Hacker News Reader

Comment by roymurdock | Hacker News Reader

The iPad Pro is going to be available in November — 32GB for $799, 64GB for $949 and 128GB for $1,079. The $1,079 comes with Wi-Fi and cellular. The keyboard is going to cost $169 and the stylus is going to cost $99 — magic isn’t cheap.

Can someone explain this absurd pricing strategy to me?

View on HN

I just want someone to explain the $99 stylus. What's so special about it?

It's like the $80 magsafe charger. Thing probably costs $3 to manufacture and distribute, but good luck using your macbook without one.

Simple price gouging, but most customers are happy to pay.

> Simple price gouging, but most customers are happy to pay.

Also known as "economics".

It doesn't cost $3. Not even an iPad charger costs are that low.

Of course, no brand chargers made in China could reach that price point but one just have to do a Hacker News search to figure out what they are sacrificing.

$80 is definitely too much, but fwiw there is a difference between Apple's chargers and the $3 aftermarket competition: http://www.righto.com/2014/05/a-look-inside-ipad-chargers-pr...

Someone did a detailed comparison between the $19 Apple 500mW cube charger vs a no-name $4 lookalike. Short version: the former is an engineering marvel of efficiency, compactness, and safety ... while the latter is likely to kill someone.

You may not appreciate the "diminishing returns" of increased quality for increased price, but Apple's bottom line shows a great many do.

Oh come on, that's such a sweeping generalization. Just because someone compared Apple's cube charger with one of thousands of knockoffs and found that the Apple charger actually adhered with the safety regulations does not mean that Apple's accessories are appropriately priced due to their quality. It doesn't even mean the charger deserves the $19 price tag. How about the iPhone 6 docks, are they also a marvel of engineering? Are their prices justified?

He or she didn't claim they were 'appropriately priced' and since such a claim is subjective to begin with nobody is forcing you to pay for things you feel are too expensive. Buy whatever you want. His or her argument seems to be, and I would agree, that the quality is higher with an Apple charger. If you don't feel the price corresponds, that's totally fine with everyone involved.

"Simple price gouging" is also a sweeping generalization.

You pay for quality. Generally equivalent functionality can be had cheaper, and returns diminish as price rises, but as there are prolific options available "price gouging" hardly applies.

[sigh] This is a friendly chat board. I'm not inclined to provide encyclopedic peer-reviewed proofs to someone taking cheap shots.

It's also selection bias - they should have compared it to several cheap chargers, even ones from moderately known brands.

Yeah, there's also a fairly healthy middle ground between engineering "marvels" and "what is the utterly cheapest piece of crap I can find on eBay".

(btw, there are a lot of complaints, including from me, about plenty of flaws with Apple chargers - I've had two sheathes come apart so they look like paper lanterns exposing bare wire beneath them)

My experience (and that of most people I know) with Apple chargers is that they break all the time despite the utmost care. I would hardly call that an engineering marvel.

Edit: I should be more specific - I wasn't referring to the chargers themselves, but rather their cables.

Mine is 3 years old and is OK other than a few cat chew marks. I can't understand what other people do with their hardware - it always look like they've played football with it or left their dog to chew it, sit on it, dribble on it or left it outside in the rain. Always very odd.

I can see it now.

Mourner: "I'm sorry for your loss. He seemed so healthy, with such a bright future ahead of him. How could this have happened?"

Grieving Mother: "It was that damned... third-party stylus! sob I knew I should have bought the Apple one!"

"and safety" nope

There are thousands of examples of iPhone chargers & cables melting down.

Well, it's twice as expensive as the existing chargeable force sensitive Pencil for iPad made by another company.

and the worst part is that the Pencil will probably lose half of its business.

There is no 64GB. It's 128GB without cellular for $949. They have high price points for latest models. Retailers discount.

charge as much as they're willing to pay?

They copied it off the Surface. When in Rome...

> absurd pricing strategy

Apple in a nutshell. Are you surprised?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com