Apple Raises Prices On Macs, iPads, and More By Hundreds of Dollars (theverge.com) 125
Apple has sharply raised prices across its Mac, iPad, HomePod, and Apple TV lineups as surging AI-driven demand creates a global memory and storage shortage. Increases range from $30 for the HomePod mini to $1,300 for the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying efforts to shield customers from higher costs had become "unsustainable." The Verge reports: On Thursday, the company adjusted the price of its new MacBook Neo, which will now start at $699 instead of $599, while the base MacBook Air will jump to $1,299 from $1,099, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The 14-inch MacBook Pro is getting an increase as well, going from $1,699 to $1,999. Meanwhile, the iPad Air will now start at $749 instead of $599, while the iPad Pro is increasing to $1,199 from $999.
As spotted by MacRumors, the M4 Max Mac Studio will now cost $2,499, a big jump from $1,999. The M3 Ultra Mac Studio is now priced at $5,299, up from $3,999. Apple is even raising the prices of its HomePod, which now costs $349 instead of $299, as well as bumping the price of the HomePod mini to $129 instead of $99. The Apple TV also now costs $199 instead of $129.
As spotted by MacRumors, the M4 Max Mac Studio will now cost $2,499, a big jump from $1,999. The M3 Ultra Mac Studio is now priced at $5,299, up from $3,999. Apple is even raising the prices of its HomePod, which now costs $349 instead of $299, as well as bumping the price of the HomePod mini to $129 instead of $99. The Apple TV also now costs $199 instead of $129.
Because they can. (Score:2, Insightful)
They raised prices because they can. The shortage gave them cover.
If Chinese manufacturers can sell an iPad-size Android device with more RAM than an iPad for just $160 retail, this is not about the cost of RAM. Subtract Amazon's 35%, and the total cost of a machine with 40 GB of RAM is no more than $104, and RAM is maybe 5 to 10 percent of that cost, so the wholesale cost of 32 GB of RAM for an iPad is probably no more than $10. And they're cranking up the price by $150. RAM prices did not go up by 15
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I agree and probably 90% of the price increase is greed. Apple not being able to bully the memory suppliers probably had them showing toothy grins at the negotiation table. What do you predict RAM pricing was prior to this RAM scarcity?
Re:Because they can. (Score:5, Interesting)
They raised prices because they can. The shortage gave them cover.
What really made it blatant was that they also raised prices in their Certified Refurbished store [macrumors.com]. You know, the store for shit which RAM costs were already long-ago paid.
Re:Because they can. (Score:5, Insightful)
They raised prices because they can. The shortage gave them cover.
What really made it blatant was that they also raised prices in their Certified Refurbished store [macrumors.com]. You know, the store for shit which RAM costs were already long-ago paid.
-1, economically illiterate
The increased prices for new items will increase demand for refurbished items. In the short term the supply of refurbished items is constant so the price goes up. In the long term, this creates an incentive to refurbish more marginal items that would require more parts and labor than they could have previously recovered.
Some Truthful Price Comparisons (Score:2)
Microsoft said “console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027.”reference [cnbc.com]
I think the reality is y'all have an addiction to ChatGPT. And because you are paying for that subscription homelessness, we all have to pay. Paying money to the homeless just creates more homlessness a
Re: (Score:3)
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According to CamelCamelCamel, that 32GB RAM kit was $87 all the way up until December 2025, when it immediately started rising in price.
So, anyone installing that has to eat that price somewhere.
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Gouging, but also Chinese tablet manufacturers can use Chinese made RAM. It's a bit lower performance than the latest DDR5 stuff, but it's fine for tablets and quantity is more important than speed here.
Have a look at the price of AM4 Ryzen CPUs now, even used. They have shot up because DDR4 RAM is cheap.
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Most people I know who use Apple products do it for the logo alone (despite saying "muh usability", please, modern Apple interfaces are not intuitive and also I've noticed most Apple users barely know how to operate their own products, including teenagers) - and they'll pay an extra $1000 to have that logo.
