and that's just one example.
This is why Apple computers cost more. Apple simply does not ever ship a rock bottom, stripped down product. Most of the time, they ship exemplary products (in a given product class), and they add a lot of value, and most importantly, they ask that value be funded with purchase price dollars.
And in most cases, that value added is reasonable. If it were not, the people would not be buying the products.
To this day, I think the plastic Black MacBook design is just perfect. I will always love the 12" PowerBook G4, but for me, that black plastic is just timeless in a clean and excellent way.
A side-effect of the Black Tax was that the cracked palm wrest issue that impacted a lot of white MacBooks, didn't seem to impact the Black models nearly as much (Apple replaced the top component I believe for people with yellowed or cracked palm wrests).
As much as I love my 14" MacBook Pro Max, if I could have it in solid black, I would love it (that or bring back the true rose gold color and give it to the Pro machines, cowards!).
Also crazy to think what $1500 in the original macbook's era (2006-2008) will buy you today. Almost an entry level 14" MacBook pro! ($2000)
Why are they all so bright?
https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/macbook21.html
Mine's now fully "libre", running Trisquel Lite.
If anyone else has trouble installing 64-bit distros on these, this page is useful:
https://mattgadient.com/2016/07/11/linux-dvd-images-and-how-...
I remember selling it and overall making a profit on it after 2 or 3 years of use.
It looked pretty cool nevertheless by itself and the size/weight felt quite right. Good old memories of running Snow leopard on it in early grad school days
Both of these models irked me because the plastic used was prone to cracking. The bottom case started forming hairline cracks near the screen hinge/sharp corners. The case had a lot of flex. The screen did not perfectly align with the bottom case. The top cover of the keyboard started cracking off where you’d rest your wrist. I was very happy to replace it with a unibody aluminum design in 2011.
I bought the black macbook because IT WAS THE ONLY ONE IN STOCK, the cheaper ones were unavailable anywhere. The thing was initially unstable (bad firmware but apple patched it). I used it for years and then gave it to a friend who used it for a few years and gave it to her sister. I think it literally lasted a decade.
It fits the "luxury consumer electronics" segment they've created (how they've managed to create and maintain that is, I'm sure, a case study in business schools).
Charging more for an exclusive color whose only difference is that it costs more is classic fashion business sense.
See also, the origin of black pearls as a desirable item, which were originally thought as defective pearls until one savvy person started marketing them as exclusive and expensive. Or also Parmentier making potatoes appealing in France by having his potato patches surrounded by (easily bribable) guards.
Most people will choose the regular silver accessories. That makes the black accessories stand out even more. And as we know, being unique is very valuable in a secular and individualistic time.
Even for products that are already overpriced, not just merely expensive by nature.
Other times a more highly overpriced product is desired for sale.
Then specs or (sometimes otherwise hidden) features can be nudged upward to be perceived as justifiable premiums.
As long as an appropriate portion of those having higher disposable funds can appreciate that.
At least from the people I know, most of them were just happy to spend a bit more for the black model. Maybe Apple was expecting a lot more?
That was the last computer I “loved” to use.
Work was a university department, so we would never have bought them for individual employees.
I do think the glossy white MacBook was also a pleasing object, more so really than the aluminium ones.
But I really liked their design. I never got this "premium black" thing because i largely preferred the white one. Really iconic. I'd love if Apple (re)released computers with this design.
It is a dramatically different shape.
More Jony Ive. MacBooks had useful ports during Jobs' reign and several years thereafter (until the MacBook Pro 2015). It's only after Ive left Apple in 2019 that the ports came back (well, in 2021, but products are in the pipeline for a while).
But I miss the simple style of the white MacBook for a more "personal" computer where you want a pretty and sturdy computer you can move around the house and lend to your kids.
Plastic was more family proof. Yes you could scratch it but it wouldn’t instantly become ugly. Aluminium is nice and all until it falls from the coffee table and flattens on the edge, becoming both ugly and unsaleable.
And the cost of the material has nothing to do with the argument. I don't know why you'd imply that it "costs precisely the same", as no two materials would ever be exactly the same. But you don't adjust your pricing 39 cents either direction - you decide on a price based on what people will pay.
Price discrimination gets a bad rep because of the name I think, but as Wikipedia points out student discounts are probably the best example and are basically uncontroversial.