Apple Strategy for $1000 stand?!

Any ideas on why Apple would do this? It does look sleek, but you know China could copy that for $100 bucks, unless there is some expensive raw material on it.

I think the design budget went over and it came out to like $600 cost and $849 price. Someone had to have been like - fuck it ... make it $999. Maybe margins weren’t as good on the computer as originally expected (could be over budget) and maybe they thought they could get some captive pricing into the stand and squeeze out some good margins and get PR on the high price but I bet they thought the PR would be gradual acceptance over outrage... pure outrage lol. But, all speculation.

Thoughts?

I can’t even get a video of the announcement - Apple is cleaning up this mess...

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Found a version on YouTube that was uploaded 5 minutes ago with 25 views. The crowd sounded stunned / laughing, and the presenter stuttered his next few words.

I have a lot of Apple products that aren't computers (Thinkpad devotee since the IBM days), such as an iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch and Airpods. I have no real complaint with iOS, but I couldn't use a Mac computer for working. They have such condescension toward their professional and creative userbase nowadays. Come on, $999 for a stand?

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Because someone will buy it. Lots of fanboys out there, and if you can afford to buy a $5000+ mac pro with a $5000 6k monitor to go with it, you can probably afford to buy a $999 stand.

Don't get me wrong, even as a fan of Apple products I would never drop a grand on a stand, but it would also be hypocritical of me to pretend like I haven't wasted a grand on something I didn't really need before either.

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Yes it may be overpriced but Apple has built a really interesting monitor here; this device has technical specifications more in line with professional grade monitors which typically cost between $15,000-50,000 per unit. The cost of a $999 stand is not a substantial issue when your main customers already perceive your product to be value priced.

The main issue with this strategy is that $5,000 for the monitor itself puts it just within reach of typical mass market consumers who most certainly are not regular buyers of monitors priced at this extreme end of the market. Apple is essentially trying to corner the market on professional use monitors by severely undercutting the less price sensitive end of the market while also taking whatever incidental mass market sales they can manage too.

They unfortunately now also need to contend with the fact that their messaging to the public has been essentially tone-deaf and poorly executed from the start. They should have seen how the public would react and instead called this an enterprise bundle or similar.

BTW, no I don't think it is worth $999, but that is not the point.

 

Step 1: make easily replicable object with high price tag step 2: patent it step 3: when china obv copies that shit have trump come down on em in this silly trade war

 

it's apple so:

  • Profit
  • Step 1: make easily replicable object with high price tag
  • Profit
  • step 2: patent it
  • Profit
  • step 3: when china obv copies that shit have trump come down on em in this silly trade war
  • Profit
 

I think the thing that's so frustrating is that they keep raising prices on EVERYTHING even with only marginal design changes. Obviously, no one knows anything about stands, as most of us just leave it where it is. So on the surface, it looks like a typical Apple play charging more but not offering more. The real problem is not the stand, it's in their phones, which everyone is pretty familiar with being very expensive with no significant added value. The products are great, the pricing is just a slap to the face.

 

Like someone mentioned - they're selling a $5k tower computer, a $5k complimentary monitor and a necessary stand for that monitor for an additional $999.

After spending $10k for the setup, an additional $999 isn't much. It's a smart pricing strategy IMO. As an average consumer I have no need for any of this stuff so seeing just a stand at $999 is absurd. But when you're buying the whole system it's marginal.

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