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Comment by throw0101d | Hacker News Reader

> Until now Apple hasn't addressed the mass market in nearly two decades.

Going back to 2008:

> But the most fun on the conference call came when he parried analysts’ questions about new product areas that Apple might or might not enter. A recurring question among Apple watchers for decades has been, “When is Apple going to introduce a low-cost computer?

> Mr. Jobs answered that decades-old complaint by stating, “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.” He argued instead that the company’s mission was to add more value for customers at current price points.

* https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/2...

USD(2008) 500 = USD(2026) 760:

* https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

which is about what the Neo costs.

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There is more to it than just accounting for inflation. Apple has done a number of other things in the meantime, including designing and manufacturing their own chips, that have changed the economies of this. Until the very recent RAM price explosion, a sub $500 computer in 2008 was probably more like a sub $350 computer today.

Inflation goes up - someone who could buy a $500 computer in 2008 should be able to buy a $766 or so computer today (cite: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com)

But today, if you can finagle the EDU discount, you can get a MacBook Neo for $499 ($600 without) which apparently isn't really compromised in any major way.

> Inflation goes up - someone who could buy a $500 computer in 2008 should be able to buy a $766 or so computer today

It should also be noted that technological advances tend to be deflationary in general: regardless of real or nominal dollars, the chips/storage/etc you can buy today were sometimes not even available in the past at any price.

Edit: e.g., see 1991 Radio Shack add:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45161816

True, a high-end 386 would have cost upwards of $10k when it first came out, but a MacBook Neo probably beats the pants off a supercomputer from the same era.

An old Radio Shack ad from 1991 that often makes the rounds is illustrative:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45161816

Yes, I'm aware how inflation works, you missed my point. Many technology things have effectively gotten cheaper over time, when you account for overall performance/specs/capabilities/etc. The "we don't know how to make a $500 computer that doesn't suck" statement of today would be more like "we don't know how to make a $350 computer that doesn't suck".

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