You must run with a weird crowd. I can't remember the last time I interacted with a person who gave a shit what brand of smartphone I prefer to use. 90+% of people have their smartphone buried in a case, anyways.
And, for what it's worth, Samsung and Google's flagship phones cost as much or more than Apple's (well, until this price increase, but I expect them to follow suit shortly). Weird that so few seem to assume that people are buying a Pixel 10 or an S26 as a status symbol.
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- Apple products are now more fashion accessories than anything else;
If you think that, you are a moron.
Most of my friends are software developers. Obviously a Mac is one of the best choices for them.
Most of my ex girlfriend's friends are fashion designers, or in other art works. Obviously a Mac is one of the best choices for them, too.
And if you are in a business/environment where most people use a Mac, you obviously are better off with a Mac, too.
How do you actually share a file in a non Mac environment?
The Vision Pro went from $3499 to $3699 (Score:3, Funny)
Man, I hope the price increase doesn't kill the product's sales momentum!
Great opportunity to optimize software (Score:2)
I'm sure generative AI will be right on it, optimizing every last byte of RAM and storage.
Really? (Score:2)
with Apple CEO Tim Cook saying efforts to shield customers from higher costs had become "unsustainable."
How many cash dollars, and I do mean actual cash, does Apple keep in the bank? Hint, it's literally a historically unprecedented hoard no matter how you do the calculations.
Greedflation Rate of 56%? (Score:2)
Neo was released 107 days ago, so the annualized inflation rate (linear) of a price increase from $599 to $699 in 107 days is about 56%.
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Talk about a perfect case of misapplied mathematics. It's just nonsense. It's like extrapolating your car's fuel economy from the first 100 meters of driving. Briefly mathematically correct but completely wrong in all real ways.
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OK perhaps a bit sensationalistic, but not that much worse than all the current Startup Math [paulgraham.com] and AI Math [techcrunch.com] you see these days.
Still, Apple issuing a 16%+ price increase about 100 days after launch does have a bad smell to it. It also highlights the scarcity problems that AI is introducing for memory, GPUs, computers, electricity, water, land, and even funding, as well as raises questions about whether AI capitalism is better serving the desires of profit-seeking tech giants rather than meeting the nee
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My guess would be that Apple waited to raise the price in order to not sabotage their launch hype. Reasonable investment.
Cook says vs real-person transation (Score:2)
Apple CEO Tim Cook saying efforts to shield customers from higher costs had become "unsustainable."
Translation for non-CEOs: it's unsustainable to keep our prices the same and maintain our high profit margin, and we are choosing to pass the cost on to buyers rather than accept any shrink of our profit margin.
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Welcome to capitalism.
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Welcome to capitalism.
I'd say "welcome to late-stage capitalism." The original (think: Adam Smith) theory of capitalism was that profits that the business owner made would be put back into the business, allowing for production improvement either in quantity or quality or both, leading to economies of scale, and in the long run, lower prices for buyers. That's no longer the case.
I don't see any stories ever about manufacturers tackling demand exceeding supply by increasing supply. What I see exclusively is "demand is higher than
I don't like the "walled garden" (Score:2)
I mostly use my 13 y/o freebsd box. It feels freer. I don't have some corporation spying on me, and telling me what to buy and when. It does what I need it to do.
I respect that other people have different needs, and values.
sorry Morpheus (Score:2)
Our Neo wasn't the one. But we have it a shot.
Re: sorry Morpheus (Score:2)
Blecc /have/gave*
small margins (Score:2)
what do you expect when the costs to manufacture their products rises and they have such small profit margins?
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If you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made as part of the problem.
Re:Who's Who? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you a part of the solution, or a part of the problem?
I'm part of the solution. I was about to buy an iPad Pro 13-inch, and bought a $160 Android tablet instead. Saved myself $1040. That was right before the price hikes.
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TIL somebody, somewhere is still making Android tablets.
