Welcome to the wide world of name brand.
See when you buy a name brand product you not only buy:
The item
Work in making it
Price to ship to you/store
Store mark up
BUT ALLLLLLSOOOOO
THE NAME IT'S SELF!!!!!!!
Yes see when you buy a name brand you pay for the name.
Levi's Jeans you buy it's name
Oreo Cookies you paid for a name
iPhone yup name
O what about Toys???
Yeah you paid for a name. So that cute little Barbie doll you gave your neice for her birthday Mattel says thanks.
Look you don't like it buy none name brand. But really when it comes down to it some products you really should buy name brand not only due to familiarity but due to sometimes those products are made better and have better return policies if it does break.
So yeah thems the breaks lol
Rejected premise. Hydrox cookies do not taste like Oreos to me. I buy Oreos because I like Oreos. I’ve had $100 helmets from off brands and $1000 name brand helmets. They carry the same certifications and I have no doubt a decent $100 helmet does the same job protecting my head as the $1,000 one. The name has a slight mark up yes. But- the $1k helmet is lighter for the same protection. Less neck strain. It had better ventilation, better aerodynamics, it had nicer liner materials and felt nicer. It fit my head better. It also had some money wasted on a nicer finish and little things that don’t actually matter but give it a higher quality look or feel. I generally do not buy $1k helmets though because to me, who doesn’t race as much anymore and doesn’t wear a helmet long enough or often enough I don’t get a value for the money. Someone else might though. I never had problems getting parts or service for my $1k helmet though. Finding a new shield for a $100 helmet or new pads an be...
... challenging or impossible. The $100 helmet doesn’t have pre perforated liner foam to allow you to easily “custom fit” the liner to your head shape either, and good luck if you ever need to contact the manufacturer a good deal of the time. So it’s relative. Some companies “badge engineer”- where they know their name has a premium so they sell you junk under their badge knowing you’ll pay more. It usually catches up to them and ruins their name. Companies that are long term successful and profitable usually don’t do this, or arent too gross about it when they do. You seldom get to true “name tax” until you approach the luxury segment- but in that segment things aren’t about practicality but about exclusivity or emotion. How things make you FEEL or an experience. Apple walks on the line of “luxury electronics” and comparing those products to “utilitarian” options is like comparing a $10 target pan to a $300 allclad, or an ikea bookshelf to a custom hand made walnut book shelf.
Dubious. From the beginning Mac intended to be a consumer product. The earliest mass produced digital computers were expensive and suited for tasks that most home users would have no need of, especially for the price. IBM was the business leader in high tech operations and used DOS based software. Thusly the bulk of development in the most profitable and wide spread field of software was for DOS machines. Apple was marketed more towards hobbyists at first and then later as the “easy everyone’s computer.” Windows was DOS based so converting software over from another DOS system wasn’t that hard and there were plenty of DOS developers. Many peoples first exposure to computers was through work so they also learned on DOS machines. Windows brought a GUI to DOS which made it so less technically minded people could also use computers, and prices continued to fall as capabilities increased, and those with enterprise DOS systems coukd easily integrate Windows machines. Mac continued to...
... market to consumers and had specifically grown a niche with creative types and educators, but by and large didn’t support enterprise business to the extent the DOS systems did. So Windows grew established in part due to being DOS based, and DOS offered a flexibility. Enterprises generally do not like being restricted to a single vendor, and multiple platforms existed that could run DOS programs as well as there being many vendors to supply hardware and software. They could buy machines from one company and software from another major company. Add in some clever and prudent market tactics and Windows was positioned as a system that more users were familliar with and had easy access to. Apple ironically had lost share in the consumer market by not supporting the business enterprise because when it came time to get a home computer, most people didn’t want to learn a new OS from what they had experience on, and for the “work from home” crowd it made sense to use compatible...
