Apple was denied relief for tariffs on five Chinese-made components for the upcoming Mac Pro computer, even after the company announced it was keeping some assembly operations in Austin, Texas.
Mark Gurman and Mark Niquette for Bloomberg:
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office on Monday said it didn’t grant reprieve from 25 percent tariffs on the much-discussed optional wheels for Apple’s Mac Pro, a main circuit board, power adapter, charging cable and a cooling system for the computer’s processor.
The decision comes about a week after Apple announced it would make new Mac Pro computers in Austin, Texas after originally considering shifting production to China like its other products. The move followed an announcement earlier this month that the U.S. trade office had agreed to Apple’s request for tariff waivers on 10 out of 15 Chinese parts.
In announcing that the Mac Pro would continue to be made in Texas, Apple applauded the Trump administration for its tariff relief on the other components, including the computer’s casing and accessories like the mouse and trackpad.
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, so these are the five parts that weren’t granted waivers by The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. They obviously weren’t enough to stop Apple from reversing course and keeping Mac Pro assembly in Austin.
oh boo hoo, Apple is overcharging us $5k for a machine, When they can make a machine with a i7 for less than $3k and reach more people. in addition charging us $1k for a stupid stand made out of aluminum. Boo Apple Booooooo!
“and reach more people.”
Reach more people? You don’t “reach more people” with a MacPro. The sales are guaranteed to be a single digit percentage of all Mac sales for the lifetime of the product.
unless Apple gets a clue and brings prices in line with mainstream users.
I assure you my plastic G4 case and later formed aluminum G5 case were plenty durable. I don’t want or need chrome legs, machined billet faceplates, and US$1000 aluminium monitor stands. I want an internally expandable, user repairable tower Mac with my choice of GPUs and sanely priced RAM. It could have an i7 chipset even. Is that too hard, Apple? Why are you intentionally pricing yourself out of the photography and light video market?
It’s called “MacPro” not “MacMainstream” 🙂 And, wouldn’t you know it, they already HAVE a MacMainstream. It’s called “iMac”
“I want an internally expandable, user repairable tower Mac with my choice of GPUs and sanely priced RAM.”
And I want a leprechaun’s pot of gold. Apparently we both want things that don’t exist.
Wrong Again – you are so well named.
It’s really pathetic that you don’t want to see Apple serve a wider array of customers with better product choices.
You cheer every time Apple trots out a cheap iPad with old chipsets & chassis at a bargain price, but you think that Mac users should be forced to either pay an arm & 2 legs for a proper desktop or be locked into a sealed all-in-one iMac for only an arm and a leg. Apple is pricing itself out of the Personal Computer market that it once pioneered.
“It’s really pathetic”
What’s REALLY pathetic is that Apple can pretty clearly communicate that you’re not going to get what you want BUT you think having “feels” for a corporation is going to actually change what Apple releases in the near future.
“Apple is pricing itself out of the Personal Computer market“
They aren’t pricing themselves out of the PC market, folks are buying iMacs in DROVES! They’re pricing themselves out of the “Mike” market though. They must not see that market of one as very valuable.
The expense in the MacPro isn’t in what you are complaining about and you’re exposing your ignorance when you do complain about such minor costs. The expense is in state of the art Intel Xeon Processors with large caches and high speed SSD drives and high quality error correcting memory on custom designed logic boards with very wide bandwidth buses, not to mention a 1.4kw power supply.
Try pricing that out and matching a build say on Dell or HP and see what it would cost just to come close to matching a basic MacPro and you’ll learn the MacPro is a bargain. . . you just don’t grasp that a workstation class computer with Xeon processors isn’t in the same class as a desktop computer with i7 processors.
This is a computer for Pro use.
Have you bothered to compare what Sony wants for their 31″ 4K Reference Monitor that Apple is going to compete against with their 32″ 6K Reference Monitor? I thought not, or you wouldn’t be blithering on about the $1,000 stand engineered to support that monitor in either landscape or portrait modes in any orientation without dropping from where it’s placed, bringing the entire cost of Apple’s monitor with stand to a total of $6,000.
Why do I say this? Simple. . . because Sony’s 31” 4K Reference monitor, without a stand, or the inherent ability to use portrait mode, has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $42,000!
You can find them discounted for as low as $35,000, or used for about $28,000. The 24″ model sells for around $26,000.
Any stands are extra.
So your complaint is meaningless to the people it’s marketed toward. They are going to fall all over them selves to by one or half a dozen of these new Apple monitors because they are both better and a hell of a lot less expensive than the competition’s offerings!
The same will be true for the MacPro.
Completely different product area. I work in the broadcast industry, we need totally accurate monitors with 12G/6G/3G in and out. You will not see any Apple monitor in our company, except perhaps on our overpaid boss’s desk.
Try comparing similar broadcast monitors from other manufacturers, similar high price.
There is a reason for the high price of broadcast gear, total reliability in mission critical situations.
Move all production out of China. Long term and permanent goal.
I disagree. Apple and other manufacturers should have at least one manufacturing facility in every major trade bloc. Perhaps two depending on product optimization for each market: EU, Asia, the Americas. The Chinese factory, based on past history, should never be allowed to build new cutting edge stuff. They should install last years chips in older products for low cost emerging markets. Diversity is good even if on paper the accountants think they save money doing everything in IP thieving China.
What don you expect for a computer that costs more than a mainframe or a super-computer?
You obviously haven’t priced out any mainframes or super-computers, have you. I have.