Lots of companies, actually. Nearly everybody I know buys them for sheet music. Early adopters still have iPads, but the Android tablets have gotten good enough to do the job and cost less than a fifth as much as the 13-inch iPad Air. So there are two types of people — the ones who want a nice tablet, who spend the extra for an iPad Pro, and the ones who don't care, who buy something that costs $160 on Amazon, knowing that even if they break several of them, they still come out ahead.
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Which is a whoops move. I brought a tablet exactly for that, a samsung. Almost none of the software standardised in the music industry for sheet music actually runs on android (and thats partly because android historically had terrible audio apis, though it has gotten better). Ended up having to get an ipad. About the same price all up.
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Which is a whoops move. I brought a tablet exactly for that, a samsung. Almost none of the software standardised in the music industry for sheet music actually runs on android
For classical music, sheet music normally means (in ~95% of cases these days) PDFs from imslp.org. PDFs actually work quite well on Android tablets, and you can attach pedals to flip pages while playing.
You see that a lot in symphony orchestras these days, especially in amateur ones. (Professional orchestras may still prefer printed parts.)
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Oh my god.
That is not what the parent meant.
He meant playing music on the device.
With tools that allow editing sheets for playing music, as in "writing music pieces".
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That may be what sg_oneill meant, but that's not what I meant in the post that sg_oneill was replying to. NotRobot is talking about exactly what I'm talking about — using a tablet for reading sheet music while I sing or play music on an actual physical instrument.
The best part of the Android tablet experience is that MobileSheets lets you have two tablets side-by-side and sync them with Bluetooth so that you can turn two pages at once, so that you get to the spot where the publisher (hopefully) left
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Oh, that is interesting.
Thanx for the info!
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Which is a whoops move. I brought a tablet exactly for that, a samsung. Almost none of the software standardised in the music industry for sheet music actually runs on android (and thats partly because android historically had terrible audio apis, though it has gotten better). Ended up having to get an ipad. About the same price all up.
Sheet music != audio. Sheet music readers are PDF readers plus support for Bluetooth foot pedals to turn pages. The most popular app by far is MobileSheets, and it is available on iOS, Android, and Windows.
Yeah, there are subscription services for iPad that have some additional features that could be useful in some environments (e.g. slightly easier distribution of marked-up copies or using your camera to turn pages with facial gestures), but IMO not useful enough to be worth paying a subscription for it,
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You can drop an iPad just fine.
Unless it drops face down on a stone, it just dents the edge of the frame.
Facepalm.
And buying a replacement Android means: either you have everything in the cloud, or a back up ... pick your devil.
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You can drop an iPad just fine. Unless it drops face down on a stone, it just dents the edge of the frame.
On a stone or anything else non-flat, sure, though that's just shy of 50% of the outer surface area of an iPad, and you're keeping it on a music stand with feet that stick out, so I don't exactly like those odds. You might get some protection from the case, but did I mention that the $160 tablet comes with a magnetic folio case, whereas Apple's folio case for the iPad is an $80 add-on? If you add the cost of the case to the cost of AppleCare+, the things you would typically do to make a bad accidental dro
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So Apple badly needs a genuine low-end tablet. In my opinion as a stockholder, they've needed one for a really long time.
Actually, the 2025 A16 11” iPad nicely fills the bill, at least for me. At $300 (pre-price increase), it hit a fairly sweet spot. It runs iOS 26 just fine, has Apple Pencil Support, and seems to have enough Oomph for everyday tasks, and a large enough display to use comfortably.
It does struggle just a bit running VB3; but that’s what my Macs are for!
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Out of curiosity, what application do you use for displaying sheet music? Is there a good FOSS Android app for this? I still use paper sheet music.
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Unless you are trapped deep in the Apple revenue farm, I don't think there is much point buying an iPad these days. At the low and mid levels Android tablets are cheaper and more than good enough for sheet music, web browser, most games, watching video, and so on. At the high end, Samsung tablets are better anyway. Better pen for drawing, better handwriting input, better screens etc.
