The "Apple tax"

MS should consider that their products (software) come with an invisible tax: Memory Hogs.

So, MS, oink.

Pot, this is Kettle. Kettle – - Pot.

For now, Macs are cool. Its hard to beat that. If Apple had done a better job at the beginning, it would mean they won. But they didn’t so they are an increasingly expanding niche which just gives Microsoft the jitters. The price point between Macs and PCs has steadily declined actually, so its almost a non-issue. Microsoft is trying to stem the tide of young users who are choosing Macs. This new threat is troubling for their future King of the Hill status when they have so many competitors on so many levels that when they lose market share in any of their monopolies it hurts their execution which due to their behemoth size is hard to change directions. Microsoft is a fantastic company, but you can’t stay on top forever. Can they? It’ll be interesting to see if any of these debates even matter in twenty years.

I do not understand what Borg is talking about. The virus protection software, firewall software, adaware, etc. I have not bought any of those since the day I switched to Mac. Am I fool Mac OS X user?

Quite the opposite. The time I save in not having to man-handle Windows in any form is well worth a little premium up front.

This argument is made over and over again by the PC folks. Its simple enough to understand the PC makers are willing to sell computers priced across the entire spectrum, while Apple is happy to stick to the higher price, higher margin part of the spectrum. Think of the PC product line as a yard stick, and Apple’s as a ruler. If you compare feature to feature, you’ll find prices between Mac’s and PC’s are nearly identical.

Macs may have a higher initial outlay, but running windows will cost you time for years to come in troubleshooting, wondering why something has stopped working today when it worked yesterday and in maintenance that you just don’t have to deal with on a mac.

Having used both PC’s and Mac’s for more than 20 years . . . The point that has been made before still stands-PC’s are in fact cheaper . . . if your time is worth little or nothing.
A popular variant of that is “PC users tell you what they do TO their computers”, while “Mac users tell you what they do WITH their computers.”
And Dan, I thought your post quite reasonable for a “grumpy old crank”.

It’s not the software, it’s the hardware. These are STANDARD parts, and Apple is charging almost double for them.

Case in point:

24in Apple Cinema Display, 1920×1200 – $899
24in Dell Display, 1920×1200 – $349

Are you trying to say that an LED backlight, a gimicky power cord, and webcam are worth an extra four-hundred and fifty dollars?

@Brad: I agree completely. Which is why you see plenty of Macs hooked up to non-mac displays… It just doesn’t add up.

The only reason I just laid down top dollah for a new MacBook Pro is because it has Mac OS X on it. The displays do not, so I will not buy them!!

one word: resale

your mac is going to last longer and retain more value. just look on ebay, craigslist, etc. i was amazed when i saw a PowerBook G4 400mHz 4GB HD sell for $450!!!! it was almost ten years old. Tell me where you would get more than $20 for a ten year WinBook.

even more amazing, that ten year old PowerBook can still browse the web, albeit slowly. Try that with Windows 98…

Mighty Dan has awoken from his slumber…

Its good to have you back.

Welcome back, Dan.

Yeah, you actually use computers to do stuff, not just install operating system updates. If you do anything real besides surfing the web and checking email, you’re not going to do it on a shitty, low-end box.

A better comparison would be at the application level. For a high-end example, compare editing film or video on a Mac Pro with two 30″ Cinema displays, terabytes of disk, Final Cut Studio to a big-ass Windows machine with Avid. Way less heartache on the Apple side.

Walter Murch edited Cold Mountain on a Mac. He said it was less expensive to buy a bunch of Macs, Xserves, etc, than to *rent* an equivalent Avid.

True story:
TODAY, a smart guy (really smart) told me his last Apple was a IIE. He said he really likes Apples, but they’re too expensive. Sooo, he just bought a DELL laptop for $1700 (seemed a bit high). Anyhoo, I sat him down at the Apple web site, and priced out a Macbook with identical specs and it came to $1749. “Wow, if I had known that I would have bought it.” I say Apple tax = MSBS.

Does anyone remember the freetards’ arguments about the Microsoft tax? Now, Microsoft is appropriating the idea and trying to apply it to Apple. Let’s see, perhaps Apple should make it’s computers with no OS installed and allow users to choose which OS they want installed on their Macs – BUZZ! Ding! Ding! Ding! – Yep, ninety out of a hundred users want OS X on their Macs.
Ballmer is bitchin’ when he should be pushing people to try Vista on Macs, that’s the only hardware the damn OS works without any hiccups or glitches.

I’m really not sure Macs are more expensive. There are no cheap Mac, I agree. But once you “custom build” a PC that has the same features as a given Mac model, same GPU, disk size, memory, processors, I/O, airport 802.11n… it’s about the same. And it’s ugly. And if you add up the software we get, iLife and iWork do the job(s) for far less that M$. And like someone pointed you, you don’t need to buy/install anti-virus, firewalls and the likes.
You plug (almost) any printer, digital camera, camcorder, it works. No “device driver” added. A Mac simply works. I’d rather pay a few bucks more and get something that works.

BTW Steve or Jonathan: Who the h** removed Firewire from the new Macbook? New Macbooks are so pretty. They look so sturdy in their milled aluminium case. But they’re missing a very convenient i/o. I thnk you’re slowly killing FW to the less advanced USB.

the homebrew guys have yet to “build” a laptop. for the gamer crew, homemade boxen with neon lights are all the rage.

until someone has a robot assembly line in their basement, not too many folks will be constructing (or even modding) thinkpads at home.

apple laptops are more expensive than cheapo laptops – so what? a BMW is more expensive than a Dodge Neon…

Wow Danny

A blog post that has been posted on about every Mac site since Windows 3. Macs are more expensive and Mac users are willing to pay the difference.