... machines to what they had at work as well as the same software (not to mention piracy it “borrowing” from work.) Apple would of course come to be dominant with many digital artists and musicians and become more specialized to those markets. It also offered an ease of use and simplicity for schools newly adopting technology in the classroom, with attractive programs for educational institutions which Microsoft didn’t at the time offer, and support. The G series Macs we’re highly capable for the time and more or less started the mainstream switch from beige boxes that were fine for cubicles the world over to more attractive home hardware, and the iMacs took apples emphasis on design a step further which bought relevance back to the brand.
So while price could be said to be a contributing factor in why Apple fell from favor in the 80’s- more precisely it can be said that by the 80’s DOS had come to dominate the landscape and so offered both more choices and lower costs through competition and economy of scale than would be practical for pole at the time; and that Apple had created their business model off the assumption there would always be a sharp divide between enterprise and home computers- which once the personal work station became a feasible and economic reality across more workspaces CRAY or server sized enterprise machines became less normal for individual users to access- the work computer and personal computer merged for more and more applications which had Windows positioned perfectly for market dominance of both sectors.
I will do my best to explain this... again. First off- for a standard desktop user most high end computers are over spec’d to their needs to start. But- it goes deeper than specs. A Hyundai may have all the same or better specs that a buyer is looking for than a Honda, a silk shirt from amazon may still use “100% silk” and cost $50 vs $300 from a major designer- but feel them. Look at them. Use them. The actual quality of materials and stitching and design and everything else. They are not the same. Likewise- Apple has specific tolerances they give manufacturers. They tend not to change their product line up or have much supply chain drift over a life cycle. Their “eco system” is designed to work well together. It is enclosed- and because of this and their limited long life cycle product line up they are able to prevent more bugs, find and fix them faster, ensure compatibility of hardware and software, and support products for decades after they are no longer made...
.... The PC environment is much more open. You have much more choice and variety and new things come along faster. That also means that there is a much wider variance in quality between brands or even individual devices based on when they are made. It drives down costs because many makers use the same components, and cost can further be lowered by manufacturers who request the newest best processor or component design- but spec a low tollerence and wide variation for QA acceptance of individual components across a batch. Because it’s so open and so many players are in the game every machine is effectively unique. When it comes to compatibility, bug fixes, drivers, etc- there is little standardization across the platform. Bugs and viruses are harder to find and harder to make a “one size fits all” solution, and old hardware and software are seldom supported long in the consumer market.
You also must factor in the other benefits of an Apple product such as free in person tech support and seminars to teach you to use your products. There isn’t much uncertainty in the Apple world. If it says Apple and for: xyz- it will 99% work out of the box with what you have. If anything goes wrong you go to Apple. They fix it. Usually for free, sometimes for a cost depending on age etc. if it says Apple it probably plays nice with your other Apple things. You get regular free software updates for the life of the device, including the OS- and if you ever need to buy the OS it is $25 versus $119-200 for Windows. A 10+ year old Mac Pro is still a competent and pleasant to use computer- most 10 year old PC platforms get slow and buggy. There are obviously aesthetic reasons and things like preferring one OS to another or one file system to the other that also factor in. Neither system is better- one is better for what you need it to do and your procurement requirements.
Being a smarter consumer isn’t about being cyclical or brand bashing. It’s about doing research and looking deeper. Price isn’t everything. Specs aren’t everything. A $2 steak is a deal- but what if it’s madenof dog meat or road kill? Cooked and seasoned you can’t tell the difference. If I give you the specs: “12oz American raised beef from the heartland...” that sounds great. But what if I don’t tell you it was a cow with stage 3 cancer that died a week before it was slaughtered? Be smarter. There is value to both Macs and PC’s. I use both every day for different things and different reasons. I prefer windows (especially true DOS windows...) to OSX. But the Mac does some things better. Macs are generally not “gaming rigs” either- so for gamers you’re usually better off with a pc. For the casual home user without a solid technical know how a Mac is a great buy. It’s all about value. Don’t be willfully ignorant.