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I only buy eInk devices since a while.
And as long as Apple has no (simple) option that I can compile my software and move it on an iPad/iPhone ... I am not buying any iOS device anyway anymore.
I have dozens of hobby projects - mostly in Dart - which I simply want to fool around with. The hassle to do that on iOS, is seriously not worth the minimal (I do not even remember them) benefits of iOS (oh, the Mail program, I love it).
So my next device is likely a: https://daylightcomputer.com/ [daylightcomputer.com]
At the moment I use an
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I'd like an eInk tablet, but I've been waiting for a reasonably priced large format one.
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You have to google around for that.
The "arguable" best one, got apeshit and vendor locked in all its old users.
Plenty of them run plain Linux, most do Android.
Honestly: if you do not want to put your own apps on them it does not really matter.
Nook and Kobo I can recommend.
There are more modern ones with colour eInk. Amazing.
Stylus input or finger is the norm - regardless of brand.
I suggest to get an overview and watch some youtube vids ... if you do not mind vid. The market is so huge now, plenty cheap mode
Re: Who's Who? (Score:2)
Tell me more about the sheet music thing, I just use paper
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And you'll have to jailbreak the bootloader or throw it away if you ever need an OS update.
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And you'll have to jailbreak the bootloader or throw it away if you ever need an OS update.
Even if they provide security patches for only three years, you'd still get 18 years out of it and its successors for the price of one iPad. Having to throw it away to install a new major version of Android really isn't a big deal when you're talking about hardware at disposable prices. Also, the likelihood of it actually mattering when I'm using it exclusively as a sheet music reader is basically zero. :-)
Re:Who's Who? (Score:5, Funny)
> Saved myself $1040. That was right before the price hikes. ...
Oof, bet that hurts. Think of how much you'd have saved if you'd waited until today
Re:Who's Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, why DO people buy Apple? They know it is more expensive. Clearly, they believe they are getting something that is worth that price.
Apple goes to great efforts to protect user privacy. Some of what they do might just be promises and/or lies, but that is still better than the alternatives available, that openly spy on everything they can and sell it to whoever wants to buy it. For people who have the money to afford Apple products, it's worth it.
Of course there are free open source solutions that protect privacy, but they require greater tech knowledge to use and have more compatibility issues (there are always a group of Linux users that get all bent out of shape when someone says this. Too bad. I use Linux a lot and I am very familiar with the issues that crop up that the Linux community likes to pretend don't crop up).
There's also the matter of user experience. When I use windows 11, I fell pushed-around and limited. When I use MacOS, I feel obeyed and empowered. Your mileage may vary, but this was enough for me to buy Apple.
I hate windows enough that my gaming rig runs Linux. I love Apple enough that my "everything serious" machine runs MacOS. Even with these price hikes, I will still go Apple over Windows any day of the week, should I need another machine for any purpose other than gaming.
Re:Who's Who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, the quality of build, the stability of the operating system, and just the plain reliability and features even in the supporting tools exceed Windows. Take the Preview App. The work I can do on PDFs; signatures, annotations, OCR, right out of the box, and built so that the versions on my iPhone and iPad fully integrate, cannot be easily replicated on Windows. Apple just really has an eye for workflow, and making sure the base system and tools fit well into that.
It's not perfect, to be sure, I wouldn't want to use Pages as my full time word processor, and Apple, like Microsoft and Google, suffer designed interoperation friction, which does suck. But all in all, I'm just more efficient on a Mac, and in subtle ways I never knew were even problems until I picked a MacBook up the first time. Honestly going to Windows right now is just horrible for me, particular Windows 11, which just feels like constant chaos and out of control busy-ness.
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I'll definitely give you these ones.
PDF manipulation on Android is *TRASH*, and windows 11 is a horrible operating system, that wants very much to treat you very poorly.
Sadly, device makers really *REALLY* do not want to open up their tablets for Linux like they should. Touch interface on linux might be a bit rough, but there are much better tools for office productivity and PDF manipulation for linux, than for either windows or android.