Glad you broke that bit of news.

Now, isn’t it time you and newsweek write another article on the resurrected saviour now known as obama and the evil republicans?

It’s not just about higher prices — it’s about limited choice. I can get a $600 Wintel desktop computer with slots and drive bays; if I want a Mac with slots and drive bays, the only option is a $2800 Mac Pro, which is a good value for what you’re getting, but may be overkill. If you need to outfit a shop to do digital media work, that’s a huge cost difference. Throughout Apple’s line, they offer only higher-clock-rate CPUs with big mark-ups — often a decent value for what you’re getting, but a slightly slower Wintel equivalent is often much less expensive.

If you’re an ordinary kid in a flyover state who just wants a computer, the entry-level price point also makes a big difference — would you rather buy computers for both your children or just one? And, sorry, the MacBooks and Mini are not good values.

Apple’s cultural resistance to letting customers choose is the most annoying thing about Macs and iPhones, and can probably be traced directly to Steve Jobs and his control fetish. If Jobs really wants to change the world, he’ll be price competitive (which would still justify a modest mark-up over Wintel).

i like cupcake

The Microsoft tax is having computers that don’t work as well as Macs.

I never understood that argument. It’s like GM saying that a BMW costs more than a Chevy….!

I think some people need to re-evaluate what they regard as “equally expensive” etc…
I have a Dell XPS M1530 notebook (hey no haters please) with a 2.5GHz dual core processor, 4G ram (even though only 32bit os), 250Gig HD etc etc… i’m sure you get the picture- a fairly top of the range notebook for its size.

I paid just over 2000 AUD in total for it, from Dell online, at the start of the year.

If someone can find me an apple notebook, with equivalent specs, within 500 dollars of that price (about as much as id pay to have such a piece of industrial design genius) then please, do let me know. Because I will surely buy it.

In the meantime.
http://store.apple.com/au/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook?mco=MTIyMTM

Yeh. Those of us using Macs pay a little extra, but don’t end up with that horrifying Harry Chapin realization when we’re in the nursing home that our child grew up while we were dicking around trying to get Windows to behave.

That’s funny, I thought a “tax” was when the government confiscates my money and uses it to buy banks and bad mortgages.

That was not the point. The tax is about using -Windows- on a Mac; not about using -OS X- on a Mac. Actually Macintosh is nothing more than a PC machine, with a different OS, and most of Mac people use Windows more and more, with bootcamp and/or virtualizers. So OS X is going slowly to tranform himself into a Windows front end. That’s THE point, Dan.

Strip a Mac down and look at the parts. Same as a PC. Made in the same chinese factories as a PC. From the same intel reference designs as a PC. Hardware wise a Mac == a PC. There is no dispute, it’s a fact. So why the price differential? Apple’s case costs are at least double the cost of a case for a PC. You pay for the Case, and a Mac OS X premium (which costed out is a little more than the vista/xp tax.

There’s no debate. Enclosures and Mac OS X are what you pay the extra money for. And for every example outside of the notebook space (where you really cannot build your own) where you show a PC that costs more I can show you a DIY machine that costs hundreds of dollars less. Most PC notebooks are hundreds of dollars cheaper than their equiv mac counterpart.

As for virus software bumping up the cost. Macs have virus software, and it’s becoming increasing needed with malware and other exploits affecting Mac OS X (Apple try to issue security updates to cover known exploits as do Microsoft). Microsoft Windows Live Onecare is pretty cost effective for $50 you can cover 3 PCs.

I wrote this on a Mac. I choose to have PCs and Macs at home. Macs are for people who like to judge a book by it’s cover. I can get the Macintosh computer’s with a friend’s Apple employee discount, but even with the 15% friends and family discount they still cost more than a PC.

As for iLife. Windows Media Center does most of iLife (not really sure how many people actually use GarageBand) and adds a whole lot more with respect to watching broadcast TV. Windows Moviemaker will do what iMovie does. the Zune 3.0 software is actually a step up from iTunes which is looking rather stale after nearly 10 years with the same tired interface.

It’s horses for courses. Some people like BMWs even though there are cheaper cars with better specs.

Objectively, as an ex-apple employee who drank the gatorade for more than a decade, I see no real advantage to Macs, they just cost more.

It is like comparing an Acura to a Geo.

The more annoying thing than the tax is the slower rate at which Macs update. I see the newer Intel Processors coming to Wintel boxes a lot quicker, the higher L2 Cache ones, faster clock speeds, etc. Dell is passing out those new processors days after Intel official releases it, with Macs you have to wait for it to trickle down.

The thing I always hate about buying Macs is you buy the computer because you need it it now, or in my case because one of the researchers at the lab needs it now, knowing you’re buying already dated equipment buy paying brand new prices for it.

“I like OS X. I like using Macs. I’m glad to pay a little extra for that.”

Fair enough. Most people like Windows. Most people like using PCs. I’m glad to pay a little extra for that.

So next time some moron brings up their “Microsoft Tax” idioticy, please beat them to death with a whiffle bat. Granted, it’s primarily freetards who loves Teh Lunix, so it should only take a few hits.

I tried Ubuntu and Mac OS. But man! i’ve been using windows for more than 10 years. Change is getting really hard, So i just got back to Windows based OS
/b/