So there’s been a lot of attention in the tech media, since Apple’s event, about the new MacBook and the Apple Watch. A lot of people still don’t seem to understand the philosophy behind the Apple Watch, and haven’t really thought about the pricing of the MacBook. I’ve been thinking about this, and here’s my opinion.
I got asked by a close friend, “what does the Apple Watch do exactly?”. I was a little thrown off by the question, and I thought for a second, and I just said, “It looks good.” He looked at me a bit funny and said that it’s a piece of technology, it has to do something. So I proceeded to tell him that obviously it does things such as allowing you to communicate in new ways and it’s a notification hub and it’ll be great for fitness and activity tracking and the such. But mainly, I had to emphasise that this is a fashion piece. It is designed first and foremost to look good, and sell based on that.
The biggest issue that gets brought up about the Apple Watch however, is its pricing. There’s no denying that it is an expensive item. Even for watches where, for example, my Tommy Hilfiger watch cost just over $350 before shipping from Ireland to Australia. For that price I couldn’t even get the Apple Watch Sport here, which I personally don’t find to be a very good looking piece. If I had my pick of Apple Watches, I would choose the 42mm Stainless steel with black classic buckle, which is a hefty $1,029 in Aus. But, looking at the bands by themselves, the Buckle is $229, which brings the price of the watch itself down to (a still significant) $800. $800 though is an amount I could see myself spending on a watch (I will admit my vanity and materialistic nature about such things). If I was to buy the Apple Watch, I would buy the stainless steel model as cheap as possible, then try to find a nice third party band that I could use instead of one of Apple’s. I think this is what Apple knew and in a way want their customers to do. Obviously they’d prefer they fork out their money to them, but they certainly won’t mind someone using a 3rd party band if it means them selling another $800 piece.
We cannot forget though, that this device is first and foremost a fashion piece, particularly the Stainless Steel and Gold versions. And in terms of fashion, $800 is not a huge amount of money. It’s obviously targeted at the upper class, but so are all luxury brands. I don’t see how this is such an issue for so many people.
Another issue I hear brought up a lot is how it will survive into the future. As has been noted a number of times, application processing is not done on the watch itself. It is offloaded to the iPhone instead to help battery life, and I think quite deliberately, to make sure that the watch remains powerful for years to come. Apple has also told us that the battery will be replaceable, which means that, perhaps, as battery technology improves, the battery life could be extended simply by taking the watch into your local apple store for a battery upgrade (pure speculation). In terms of new models being released every year, what I think will happen, will involve the first few years involving new collections being added to the line-up with only very modest upgrades to the existing collections. Then after the lineup has been consolidated, the upgrade cycle will begin, and the watch you buy may remain the most current for it’s price range and collection for a number of years to come. I also don’t expect the design to change significantly within the next 5 years. I personally think the general shape and size of the watch will stay the same for a significant period of time.
So they’re my opinions on the Apple Watch. But what about the MacBook?
Well. Let me start off by saying, I won’t be buying one of these simply because I don’t have enough money. And that’s not to say I don’t have enough money for the MacBook in particular, but to say I don’t have money for a new computer at all. If I did, I think I would buy the new MacBook, and here’s why.
I am currently at university doing an engineering double degree with mathematical and computer science. I currently have a late 2011 MacBook Pro which was bought fully specced and still runs programs like after affects and photoshop like a champ. And I love Mac OS X.
With the MacBook, I would be able to run Linux and Windows through bootcamp if I needed to, but I would mainly leave this up to my MacBook Pro. I would be able to easily use it in Lectures and Tutorials for note taking and quickly getting tasks done. And I have no doubt it will be one of the best laptops for watching the slew of TV shows and Movies that I spend about half my day watching.
Now the pricing. Here are the facts. This computer comes standard with a 12″ Retina Display, 256GB of PCI-E based flash storage and 8GB of RAM. Even if you choose the 11″ MacBook Air, which gives you a (slightly) smaller, and far lower resolution screen, and then upgrade it to the same 256GB of storage, and 8GB of RAM, the result is only $100 less than the new MacBook. Sure with the MBA you get a faster processor and GPU and you get more I/O, but you also get a relatively crappy, smaller screen and less portable laptop. If you jump up to the 13″ MBA, you literally pay the exact same price for the same storage and RAM config as you do with the new Macbook (admittedly, the MacBook does lose some battery life though).
So everybody saying that the new Macbook is overpriced really just hasn’t thought about it. It’s definitely not a cheap computer, I’m not trying to say that at all, but it is reasonably priced especially in comparison to the MBA.