I just dont feel that I would be willing to fork out the extra dough f
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PDF manipulation on Android is *TRASH*
Yeah, but it's also trash on Windows, with Acrobat. Acrobat was never amazing but it used to work. These days it is absolute trash. Features just stop working on you mid-session. It chokes on documents which Evince can render without difficulty, and that's just displaying them. How did Adobe fuck up Acrobat so badly?
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I hate to give GNOME credit, but Evince has a really fast renderer. It it noticeably faster (like 5-10x) than okular and its original parent xpdf. They've done some good work on that. If I plot a stupid graph with too many points, Evince will be the first to render it by a mile.
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So, why DO people buy Apple? They know it is more expensive. Clearly, they believe they are getting something that is worth that price.
Because it has the better OS. The Linux integration into Windows needs a PhD to grasp how it works. So I use Multipass instead. Or docker if that is more convenient.
With unified memory the recent generations of Mac minis are excellent for argentic computing.
Why would I take the hassle and time to figure which Linux box with which GPU is "cheaper" ...
Computer hardware is usua
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>> Apple goes to great efforts to protect user privacy.
This is why people buy Apple. They are badly mis-informed and repeat these same, tired arguments that have been shown over and over again to be wrong. Apple doesn't care about your privacy. In fact, they are some of the worst, and tends to make Google look like a saint for user privacy.
Apple tracks your surfing habits, purchases, location in real time, etc... just like Google. It's in Apple's privacy policies,
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One possible reason people buy Apple, is because Apple has better advertising.
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In case you missed it Apple became the budget option lately. Microsoft increased the prices for their 2024 launched devices (with SoCs from 2023, and comparable with the M3s at most) to be like $500 more than the just launched M5s. https://www.windowscentral.com... [windowscentral.com] . When we get to the point where it's "why should I pay 50% more for a Microsoft device that's 2.5 generations
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It's because they are already invested in the Apple ecosystem, i.e. lock-in, or because it's the default safe choice for people who don't know much about phones and tablets and computers.
Android has better privacy protections, if that's what you care about. You also have the option of running a privacy focused version of Android, like Graphene OS. Even on standard Android you get extensive privacy controls and access to F-Droid, an app store for open source apps that bars anything which requires Google's se
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>>When I use MacOS, I feel obeyed and empowered
I'm dipping my toes into MacOS, do me a favour, please, tell me how to remove that stupid "Chess" program that the OS seems to think is a "core system program"
Hell, I can't even move it to a folder labeled "stupid useless built-in MacOS programs" because MacOS won't let me move it...
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You are probably holding your mouse wrong.
Sorry, no idea about your idiotic claim/problem.
But as a hint: if you lack the rights to remove it, then you lack the rights to remove it. It is as simple as that. Perhaps ask your self what "system administration" rights you have ...
Easiest way, open a terminal, go to the applications folder (by typing "cd " < note the space, into the terminal, and then drag and drop the Applications - folder into the terminal) then try to create a file, type "touch delete_me".
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Apple goes to great efforts to protect user privacy. Some of what they do might just be promises and/or lies, but that is still better than the alternatives available,
The single largest attack surface, the thing that gets used the most is the web browser. Apple intentionally block privacy friendly browsers. On other platforms I can run mobile firefox with ublock origin, privacy badger and noscript (which is about the most effective privacy preserving tool).
There's also the matter of user experience. When I
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On other platforms I can run mobile firefox with ublock origin, privacy badger and noscript (which is about the most effective privacy preserving tool).
You can do that on Macs, too.
Just like on any other OS. Even using your favourite alternative browser to download Firefox is the same. ... no special "installation" needed.
