“Apple Inc refreshed some of its lesser-known products at a New York event on Tuesday, adding iPhone features like facial recognition to the iPad Pro and faster processors and better displays to some Mac computers that had gone years without a major update,” Angela Moon and Stephen Nellis report for Reuters. “The devices will hit stores on Nov. 7. Counting new iPhones and Apple Watches released last month, Apple will have more than half a dozen new products on shelves for the holiday shopping season, many at higher prices than previous models.”
“The Cupertino, California, company introduced new versions of the iPad Pro, its higher-end tablet,” Moon and Nellis report. “Prices for the iPad Pros increased to $799 and $999 for 11- and 12.9-inch models, though Apple plans to keep an older 10.5-inch version on sale for $649.”
“A new version of the Mac Book Air, originally released in 2011, will feature a higher-resolution display and thinner bezels and start at $1,199, up from $999,” Moon and Nellis report. “Apple said the Mac Mini, a small desktop customers provide their own display and accessories for, would add processing power and memory capacity and start at $799, also an increase.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: New and vastly upgraded tech like Retina displays, TrueDepth Camera systems, and T2 chips, to mention just three, don’t come free.
Newsflash: Apple sells premium products at premium prices to premium customers.
SEE ALSO:
Apple debuts all-new iPad Pro with Liquid Retina display, powerful A12X Bionic chip, TrueDepth camera system, and more – October 30, 2018
Apple reveals all-new MacBook Air with a gorgeous 13-inch Retina display – October 30, 2018
Apple unveils all-new Mac mini with a massive increase in performance – October 30, 2018
While these new technologies do cost more and explain the price increases, it also is another sign of moving away from Steve Jobs’ ethos of Apple being the brand that “just works” to Tim Cook’s apparent ethos of Apple being a “premium” brand, which is actually rather unfortunate.
Really tired of Apple’s price increases. It’s absurd. I will wait much longer between purchases now. I bought the new iPad Pro 256 gb with pencil and keyboard. $2000 CAD. Just dumb for a tablet.
This is why I skipped the iPhone Max. Rip off.
Apple’s premium price was worth it when everything just worked but it doesn’t anymore. The iPhone might have cutting edge tech but almost nothing else Apple does. Apple is just another large company now.
I’m not seeing that connection. Job’s iPhone and iPad were premium toys to those who owned flip phones and ereaders, respectively.
Give Cook credit for leading a company that masters sophisticated technology that (90% of the time) “just works.”
When the first iPhone came out, it cost $599 for an 8GB model. Remember Steve Balmer’s incredulity that anyone would pay that much for an iPhone? In today’s dollars, that would be $718, but you can’t get an 8GB iPhone any longer. To me, $750 for an iPhone XR 64GB doesn’t seem at all out of line.
$2000 for a tablet is out of line.
„New technologies“ do not explain the price increase. For example Flash prices have declined immensely, Retina screen prices have declined immensely, etc etc. so no, „new technologies“ is a pseudo-argument, especially given the production scale and associated benefits Apple enjoys.
On the other hand gross profit margins have continuously crept up from around 20% to now near 40% – and there‘s your increase.
Reuters wishes that MacBook Airs and iPads were Apples “lesser-known” products.
I look for Apple to move back to the $600 Mini and $1000 Air in the next year for the lower end and use the newer prices for refreshed/upgraded models.
I also expect someone (maybe even Apple!) to build a unit for stacking up to 5 Minis with interconnects built in to allow for one power cord, one (or two) networks, one open bay at the top (for heat dissipation) with slots for additional drives (SSD or SATA) and external video card.
There’s your Mac Pro/Am.
8″x8″x12″.
That would be interesting. A ‘bay/base” unit that encompasses a large power supply and works like a data and power hub for the connected minis. Not that far a concept considering Apple already has devices that use a single port for both data and power.
A ‘future’ idea for device makers may be to distribute computing among multiple devices owned by the user. For example if it were Apple I could imagine processing divided between the iHome, Apple TV, iPad, iPhone and Mac. If Amazon, processing divided between the Echo, Fire devices (Tablet, TV), and any other Alexa device. If Google, Chromebooks, Home devices and any other Android device. Sort of like what Seti@Home does on a more general scale with underused processor power.
My Ipad 1 cost £429 all those years ago. It had no camera, non retina screen and 1 core processor. My Ipad 3 Retina cost £399, or £30 less and has a better screen, a camera and better in every sense. Those days are gone
Because I’m not a pro user, I keep my Macs for a long, long time and they’re definitely worth paying extra money for if I can satisfactorily use them for a long time. It’s much better for the ecology to use products for a long time.
