Everyone who's got an ounce of intelligence knows that low cost products and their companies don't last.

They're so cheap that companies has trouble funding R+D and Support for them.

Look at how long the Commodore 64 or the Spectrum lasted?

Acorn with its 'expensive' Electron or BBC B models survived them because they had some money in the bank.

I don't own any Apple products. But even I can see if you have money in the bank your company can survive swings in the market place and making the odd mistake.

Or as my Marketing teacher taught me:

If all we need are plastic Biro pens, why do people buy wooden and silver ones?

Its a complex world and people make it more so. :-)

Lets face it, the only people who usually by Apples are lovey dovey arty farty web designer, publisher types who know nothing about how computers, the internet or web servers work.

It would simply be a crime NOT to take their money excessively.



This is hardly news.

The article does not go quite far enough, however. In my years of buying Mac crap instead of Dell crap (remember kids, all hardware sucks, all software sucks, the rest is personal preference), I found that equivalently specced machines are about the same price. It's the "extras" from Apple that they charge more for. 

So I just don't get the extras. I get exactly the same part from somewhere else and install it myself. All the parts you mention can be upgraded with little fanfare even on their laptops. All the parts can be purchased separately rather than from Apple. Problem solved.

I buy Mac hardware because it is well designed, QUIET, and it lasts me far longer than equivalent PCs have lasted me. For instance, I'm still using this 5 year old PowerBook, running the lastest MacOSX. It still does everything it was purchased to do, including running more modern applications. The Vaio laptop, purchased around the same time, was converted to a simple Linux utility server because it just couldn't hack doing real work with real, current, up to date applications anymore.

Frankly, I feel pretty good about my last decade of purchasing decisions. Yes, I know Apple tries to rip me off for the extras. This is unlike the other manufacturers who try to rip me off for the whole unit.

Historically the Rolls Royce of motor cars has been assembled primarily from other manufacturers' parts on a custom chassis. 

The modern Mac is essentially a better engineered PC, with a proper operating system.

Maybe not so wide of the mark?

Ahh the fabled hilariously-wide-of-the-mark car analogy!

You /should/ find that when you buy a Rolls Royce, you get something more than Ford parts at a ridiculous markup and a lick of paint...

Apple may have good looking products, but its just a sham that they sell everything so expensive. Never liked mac and never will.

Sky not falling.

In other news I have no problem with Apple bending its customers over and violently deflowering them, it's part of the show.

Apple has always charged way more for upgrading components on their machines. That's what local, independent Apple Dealers were for: Apple wouldn't let them charge less for the same model Mac but the local dealers could 'sweeten' their Mac prices by providing 'deals' (aka regular prices) on RAM, hard drives, etc. The Apple Store has had a huge hit on the independent resellers businesses and this is the bone Apple throws them to entice them to stay them in business.

This is quite normal. 

You will find a similar pattern if you compare Ford and Rolls Royce.

Personally I'd happily pay more for a computer that responds every time I click the mouse rather than every third time (like the guess-which-brand I use at work).

So, the Inq is just waking up to this fact? This isn't news, just a clumsy, ham-handed troll. Users have long known to buy upgrades other than from Apple. There are plenty of legitimate issues surrounding questionable Apple conduct without dredging up non-stories. Plus, your criticisms carry more credibility when you at least make a half-hearted attempt at balanced reporting. I know you can do better than this bit of pablum!

I do agree Apple is pricy, like going to the car dealership for a part. Smart Mac users (I am one) upgrade from reliable third party venders. I have had no problems at all with their parts, reliable venders being stressed!
I even replaced the hard drive in my 12" G4 Powerbook myself by using the tutorial from Powerbook Medic on the net and saved myself over $150, nothing to sneeze at.
I recommend if you are going to buy a new iMac and want to max it out at 4Gb to buy it with the basic 2Gb then upgrade it with memory from Crucial memory. I have already bought Mac memory for an iMac from them with no problems. Apple charges $200 to go from 2Gb to 4Gb. You can buy the same speed 4Gb set from Crucial for $103 saving you $97 bucks. Then sell your old stuff, it is laptop memory.

Apple Fan-Boys must be masochists !!!

Come on, everyone knows that Apple is overpriced, but people are buying the OS. Where is the news?

Leopard only costs $120.00, which for an OS is cheap, but to use the OS you got to pay for the hardware. Yeah, it is a scam, but do you know any other way to get OS X (legit, with support - not that you really need support) ?

As soon as Apple stops (wish) tying the OS to the Hardware then most people will not buy a mac, they'll buy a Asus/Lenovo/whatever and use the Apple OS.

So, moral of the story, find out a little bit about your mac and then order your parts off of newegg/tigerdirect...( tigerdirect is intl, newegg is not. )

Isn't this story just reiterating for the umpteenth time what everyone already knows, which is that Apple sells overpriced hardware with a great OS (which is why you, the Inq, appear to hate them.)
?

This is why I have no respect for people buying Apple.

Even on a slow news day I hoped to see articles pointing to hardware review sites' articles pointing to ther hardware review sites' articles.

That Apple charges silly prices is not news.