Unlike other stupid OSes, you how ever simply open the virtual disk and drag and drop the "Fire Fox App" where ever you want it, or into the Applications folder
Ooosp, that was so easy. Stu
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Despite being a Linux fan and desktop/handheld user, there are a handful of apps I happen to spend a lot of time in that are significantly more stable and polished on iOS than Android. That consistency has a lot of value to me, and that's why I bought Apple - or at least why I bought Apple this time. I'm running a 3rd-gen iPad Air, which is definitely showing its age now, and an iPhone 15 Pro Max.
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Re:Who's Who? (Score:4, Informative)
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Android didn't support DHCPv6 last time I checked, only SLAAC. So it "doesn't support IPv6" if you need to use it on a subnet smaller than /64, which is a problem if you only have a static /64 and need to use prefix delegation. I don't know if iOS supports DHCPv6 either, haven't tried it.
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Android didn't support DHCPv6 last time I checked
Supported by Android 11 and later, support came in a play store update in 2025.
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The fuck though? Android have a weird fetish for taking Linux tools and then disabling features which work perfectly well and it turns out also work fine on Android if you use ASOP and the upstream tools.
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TBH I don't get it. Google was literally known (back when people cared) for being massively Linux-based. Then when they make their phone they ruin everything about Linux and then gradually un-ruin it
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Android is weird. Don't forget that google didn't create Android: Android was first created by some company then bought by google. The Android people were pretty weird, frankly and had some odd ideas.
For one they HATED C++, in a really irrational way. I remember a forum thread when them declaring outright that certain C++ features simply COULD NOT work on Android being then disproved by another poster who showed a hand compiled gcc doing those things only to have them double down. They were incredibly insul
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Android has supported IPv6 since the early days. I've got an ancient Galaxy S3 that I was seeing what I could do with, and that is on Android 4.3 which supports it.
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While support is limited to a handful of models, due to a shortage of skilled maintainers, there are a few android tablets that support lineage OS, or postmarket OS.
Like OnePlus tablets, and Galaxy series tablets from samsung.
Good support from LineageOS for those. The Galaxy Tab A7, from 6 years ago, *IS STILL GETTING UPDATES* from Lineage, for instance.
LineageOS on android devices push their service lives *WAAAY* past what is normally doable. My now very ancient Pixel 4A is *STILL* getting monthly update
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That hasn't been true in nearly 20 years. Python on my ipad runs just fine. I mean fuck, half the problem with modern apps is all the javascript shit in them.
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JIT emulation is also interpreted code. Not everything that is interpreted code is something high level, like javascript or python.
As for apple's relaxation of interpreted code, they still put the kabosh on most of the more useful applications of it.
Like JIT.
https://oatmealdome.me/blog/wh... [oatmealdome.me]
which is why I can still do more with my ancient pixel 4A, than you kids can do with your latest edition ipad/phone.
Apple's walled garden comes at a price.
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Apple never was against interpreted code.
They were against Jit.
As they get blamed when an app crashes, because of new OS and new processor and the Jit creates code for the old architecture. (also it opens hypothetical attack vectors)
It is just stupid uninformed hobbyist self made programmers who actually have no clue about beyond "works on my machine": who do not grasp the difference between interpreted code and JIT compiling.
I used to have an iPad II ... second generation iPad, I literally have 100 or more
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Must really suck that Apple wont let you run interpreted code, huh?
What is that supposed to mean?
My bash scripts run just fine on Macs ... so does CLR or JBC byte code. ...
Or BBCBasic
My own byte code interpreters, for Wren or Lox run just fine, too.
It's a global phenomena, not just Apple (Score:3)
Are you a part of the solution, or a part of the problem?
Do you avoid buying overpriced Apple products, or do you feed their machine?
No one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to buy Apple.
This isn't Apple vs the world like in past years. Every vendor is increasing costs. Apple is not at the forefront. Look, for those of us in technology professions, a computer is not an optional thing, nor is a smartphone...really it's the case for most people. We need working devices to do our job and be productive in life. I have to replace my 6yo laptop soon. I will have to pay an extra $300 to do so, apparently. So it's not Apple's fault. It's a combo of bullshit AI bubbles and chip manufacturers
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So it's not Apple's fault. It's a combo of bullshit AI bubbles
Apple is participating in the creation of the AI bubble. So yes, it is Apple's fault, in part anyway. Why do people give Apple a pass on behavior they hold Microsoft accountable for?
