Apple computers - Did they really reduce the prices?

 Few days ago I saw news item claiming that Apple is reducing prices of
their computers across the board.  When I tried to go to their website,
 I got a message saying that they are updating their store information
and asked to return back.  Today, I go to the site and did not see any
difference in the prices at all.  All they did is present the cheaper
models (polycarbonate shell) first and then take you to the expensive
models (aluminum shell).

I have been watching the prices for a few months (planning to buy one
for my kid), but the prices have not changed at all.  It looks like an
Apple gimmick here.

NJ

  Neil Jones wrote:

    Considering the Apple// (Apple2 - like the name of the news group) line
was killed off around the early 90's I'd say yeah there is a drastic
reduction in prices. The ][+ went from a $4600 computer (the first one I
ever bought) to a $5 computer. It's still a good machine. It does what
it does very well. Much more stable than modern PCs or Macs. I don't
recall an Apple// in anything but a plastic or fibreglass shell.

    You could be referring to a Macintosh. But then why would you post your
message in a group which predates the Mac... As the other poster (in
comp.sys.apple2 - he didn't crosspost to the other groups) says, you
would have better luck in one of the comp.sys.mac.* groups.

    The thing is Macs are decent machines too. I have more than a few here.
Essentially the new ones are high end PCs running BSD with a fancy GUI
with lots of eye-candy. You can get the same result by installing Linux
or BSD on a PC and choosing Gnome or KDE 4 as your window manager. Sure
you wouldn't be able to run all this great Mac software without jumping
through hoops, but there are enough good quality software clones without
all the DRM.

                Later
                Mike

 On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, The Wizard of Oz wrote:


I was going to say that I'm not sure whether the Apple was all that
expensive or not.  After all, circa 1977, it was expensive, but so
were the alternatives.  The alternatives weren't the all in one unit
of the Apple II, so their price might be illusionary, since you had
to buy quite a big of different items to get what was in the Apple.

And the Apple II was definitely a price drop from minicomputers, that
people had to pay for and live with if they'd needed a computer, up
to a few years before the Apple II hit.

So you definitely got a good deal for going with the Apple II in
1977.

And yes, they probably did drop in price over time.  They ramped up
production, so the costs were shared over many more units.  The later
models in the II line better integrated things, so they could cut costs
and probably reduce the price.

Another way of looking at it is that the Apple II was cheap compared
to what the company released later.  I can't recall how much the Apple
III cost, but the Lisa was something like $10,000.  The original Macintosh
was a drop in price, relatively speaking, but it had a single drive
that only did one side of the floppy, and only 128K of RAM.  It cost
a lot to make it really useable.

The trick to getting a good price is to buy used.  Let someone else
pay the full price, and then get it after a patient wait of a few years.
That's how I finally got an Apple II, and later an Apple IIGS.  Until
I bought a "netbook" last fall, I hadn't bought a new computer since
1989.  The used market happily supplied what I needed.

    Michael

 

My first Mac. was a llGS.
fun , and I found someone to pay me more than I paid for it and I still
have the printer stand.
Now, I have a New IMac and an old G-3 blu/white.
Love my Macs.
Enjoy!
--
It's amazing what you can do. If...
    you put your mind to it.

 
The IIGS isn't a mac.