Thank you, @guest_. I came here to say the same thing: I use different devices for different tasks. Apple is specialized to do certain things really well.
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I have disassembled nearly every type of phone and laptop in existence and Apple has made some mistakes, but their engineering is usually head and shoulders above their competition (especially MSI - I would not recommend them.) Apple products will last 200-400% longer than their peers, which significantly drops their total cost of ownership.
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I don't even use Apple products very much, comparatively; I'm not an Apple fanboy. I just notice how well they're put together and how welll they age.
@jasonmon- and thank you for sharing your experiences. On this site I find myself defending Apple often but simply because there is often an infair bias. I’m no Apple fan boy either. I’ve bought only 1 new product from Apple in my life and even that was simply because I had dire need and it couldn’t be avoided. I do find many of their philosophies and other things distasteful- but I can’t bash them for things we can prove that they do well, nor demonize them because their products might not always fit my priorities or use case or budget. The fan club of people who think it’s cool to just blindly bash the brand and their users and products has much to learn or some growing to be done. This is true of most anything we could use as example and not only Apple of course.
I bought my mac in 2012 for around that price (1200ish) and its got
a quad i7,
8gigs of ram,
an intel HD 4000
a 2880 x 1800 display
and i purpose-bought it with low storage because i have no need for more than min stats in that
Back in highschool it played a skyrim port i made with no more lag than my windows computer.
senior year it played stelaris with 2k textures on large map with little issue tho i never got extended play with that cause it was mostly an after class free time thing.
nowadays it's more of a coding computer than a gaming computer.
Its literally the only computer I've had 0 problems with.
That's a solid machine. I like the A1398 a lot. If the 256GB SSD ever becomes constrictive, you can pop in a larger-capacity drive. You probably already know that, but I'm mentioning it in case you don't.
,
I have the 2011 A1369 but I bumped it up to a 512GB SSD so I could put Windows on it and have access to all my diagnostic tools I need in the field. It's a fantastic machine, even though it's just an i5.
I bought my fiance a MSI gaming laptop and they keyboard goes all rainbow and blinks or "flows" however he wants it
Its super fancy
I'm glad he loves it
See when you buy a name brand product you not only buy:
The item
Work in making it
Price to ship to you/store
Store mark up
BUT ALLLLLLSOOOOO
THE NAME IT'S SELF!!!!!!!
Yes see when you buy a name brand you pay for the name.
Levi's Jeans you buy it's name
Oreo Cookies you paid for a name
iPhone yup name
O what about Toys???
Yeah you paid for a name. So that cute little Barbie doll you gave your neice for her birthday Mattel says thanks.
Look you don't like it buy none name brand. But really when it comes down to it some products you really should buy name brand not only due to familiarity but due to sometimes those products are made better and have better return policies if it does break.
So yeah thems the breaks lol
,
I have disassembled nearly every type of phone and laptop in existence and Apple has made some mistakes, but their engineering is usually head and shoulders above their competition (especially MSI - I would not recommend them.) Apple products will last 200-400% longer than their peers, which significantly drops their total cost of ownership.
,
I don't even use Apple products very much, comparatively; I'm not an Apple fanboy. I just notice how well they're put together and how welll they age.
a quad i7,
8gigs of ram,
an intel HD 4000
a 2880 x 1800 display
and i purpose-bought it with low storage because i have no need for more than min stats in that
Back in highschool it played a skyrim port i made with no more lag than my windows computer.
senior year it played stelaris with 2k textures on large map with little issue tho i never got extended play with that cause it was mostly an after class free time thing.
nowadays it's more of a coding computer than a gaming computer.
Its literally the only computer I've had 0 problems with.
,
I have the 2011 A1369 but I bumped it up to a 512GB SSD so I could put Windows on it and have access to all my diagnostic tools I need in the field. It's a fantastic machine, even though it's just an i5.
lol
Its super fancy
I'm glad he loves it