“Apple is known for making history by inventing the future, but even its designer could not have predicted a new record shattered on Saturday as a special one-off red version of the new Mac Pro (which is not officially available for sale yet) was sold at a charity fundraising auction for $977,000 — an all-time record for the priciest personal computer ever made or sold,” Electronista reports.
“The Sotheby’s auction in London also commanded high prices for other items from the pair, including a custom-designed Leica Rangefinder digital camera which sold for $1.8 million; a Product (RED) custom desk that sold for nearly $1.7 million, and a unique pair of rose gold Apple Earpods that sold for $461,000,” Electronista reports. “The Mac Pro, the normal versions of which will become available next month, was only expected to fetch between $40,000 and $60,000 – some 10 to 15 times the machine’s starting retail prices – but ended up selling for nearly $1 million as part of a benefit for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Maleria.”
Read more in the full article here.
Take two; they’re small.
I was outbid by a dollar. Otherwise I would.
You were sniped?
By Bill Gates
u cheap bastard…….
Ah, the power of good design. It’s what Steve was all about. How much do you think a Product RED Surface would fetch?
Two dollars. That’s generous! lol
Jony would not have picked a surface for a red charity
maybe for a brown charity though !-)
Below $1 Million? Apple is doomed! Sell your shares! Sky has fallen!
I’ll sell one of them my iPad mini for 10k!? It’s peanuts compared to their 977k… 🙂
Wow! I love it! Haha imagine the bids for windows based PC…$5 bucks.
More like a $1.32, and it would have been Zune brown. I here it would have made a decent doorstop.
But it has Reversi, except in Nebraska.
It’s not really “gosh, this computer is WORTH it!” It’s moreso “This is a worthy charity, I was expecting to give up to a million dollars anyway, so instead of a couple things, I’ll just buy this one.”
Charity auctions of this level are usually about providing an incentive for the giving generously. This donor was feeling particularly generous 😀
You just keep whispering that to yourself with your eyes close and you hands clamped firmly over you ears, hater.
And, Don’t you worry MS will triumph and return to it’s glory days. Paul Thurrott says so!
P.S. you do realize you are only limiting yourself by hating, yes?
But I can build a Windows PC that’s more powerful for far, far, far, far less than that Mac Pro.
/s
Absolutely. Charities at this level are never about value. They’re about status and tax write offs.
Now that is some F-U Money.
Can you imagine if that thing ever needs to be sent out for servicing and comes back with a scratch?
My hunch is this particular Mac Pro is never going to be sent out anywhere. Except maybe to a design museum.,,
I can imagine it as a part of a traveling exhibit with some or all of the other designs for a period of time, where the charity gets a small cut of the tickets and thus raises even more funds.
The donors might then have an even bigger tax deduction.
Do you really believe all this money goes to where it is supposed to? I don’t.
I doubt if where the money goes to is a matter for ‘belief’. The accounts both the auction house and the registered charity will be fully audited.
Are you also a Flat-Earther, or an Apollo-was-Fakery twerp? Sheesh!
I see, you’re a skeptic. Do you feel the same way when you donate to your church?
He gave all his money to the Sarah Palin campaign. Such a sweet nice lady, I’m sure she’ll spend his money well.
Narcissistic tour bus and plastic surgery!
At least the money didn’t go to Solyndra.
I wonder where the money goes when they can’t even spell malaria correctly.
And are you the best judge of ‘where it is supposed to’ ‘?
No charity can give 100 percent of its money to the cause. A little of has to go to operations and overhead. It’s important and healthy to examine those percentages to ensure you feel comfortable with it, but please ground your expectations with a little reality (the truth that it costs money to create and maintain the organization that can do the work you’re not willing to do directly).
I want one!!!
Since Product [RED} supports some of the same goals as Bill Gates, I wonder if he bought it.
Btw, Tim Cook and Steve Jobs wife were at this auction.
Perhaps, Tim bought it. $1M is cheap for the kind of press this might get. ‘Course I could be wrong. 🙂
And it didn’t even come with a monitor?
The worst part is it only comes with 2GB of RAM and it’ll cost $500,000 more to max out with Apple’s memory. 😉
Does anyone have the specs on that beauty? I’d assume it was the very top of the line version with the 12 core processor, 32GB’s RAM, and 1TB SSD.
That’s the price you pay for being an early adopter.
Buyer’s remorse comin’ in a big way.
“…Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Maleria.”
maybe they should fund a dictionary first.
Wish Apple would, because what they use sucks big time.
I would have bid, but pretty much blew my wad on coffee with Tim earlier this year.
Missed it by that much!
The supply on these is really constrained.
Fire Tim Cook!
Would be good if the “journalist” could learn how to spell Malaria!
I just thought of a new business idea. Buy black Mac Pros and red paint.
Good luck with that.
OH MY GOD!!! Apple is DOOMMEEDD because this represents that Apple must be going back to only making niche ultra high end products for the few die hard fans and is abandoning the mainstream computer market. Doomed because somebody will undercut Apple by at least 10% and everyone knows you don’t need to make money today if you can have the largest market share, profit will come “someday” (maybe).
It must be better to be a Hyundai or Kia or Dawoo then a BMW or Cadilac or Mercedes? The former sell more units.
I hope they got Apple Care.
Was AppleCare included?