It’s been a busy week for Jobs, Schiller & Co over in Cupertino. On Tuesday, Apple reported record-breaking Q3 financial figures that boosted stock prices to an all-time high. A…
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nigel said:
Lets hope that Microsoft treat their customers with a similar cost for Windows 8 which really is Windows 7 with a few more features, and is mainly the addition of support for tablets and ARM tablets and phones that are expected from 2012.
If Microsoft continues to try and charge all their customers their old high prices, then this will be a good reason to abandon Windows as an OS
nigel said:
If Microsoft continues to try and charge all their customers their old high prices, then this will be a good reason to abandon Windows as an OS
Guest said:
"One could argue that OSX costs you hundreds of dollars considering Apple's profit margins on their products."
Microsoft makes no profit on the software they sell. DVDs and bandwidth costs so much money! LO(RR)L.
The higher relative cost on some Apple products comes down mainly to build quality and best-in-class support. Something severely lacking in much of the PC world. Also, remove the subsidized crapware loaded on most new PCs and the price disparity will shrink considerably.
Macs are overpriced, not because they're better quality, but because they're more aesthetically-pleasing, which seems to be more important to most end-users than value for money, which is surprising given current economic conditions. "Build-quality" is a moot point; the internal hardware inside any Apple computer is exactly the same as that within a Windows PC, especially since Macs now come with mainstream Intel CPUs; putting a shiny cover on it doesn't mean squat. Apple also unnecessarily charges for what are essentially service packs. In addition, "Software" and "software-hardware integration" are just vague bookends that don't serve any purpose to explaining things. Both OSX and Windows 7 are as user-friendly as the other, and I don't see any issues with them behaving oddly with any hardware, unless it's a REALLY old device, in which case it will likely not work with anything save Windows XP. If you're talking about integrating it into one package like an iMac, there are alternatives available that run Windows as well. (The Acer Aspire Z7561 is one example)"One could argue that OSX costs you hundreds of dollars considering Apple's profit margins on their products."
Microsoft makes no profit on the software they sell. DVDs and bandwidth costs so much money! LO(RR)L.
The higher relative cost on some Apple products comes down mainly to build quality and best-in-class support. Something severely lacking in much of the PC world. Also, remove the subsidized crapware loaded on most new PCs and the price disparity will shrink considerably.
There is far more to a great user experience then just processors and memory. Software, soft-hard integration, build quality/weight/size/aesthetics, and support are important factors with considerable value to the end-user (and cost to the provider).
Apple gets a lot of it right. Hardcore PC users need not apply but shouldn't dismiss the UNIX foundation and Applescripting of OS X which are quite powerful and good fun.