Apple Has Begun a Trend of Nickel-and-Diming Customers

[benzslrpee]

be more specific, is this a problem because you think:

1. the lowest price point, entry level iMac (or Apple products in general) should have better specs
2. the cost of upgrading out of the entry level segment (e.g. getting an SSD, or getting 64gig iPhone) is too expensive

...but for the average consumer that wants to buy the base iMac Retina and wants to be wowed they may not even realize how antiquated a 5400rpm HDD is -- they should be able to buy an iMac and not worry about that type of bottleneck.

 

[MICHAELSD]

be more specific, is this a problem because you think:

1. the lowest price point, entry level iMac (or Apple products in general) should have better specs
2. the cost of upgrading out of the entry level segment (e.g. getting an SSD, or getting 64gig iPhone) is too expensive

More so the former point: entry level products should have no bottlenecks. With the rest of the capable specs in even the entry iMac, it makes no sense not to either raise the price $100 or include i.e. a 500GB Fusion Drive.

It would be a different story if Apple started the Retina iMac line with a Core i3 and 4GB of RAM at under $1499, but they didn't because they know that would bottleneck the experience even if they knew they could have a cheaper product.

 

[Zirel]

Don't buy their products. Speak with your wallet.

Maybe then he will wake up, and realizes that asking for those specifications, and those prices, you don't get a SSD.

 

[benzslrpee]

there's no real business case for Apple to nickel and dime just to drive sales into a high(er) spec'd category.

if the lower spec market is not there, then the most cost effective choice is to not produce anything. if there is a market, it still makes no sense to create artificial bottlenecks... entry level buyers are usually a "buy / no buy" decision; they are not likely to trade up.

they can bottleneck mid tier products as mid level buyers tend to have a "buy / splurge a little" decision. in doing so the risk then becomes finding the right cutoff between price and specs... cut the bar too low then Apple runs the risk of losing customers that would have bought a nicely spec'd mid tier machine. cut the bar too high they run the risk of de-valuing their "premium" brand.

anyway, my point is this... they sell a 5200 rpm hard drive because somewhere in their analysis it shows majority of entry level consumers prefer to have 1Tb of space versus a 256gb ssd.

if that market is non-existent, or too small to address, then Apple could have reduced their inventory and shipping costs by not ordering a bunch of old hard drives and just focused on the 256gb ssd

More so the former point: entry level products should have no bottlenecks. With the rest of the capable specs in even the entry iMac, it makes no sense not to either raise the price $100 or include i.e. a 500GB Fusion Drive.

It would be a different story if Apple started the Retina iMac line with a Core i3 and 4GB of RAM at under $1499, but they didn't because they know that would bottleneck the experience even if they knew they could have a cheaper product.

 

[MICHAELSD]

there's no real business case for Apple to nickel and dime just to drive sales into a high(er) spec'd category.

if the lower spec market is not there, then the most cost effective choice is to not produce anything. if there is a market, it still makes no sense to create artificial bottlenecks... entry level buyers are usually a "buy / no buy" decision; they are not likely to trade up.

they can bottleneck mid tier products as mid level buyers tend to have a "buy / splurge a little" decision. in doing so the risk then becomes finding the right cutoff between price and specs... cut the bar too low then Apple runs the risk of losing customers that would have bought a nicely spec'd mid tier machine. cut the bar too high they run the risk of de-valuing their "premium" brand.

anyway, my point is this... they sell a 5200 rpm hard drive because somewhere in their analysis it shows majority of entry level consumers prefer to have 1Tb of space versus a 256gb ssd.

if that market is non-existent, or too small to address, then Apple could have reduced their inventory and shipping costs by not ordering a bunch of old hard drives and just focused on the 256gb ssd

A 256GB SSD vs a 1GB HDD to the average consumer = the HDD winning in most cases, sure. But with a minimal cost Apple could've made the base model contain a Fusion Drive with 32GB flash memory inside. Small change, big improvements.

 

[smoledman]

I fail to see the problem. If Apple only sells 20% of iPhones at 16GB model because that's what the market is, why is that a problem? They are giving people what they want. Not everyone is a huge app user + loads lots of music on the device.

Am I being nickle & dimed by always buying the 16GB iPad? I never need anything more than that on a tablet.

 

[Tech198]

Don't buy their products. Speak with your wallet.

Actually, shouldn't that be in reverse ? Customers don't think with their wallets when it comes to Apple (especially the die hard Apple fans), they buy just about anything.

Apple has this notion of premium pricing, just like any top of the line stuff. but i know if i was to buy anything, i'd buy it for specs, not for the software.. Having said that, i am here

By the same token, its interesting most users (in the U.S anyway) is over at Apple.... only because their software is easy to use which makes everyone use their products.

International customs still have a full wallet though.

The biggest marketing gimmick is non-backward compatibility, then over shadow the idea that everyone just "chose" to be using upgrade to the latest version..

Not even close to the real thing. since it all hooks into itunes and unless all other devices are upgraded, sync won't work. or anything else may not work.

 

[Redbeard25]

Unintended Consequences

The problems occur when the price/performance ratio is hampered by bottlenecks in the hardware choices. For instance, my church needed to purchase this to allow for real-time delay playback for video going between two venues: http://www.renewedvision.com/pvp.php

You can see the minimum requirements right there on the pags:

ProVideoPlayer 2 (minimum Mac specifications)

• Processor: 64-Bit Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better
• OS: Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) up to 10.10 (Yosemite)
• RAM: 4 GB RAM

Here's the catch. Those minimum specs were created before Apple's "one you don't want to buy" strategy. I don't know when PVP was initially released, but in 2008, even the base iMac with core 2 duo (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac_cd_1.83_17.html) had a 7200 rpm hard drive, and you would have been adding eight times the RAM.

They bought the base 21" iMac, and it couldn't do the job. Dropped frames, macroblocking, etc. And this is with the i5 chip, 8GB base model: http://www.apple.com/shop/product/FF883LL/A/refurbished-215-inch-imac-14ghz-dual-core-intel-core-i5

Whose responsibility was it to inform us? Does PVP have to retest every time a new computer comes out? Does Apple have the responsibility to tell us, "this isn't the mac you want?"

Everything turned out okay... we got the computer swapped. But still, it was an inconvenience.

 

[Eric5h5]

It's not "nickel and diming"; that's an entirely different thing. (It refers to many small charges that eventually add up to a lot of money.) It's just upselling, which they've always done. Definitely not a new trend.

--Eric