I think you lack two important arguments here. For the Apple Watch you are mixing electronics with something that is rather considered jewelery (i.e. a pricy watch, e.g. most Rolex watches are in a similar price range as the more expensive Apple watches). And secondly, the usage of things – can the Macbook be really comapred to the MacBook Air, if the MacBook Air can be used in a totally different, more universal and more mobile way than the Macbook? I wouldn’t say so. But let me elaborate on that a bit further. But before – be assured that I do enjoy Apple products – it’s not that I’m a hater, or anything. Apple has done some really brilliant things and in my oppinion provides best quality builds (when it comes to chasis and durability). That being said here are the reasons why I am pretty disappointed about the new products.
1. The pricing of the watch: If I pay 800 bucks for a watch, normally I would be using that watch for ~10 years. So that is a totally different runtime, than buying an Apple Watch – it is highyl questionable that an electronics device would even live that long, as most of them tend to break after 3-5 years, due to some capacitor popping, or generall overall bad durability, when it comes to bumps or anything – and with an watch that could easily happen.
However, more importantly – what today is high-tech will be outdated in half a year. Even though being euphoric about the Apple Watch, people are asking themselfes what to expect from an Apple Watch 2, already! When I think about, none of my iPhones lasted longer than 2 years, because after that, first apps apperad that I couldn’t even use, as they only supported newer devices. So now we are to pay some thousand bucks for a watch, which will probably be outdated already next year, as new processors, new memory technologies, more accurate sensors come available, also the apps will start having higher demands, so the Watch will be outdated.
When I get a watch for that price, normally even though 10 years have passed, I can sell it and get a decent price – ever tried to sell 10 years dated technology?
2. The pricing of the Macbook: You are just talking aobut pricesbut forget about the CPU capabilites, as well as the fact that one USB-C port really does anything but increasing mobility. For instance, some weeks ago I had to hold a talk at university with a fellow student. We decided to do it on his laptop, but then on that day something on his laptop broke, so we had to do it on mine. I wasn’t prepared for it, my MacBook Air wasn’t charged, but it was no problem: Charge in, USB flashdrive in – and luckily I did not forget my Tunderbolt->VGA adapter. We even plugged in his Presenter-USB dongle on the other USB port. With an Macbook this would be impossible. At home I connect my MBA to the Tunderbolt Display, because for portability reasons I like to have a small Mac and don’t care about 11″-12″ screens, but at home, I love big screens, because I love watching movies and series, while also working – and as a programmer you always have too litle screen-space to display all the code you need to see side-by-side. The Tunderbolt-Display is a *great* choice – I have my Apple Keyboard connected to it (as long as they don’t have a wireless keyboard with Numpad I will have to stich to the USB keyboard – but hey – with the Tunderbolt Display that’s actually no problem!), as well as my USB-Hub with all my four external Harddisks – one for photos, one for movies, one for music and one running Timemachine. I am an Audiophile, so I do by CDs and Vinyl, but I also rip them – with my Apple SuperDrive/USB-Vinyl ripper. So I have them connected on my monitor as well – making it an docking station – I plug everything to my MBA just by plugging in the tunderbolt cable.
All that is not possible with the new Macbook. This makes it – at least to me – less portable. I would need a lot of adapters, still I wouldn’t be able to use everything, leading my to plugging in and out all the time, while I’m at home. And if I get supprised with something like some weeks ago, I might not be able to have a USB-Stick + Power + VGA-projector (+ Presenter tool plugged) in. Yeah, Presenter tool is a commodity, but anyhow. Mobility: Worse than Macbook Air. How about the rest? My MBA has a 720p Camera – the new Macbook just a 420p. Graphics: worse, Processor: worse. So what am I getting?
180g less, Retina-Display and an improved Touchpad (however the old ones pretty damn good anyhow). Everything else pretty much sucks. And I guess Apple knows that, which is why they did not upgrade the Airs to Retina (would have been easily possible – they already did that for the MBP). The new Macbook only makes sense if you use a second Mac for home usages – I don’t. I like to have one Laptop running everything. So the new Macbook to me would only make sense as a Subnotebook/Netbook. And compared to other Netbooks it is damn high overpriced.
My MacBook Air is still running good – but I would have enjoyed a MBA Retina and I was really looking forward to this, due to all the rumors about the new 12″ retina machine. Even though I wouldn’t have needed it, I would have bought it, if it really would habe been a MBA and replaced my old 11″ with it – just because of the Retina. However, the Macbook I cannot buy – however I try to think about it, in the end it always comes to: “I cannot use it as I want to use it, and for what I get, the price is far to high”. And as for the Apple Watch – I could get watches with similar functionallity for 200 bucks – that’s reasonable for an electronics device that lasts 2 years. Some thouand bucks however do not compare to the functionality I get – and even though it tries to replace jewelery it is not, because jewelery has no expiration date on it’s value.