Apple Reportedly Halted M2 Chip Production as Mac Shipments Tanked

[TheinsanegamerN]

For what it's worth, Apple did cut the price of the Mini by $100 with the M2 launch, but yeah, the notebook line went up

That cut is worthless. Thanks to the cut you can get the baseline mac mini for $600.

You know, the one with only 8GB of unified memory and 256GB of storage, both of which are soldered and cannot be upgraded.

So, if you want a mac that can actually work, and had enough storage to hold more then 2 cat videos, you need to fork out well over $1500. And if you want the M2 max with a far more powerful GPU thats actually a meaningful upgrade over the M1? $2600. You want the 10g ethernet and some software? Over $3k, before counting warranty.

Gee I wonder why people aren't lapping these things up mid recession.

Thats unfortunate situation, techies will be laid off while execs keep cashing high value payouts.

It's not really techies. So far the biggest cuts in the tech industry are DEI departments, which dont provide anything of worth. The only "techies" being laid off are the ones who underperform or cause problems. Tech companies have been bloated for a long time, and we knew the fat would be trimmed eventually.

 

[bug]

@TheinsanegamerN Truth be told, there were those who pointed out M1's (and later M2's) amazing efficiency comes at the cost of a high transistor count and big die (about the same as Alder Lake for desktop, but good luck digging up the numbers for Apple). The high prices would be a side effect of big, expensive dies.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

@TheinsanegamerN Truth be told, there were those who pointed out M1's (and later M2's) amazing efficiency comes at the cost of a high transistor count and big die (about the same as Alder Lake for desktop, but good luck digging up the numbers for Apple). The high prices would be a side effect of big, expensive dies.

It doesnt justify the $200 price to go to 16GB of RAM, or the $400 for 24GB. Or the $800 price to go from 256GB of storage to 2tb.

Or, to go from the M2 to the M2 pro, discounting the memory and storage cost, apple is charging you an additional $600. That is absolutely ludicrous.

 

[bug]

It doesnt justify the $200 price to go to 16GB of RAM, or the $400 for 24GB. Or the $800 price to go from 256GB of storage to 2tb.

Or, to go from the M2 to the M2 pro, discounting the memory and storage cost, apple is charging you an additional $600. That is absolutely ludicrous.

Tbh, we were always charged premiums for extra RAM or SSD space. But yes, if feels like Apple is, once again, taking this to the next level.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

No doubt the base config is not for everyone. I had the base M1 mini and it did what I needed it to do (photo editing and RAW processing), but $100 price reduction is still a price reduction, and prices aren’t exactly going down on everything. I would have rather seen Apple keep the same price but bump to a 16/512 base, but then they would no doubt suffer in the upsell department where the margins are really sweet. I do think Apple has overdone it on product differentiation. Jobs liked a simple lineup, but Tim sure lets the company run wild with SKUs. Sadly, the design of Apple’s M-line makes memory upgrades impossible, and it’s a big negative to pros. Just look at the 2014 mini, which has a 4GB config and was only 2C/4T. It’s practically a worthless device now. I guess you could use it as a file server since the HDD can still be replaced. The 8/256 models will maybe hold up a bit better, but it’s still a problem long term.

The 2009-2012 Mac Pro was the peak of Apple design and engineering, IMO. It’s still a quite flexible piece of kit, and it’s thoughtful down to the CPU HSF assembly also cooling the VRMs.

 

[Frick]

As someone who once had an AMD64 MBP, I’m not sure why I’d buy their current products unless I wanted some flavour of a really nice netbook for some reason.

I really don't understand what you mean. Their current ARM stuff is very different from their x86 stuff.

 

[cvaldes]

I don't understand either.

Apple has never used AMD CPUs in their computers to my knowledge. They have used Radeon discrete GPUs in some Macs (and some Nvidia GPUs a long time ago) but all of the x86 models have used Intel CPUs not AMD64.

 

[R0H1T]

I do think Apple has overdone it on product differentiation. Jobs liked a simple lineup, but Tim sure lets the company run wild with SKUs.

It's not a Tim Apple thing, Apple has always been greedy af even back in the 90's IIRC ~ this BS upsell they charge though is mostly down to their dumb unadulterated fan base! They could easily force Apple to make the upgrades saner wrt price, but no f*** that they'd rather buy the latest shiny iToy even if it gives 10% more performance/efficiency for 100% more $$$

 

[R-T-B]

More like just the minds of sheep

Sheep aren't buying apple products. Leave them alone, they are nice animals.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I don’t really understand the hostility toward Apple customers. Just because you don’t see the value in something doesn’t mean someone else has the same opinion. Before you fire back, I equally don’t understand Apple users that recite outdated Windows tropes or spell MS with a dollar sign. Go over to MacRumors and read the top comments on Apple News stories. You aren’t going to find many that blindly support All Things Apple. No, they are often the first to call them out on dumb moves, money grabs, and bad products.

 

[bug]

I don’t really understand the hostility toward Apple customers. Just because you don’t see the value in something doesn’t mean someone else has the same opinion. Before you fire back, I equally don’t understand Apple users that recite outdated Windows tropes or spell MS with a dollar sign. Go over to MacRumors and read the top comments on Apple News stories. You aren’t going to find many that blindly support All Things Apple. No, they are often the first to call them out on dumb moves, money grabs, and bad products.

And then there's this:

Also, remember when people were camping out in front of Apple stores to get the new iPhone, despite the fact that it was available online anyway?

I'm with you that Apple's products have their target market. I just don't like Apple's business proposition (let us lock things down as hard as we can, and then we'll tell you what's a fair price - for device and repairs).