Apple isn't building massive datacenters (Score:2)
So it's not Apple's fault. It's a combo of bullshit AI bubbles
Apple is participating in the creation of the AI bubble. So yes, it is Apple's fault, in part anyway. Why do people give Apple a pass on behavior they hold Microsoft accountable for?
Apple is merely paying vendors for past data centers built. Whatever we're using today is not causing this crunch. The massive investment in next-gen AI is what's causing this chip crunch. The most they're guilty of is delaying the bubble popping. And to their defense, their investment in AI is pretty conservative and they seem to be trying to provide ACTUAL value rather than merely selling picks and shovels. That's why Apple Intelligence has been delayed so long. The shit didn't work...they kept work
Re: Apple isn't building massive datacenters (Score:2)
There is no "merely paying" in capitalism. That's literally what it's all based on.
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No one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to buy Apple.
exactly. so why is it a problem if people choose to pay through their nose for techno-fetish or status symbols? nobody is going to starve because of that and they obviously have enough cash to burn. they'll cough up that extra 1k and be more than happy, apple is happy, everybody is happy. at least they do get a computer. it's not like a gambling problem ...
people fall for fads, news at 11. it may be problematic with youth but that's what parents are for and youth have never had the luxury to choose their pa
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Apple sells hundreds of millions of devices a year. That's a lot of sales to attribute to techno-fetishism or chasing status symbols.
Maybe, just maybe, the market is speaking and Apple has actually made a product that some individuals find superior?
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Apple is the canary in the coal mine.
If Apple can't absorb the price hikes on RAM and NVMe drives, then that means nobody can, which means Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, Broadcom, NVidia, AMD, etc are going to raise prices if they have not already and also lose a lot of sales revenue.
This is the deathkneel on consumer electronics that can be blamed entirely the AI data centers.
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Microsoft has already started. Surface devices a week or so ago. Xbox today. I would imagine we'll start seeing something similar from all the other OEMs over the next few weeks.
God, I can't wait for this bubble to pop.
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Are you a part of the solution, or a part of the problem?
Competition is good for both Apple and for Android. The existence of cheaper options puts pressure on Apple to keep their price low. The privacy, low advertising, ease of use and high quality build and performance puts pressure on Android producing tablet makers to pretend like they care about those things. If either of these two sides completely wins then consumers lose.
Re:That's perfectly okay! (Score:5, Insightful)
If a Mac can save someone 1 hour a week in time because it works better for them, and their time is worth $100/hr, that comes out to be $5200 a year in increased productivity.
If Linux does the same for you, 100% go for it, likewise Windows.
The most expensive part of the computer is the person sitting at the keyboard.
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HOWEVER...
If a Mac can save someone 1 hour a week in time because it works better for them, and their time is worth $100/hr, that comes out to be $5200 a year in increased productivity.
If Linux does the same for you, 100% go for it, likewise Windows.
The most expensive part of the computer is the person sitting at the keyboard.
Conversely, if a Mac costs you 1 hour per week because it doesn't do something you need it to it costs $5200 in productivity and the cost of the Mac.
And it does cost in productivity as one of my illustrious duties has been to maintain a Windows Server RDS farm solely for Mac users to be able to log on and use the same applications as everyone else in the business. So not only was it lost productivity, it also cost my time (which is worth more than theirs, I get billed at £180 per hour) and a
Re:That's perfectly okay! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm an Apple fan; I'm typing this on a 2018 Mac Mini that I spent roughly $2K on -- but it's 2026 and that Mac is still running just great. That works out to an amortized cost of about 68 cents per day -- which is to say, negligible compared to my other expenses.
Trying to save money by buying cheap computer hardware is like trying to save money by buying single-ply toilet paper -- you can do it, sure, but why make your life noticeably worse when the amount of money you'll save is trivial?