It’s a pity all people talk about is how expensive Apple products are. I thought Apple products were always more expensive than products from other companies, so this is nothing new. Oh, well… I buy Apple products because I want to. I’m not being forced to buy them. I wonder if the higher prices are actually hurting Apple as a company in terms of customer loyalty. I wouldn’t think so, but what do I know. Very little. Being a long-term Apple shareholder, I can afford Apple products if I really want them, so I have little reason to complain. Apple doesn’t seem to care if fewer people can afford their products, so I guess that’s just how it is.
It’s not just the price increases, it’s the price increases with little to show for it. In Steve Jobs’ time, we were able to get really impressive new features, but somehow Apple managed to keep the price consistent. Now, under Tim Cook, we’re seeing fewer and fewer Mac upgrades or even iPad upgrades while they put all their energy into iPhone refreshes, and what new features they add to the iPhone, it’s like, “Yeah, so?” I mean, we’re supposed to get excited that they managed to figure out how to get rid of the home button? The home button never bothered me – why would I want to pay $400 more for a phone without one?
Jobs’ secret prediction to Lauren that bean counters would inevitably take
Apple over after his death has become true. Because he saw the process as being inexorable, he said to Cook in a resigned tone to operate
Apple in his own way. Not many people know this secret history because I just made it up but it sure seems like it.
Yes, these higher prices are hurting Apple in terms of customer loyalty, especially amongst the next generation who’s already been largely disenchanted by Apple asking $700 for an SSD upgrade that’s retailing today for 1/4 of that (not an exaggeration – PC World’s news today is a 1TB SanDisk SSD on sale for $144).
And its only a matter of time for us longtime customer Baby Boomers retire and our income streams drop, drying up even more of Apple’s core faithful sales base…
While you can say the price increase is justified for the new hardware, technically the Mac Mini for example should have been selling for the price of 4 year old technology. So, $50 or so. Raising the price makes no sense given the gouging they had already been doing on this device.
The more the prices go up the more the discerning the customer becomes. Apple needs to be held more accountable with these increases. People will pay a premium for premium product, not product that fails to deliver. In the past people would buy Apple products without questioning durability, functionality and longevity, now not so much
How long before an iMac refresh??? Airpods 2???
Look at Canadian pricing — all the lowest priced entry models:
Mini: $999
11″ iPad Pro: $999
12.9″ iPad Pro: $1,249
new Air: $1,499
old Air, still available: $1,199
MacBook: $1,729
Macbook Pro: $1,729
Macbook Pro with Touchbar: $2,399
21″ iMac: $1,399
iPad: $499
iPad Mini 4: $529
With yesterday’s release, Apple no longer has an entry level computer from a Canadian perspective. None of the above has a hard drive/internal storage bigger than 128 Gb. The education targeted iPad is the only machine that’s actually affordable, and it only has 32 Gb at that price point. They got rid of the affordable iPhone SE. Affordable/low price/entry products are gone — meaning the installed Mac base will shrink.
My first Mac was a Mac SE in 1987. I get that Apple doesn’t target affordability. However MDN’s comment that “tech doesn’t come free” is ignorant and downright insulting. Apple could have introduced upgraded internals and screen to the Air and kept it affordable, as MDN knows quite well that component prices decrease over time. It could have created a Mini that didn’t target pro users and kept the price at $649 in Canada.
There was a time (under Jobs) that Apple kept its price points and just made the tech inside better and better. Now is not that time. The massive margins Apple has are not apparently massive enough.
While I upvoted and agree (I am quite depressed about the high prices of iPad Pros), to be fair the standard iPad 32GB is 429 CAD. It’s about on par with US price with exchange rate (for once – there is usually a “Canadian” markup and for nothing but sake of markup).
Canadian price for iPad 12.9 1TB: $2200. And almost $300 for the keyboard ! Yikes!
Most of the comments in this thread are by negative losers, cringe-inducing.
No, just one actually. Popular vote clearly indicates who is the condescending loser here.
The fully built out price of one MacMini to appeal to alleged pros is over the top.
It seems as if Apple is threading the needle to appeal to a select few upper income groups, and wanting all others, you know, the troublemakers, people who Apple formerly held in high regard in its PR messages, to move to Windows and then to Android. It even sounds like offloading them is and has been the conspiracy all along.