10 Reasons why you shouldn't buy a Macbook Air

[A Y]

There is no way a hard drive-based iPod (as implied by its $180 price) has only $30 of parts. The hard drive alone costs more than that, even in volume.

--Andre

 

[haganah]

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

There is no way a hard drive-based iPod (as implied by its $180 price) has only $30 of parts. The hard drive alone costs more than that, even in volume. --Andre
You don't know what you're talking about. It's in his notes. Also, it's amazing that R&D numbers all of a sudden become meaningless for the IT world...just amazing.

 

[grimslade]

Obviously, much of what distinguishes an ipod from, say, a Zune is the software and the interface. What does that "cost"? It's impossible to say, since Apple doesn't sell the software at retail.

Is that in his notes?

 

[Tokyo Slim]

For the second year in a row, Apple (specifically, this year's MacBook Air) wins (loses!) this years PWN 2 OWN hacker-con. MBA/OSX hacked in under 2 minutes, using a website based safari-only java exploit. OSX first operating system to go down (amongst Vista, Ubuntu, and OSX) for two straight years.

The flaw for which Dai Zovi wrote an exploit exists solely in Safari, not in other browsers. Indeed, if the machine in the pwn-2-own contest had been running Vista, Macaulay wouldn't have bothered to try a remote IE exploit, he said.

"[IE flaws] are worth way more money"”more people use them," he said.

For the record, nobody was able to hack Ubuntu, Vista, or OSX over a secure network, which comprised the entire first day of attacks.

 

[robin]

Dear T.S., I just saw this video linked to on valleywag and I immediately thought of you.

Regards, robin

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by robin

Dear T.S.,

I just saw this video linked to on valleywag and I immediately thought of you.

Regards,

robin

This is what I imagine happens every time someone opens an Apple product.

 

[Viktri]

Originally Posted by haganah

Can I see where you got this 20-30 number and on what product? isuppli has put out a couple of recent numbers but I haven't seen any numbers that low so perhaps you have them in your notes?

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

There is no way a hard drive-based iPod (as implied by its $180 price) has only $30 of parts. The hard drive alone costs more than that, even in volume. --Andre

Originally Posted by haganah

You don't know what you're talking about. It's in his notes. Also, it's amazing that R&D numbers all of a sudden become meaningless for the IT world...just amazing.

Originally Posted by grimslade

Obviously, much of what distinguishes an ipod from, say, a Zune is the software and the interface. What does that "cost"? It's impossible to say, since Apple doesn't sell the software at retail. Is that in his notes?
My prof researches business supply chains and improvements/cost reduction techniques. I don't have access to these materials. If you guys are seriously interested, I'll email him for the name of the study. Andre - where do you base your figures from? Just curious why you think it is impossible for parts to cost that much - do you have any experience in the field that would suggest the numbers are off? (I only know about such figures in the suit construction field since my uncle gave me those numbers from a friend who owns one of the mass produced suit factories and the cost savings in China are ridiculous). haganah: IT R&D costs are not irrelevant but they are sunk. grimslade; that's right. That's actually what we cover in class; deriving value. It's actually more difficult than it sounds even when using real data rather than made up or "what it should be" data.

 

[Brian SD]

According to iSuppli, the iPod 80gb hard drive costs apple $73. The costs of flash memory are decreasing so much that it's predicted in three years, a 128gb flash drive will cost Apple about the same.

 

[Viktri]

Originally Posted by Brian SD

According to iSuppli, the iPod 80gb hard drive costs apple $73. The costs of flash memory are decreasing so much that it's predicted in three years, a 128gb flash drive will cost Apple about the same.

I should probably make some more clarifications.

I was just searching up iSuppli and came across:

http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=86960

which brought me to:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,11...1/article.html

To clarify, I was only referring to parts cost - I consider the sell costs (marketing, advertise, related overhead) as part of the brand equity costs (and I think it is justified considering the manner in which Apple maintains their image). It follows I was not including software costs (because software isn't parts).

Also, my prof did not mention which iPod it was. It is likely he was refering to the smallest iPod (by harddrive)
In 2005, it is estimate in that article the iPod Shuffle costs aprox $59 @512mb.

According to iSuppli,
http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_iSupp...285_08794.html
The 4 gig is approximately $60




However, the problem is still that these articles don't really delve deep into the supply-chain and added valued.

IE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/bu...erland&emc=rss

This is crux:
(for the 30 gig iPod)

According to the authors' estimates, the $73 Toshiba hard drive in the iPod contains about $54 in parts and labor. So the value that Toshiba added to the hard drive was $19 plus its own direct labor costs. This $19 is attributed to Japan since Toshiba is a Japanese company.

And if they go down into the $54, how much would the hard-drive really be worth?
And if they did this for the other products involved in producing the iPod?
I'm not sure.

I suspect $20-30 may have been rather accurate for the smaller ipods and I suspect I sounded like I was inferring that all iPods have the same costs (which is not true). I can't see the costs exceeding $100 for the 30 gig Ipod.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by Viktri

Andre - where do you base your figures from? Just curious why you think it is impossible for parts to cost that much - do you have any experience in the field that would suggest the numbers are off?

I think you already answered your question. It's just logic: if a hard drive costs more than $30, then there's no way a device with a hard drive can cost $30.

--Andre

 

[robin]

Originally Posted by Andre Yew

I think you already answered your question. It's just logic: if a hard drive costs more than $30, then there's no way a device with a hard drive can cost $30.
Well, I'm not saying this goes for Apple, but when you start having things made in bulk you would be surprised at how low the manufacturing prices get per unit.

 

[A Y]

Originally Posted by robin

Well, I'm not saying this goes for Apple, but when you start having things made in bulk you would be surprised at how low the manufacturing prices get per unit.

Yes, but I believe OP was quoting volume prices already.

--Andre

 

[gdl203]

I didn't read the whole thread but... is this one of the 10 reasons?

http://gothamist.com/2008/03/18/charlie_rose_re.php

 

[imageWIS]

Originally Posted by gdl203

I didn't read the whole thread but... is this one of the 10 reasons?

http://gothamist.com/2008/03/18/charlie_rose_re.php

You have to give him this: at least he went on the air. If Larry King was in his shoes, he would have been off the air for a month while whining like the little ***** that he is.

Jon.

 

[A Y]

Charlie Rose's heroic fall was mentioned earlier:

http://www.styleforum.net/showpost.p...&postcount=102

--Andre