Apple tăng giá Mac vào thời điểm không thích hợp

Macworld Apple is a premium company, and that means its prices are tied strongly to its own self-image. High prices make products “aspirational,” or so the crack marketing team would have you believe, and that’s something Apple has built its brand around. When the company announced massive price hikes across the board, I was more worried than you might think. For a company that trades in premium optics and where prices rarely go down (if ever), the unstated implication was that these increased costs were here to stay for the foreseeable future. But there’s another concerning aspect to this fiscal fiasco, and that’s the timing. With several price-sensitive products either just out the door or looming on the horizon, Apple can ill afford to jack up prices in this way. Doing so risks compromising their whole raison d’être and making them a much tougher sell for consumers who are already pinching pennies. Given the astonishing constraints on component supply, Apple was under tremendous pressure to revise its prices upwards, and it’s far from the only company doing so right now. But its move could end up condemning its latest products before they’ve even had a chance to shine–that’s a massive gamble for the Cupertino-based company. MacBook Neo’s momentum killed I’ve argued before that the Apple Tax is a myth ; when you compare rival products so that they’re actually feature-comparable, Apple products stand up remarkably well. There’s a difference between expensive and overpriced, and while Apple devices are often the former, they are rarely the latter. The MacBook Neo was a key demonstrator of this idea. When its regular starting price was $599, it represented phenomenal value for money. Try to configure a Windows laptop with the same budget, and you’d get a hopelessly inferior device. At the time the MacBook Neo was released, I started to wonder if this heralded a new era for Apple, one where it was less averse to competing at the entry-level end of the market. Coupled with the Mac mini , the iPhone 16e and the Apple Watch SE , you could find budget options right across Apple’s lineup. But in one fell swoop, Apple’s price rises have undone all of that progress and halted the MacBook Neo’s momentum a mere three months after it got underway. The $100 price hike effectively muted all the talk that was about the MacBook Neo. Foundry The MacBook Neo’s $100 jump is an increase of 17 percent, so it’s far from the hardest hit Apple product, both in terms of percentage points and raw cash. But it might be the worst affected when you consider that its entire purpose was to compete at a budget price point, convert Windows and Chromebook users, and dispel the idea that Apple only knows how to do premium. Now, the MacBook Neo has lost a significant edge against the competition and made it a lot easier for mediocre Windows laptops to justify themselves to potential customers. The fact that this has happened so soon after the Neo’s debut just makes the pill even more bitter All that hope and optimism has been dashed before it ever got a chance to settle in. Far from the “new normal,” the MacBook Neo’s $599 pricing just feels like a freak blip, a strange dream that drifts away in the mournful morning haze. Dead on arrival If the MacBook Neo is getting screwed over at one end of the spectrum, then there’s equally unpalatable news for flagship Macs. I’m thinking in particular of the upcoming MacBook Ultra . The MacBook Pro is about to undergo a drastic hardware change–and they’ll also be more expensive. Foundry As the name implies, this device is intended to sit right at the top end of Apple’s laptop roster, and it’ll come with a spec sheet to match. Expect an OLED display, touchscreen capabilities, a slimline design, ultra-powerful chips, and more. It’s a statement Mac for those times when the MacBook Pro just doesn’t cut it. Unfortunately, it’s also going to be a major casualty of Apple’s price rises. While low-end Macs like the MacBook Neo were…