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My last computer I had for about 10 years. I replaced the video card once about halfway through. No clue what I paid, but it was AMD+nvidia+ssd build and it was pretty awesome. I literally only decided to build a new system because BG3 was coming out and it was the first game in a long time that actually looked worth buying. It was also an excuse to build a new computer, which I had been putting off for a couple years because I didn't actually NEED it.
My current system is 3 years old, plenty of ram and my n
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I'm happy you enjoy your Mac, but let's not pretend that AMD or Intel hardware is some how "not good enough" because it really is perfectly fine for the same tasks as Mac and possibly more tasks.
I didn't say PC hardware isn't good enough, I said there's no point buying compromise hardware that's not what you really wanted, because in the long run it's all pretty damn affordable. If an Intel or AMD box is what you prefer, by all means buy one and enjoy!
One thing I want out of my hardware is the ability to run my OS of choice without a lot of hassle, and since my OS of choice is MacOS, that kind of narrows down the field for me.
How is gaming in Mac land?
I imagine it's pretty mediocre, but I don't know and I don't particularl
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I've yet to break 1k on a computer system because it's just not that necessary.
I mean yeah as you say you're not doing anything especially intensive. I spent 2 and a half grand on my last desktop (excluding upgrades). RTX2080Ti, 64G RAM, Ryzen 9 3900X. Quite a beast in its day, though showing its age now compared to more modern machines. Mostly been used for deep learning (which is really a Linux first task) and a bit of 4k video editing and creation.
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I could see the need for that if you are doing the video editing and deep learning tasks. Then you'll need that extra ram and a higher end graphics card.
I've always just felt like Apple way over charges for their stuff but I also get they've set them selves up as the luxury brand, so that cost more.
The market is big enough for us all to find something that works for us.
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Yeah I'm not a fan of Apple for many reasons.
Shame because their SOCs are legitimately really good hardware wise. Shame about the poor practices, user hostile stuff and general apple obnoxious. Oh and the mediocre operating system.
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I'm an Apple fan; I'm typing this on a 2018 Mac Mini that I spent roughly $2K on -- but it's 2026 and that Mac is still running just great. That works out to an amortized cost of about 68 cents per day -- which is to say, negligible compared to my other expenses.
I'm a Linux fan, typing this on a 2010 Thinkpad W510 that I spent no idea how much on, probably 2k plus some upgrades along the way for not much. The amortized cost is very good. Definitely showing it's age, and I think the hardware will conk out or
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I'm an Apple fan
I was under the impression that with their ARM processors, Apple no longer had any fans ;)
(Yes, for the pedantic readers out there, I know it isn't strictly true)
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You don't have to be a purist. My desktop is an AMD Linux box. The 4600G is entirely sufficient and I didn't have to spend a fortune on a video card.
The laptop is an M1 MacBook Air because of great battery life while the PCs are all about Gaming bragging rights and don't care about anything else, and they seem to be plastic crap anyway.
My phone is a $130 Motorola that makes and receives texts and phone calls. I don't care about anything else on a phone.
I do have the low end iPad because it's immune to AI, a
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My joke was to blame ol' Al Gore for giving them the money to develop the Internet with no strings. But does anyone remember who he was?
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I think you should start your own research with the meaning of the word joke. Perhaps starting from the etymology?
No substantive comment on your "reply" because I saw no substance there. Blinded by the rudeness?
My next joke perhaps should be about creeping senility among low-digit IDs on Slashdot. Not all jokes are funny ha-ha. Maybe it's just an attitude problem in your case, but I'd be a fine one to talk about negative attitude. (Currently contemplating a most evil business contest. My initial list of can
Ah, the foul smell of brain farts (Score:2)
In the morning?
Re: (Score:3)
Trump did serve Tim Apple at the White House dinner. It's pretty likely that he told Tim to make everything in America and raise the price of his phones.
. . .so that the Trump Mobile phone looks cheaper by comparison.