Comment Corner and Closing

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I have I have this thing. once I pause, I'm done Like I have to figure out why like I can't like I'm such a hard time continuing my So welcome to the backacroad podcast. We're already off the rails. Roman is shrouded in darkness because we're recording earlier We're recorded earlier than usual and We don't think the lights turn on at the office until a certain time so Roman is, u is is illuminated by a single lamp if you're watching the video U You can see David and I though, right Okay I weirdly well lit Yes, he's very welled. well. They got they have better it's like the Glden hour in the UK maybe Whatas it like five o'clock there, David? Th three o'clock. three o'clock. I don't know when the Glden hour is I don't it. I just know it's a thing. h I feel like I should be playing some sexy jazz music or something. Yeah, you have a very, very bry white thing going on I about P. If you if you haven't turned off the show yet This is episode number nine hundred ninety Roman. We are ten awayay from one thousand We almost made it And if you've been following the news at all over the last couple of days We are going to talk today about Apple's Somewhat shocking, somewhat expected very newsworthy price hikes U We're got to runund down, everything has changed. What's worth buying? what's not worth buying. How long we think it'll last. What it means for the iPhone, why AirPods and Apple Watch didn't get price hikes and anything else that we want to talk about Th then we'll have this week in Apple History, and we will close as always with our comment corner You know someone in the comments, we're going to talk about us next week when Jasons But someone in the comments suggested that I might have dyslexia You know I don't think I do. I think I can read well, but maybe not because I do stumble over my own words a lot When I'm reading, like I don't read everything I say. But I read a lot of it att least the intro stuff, and I shouldn't have to by this point. Like I should know it So next week, Roman, I'm going to close my eyes and see if I can do the intros of the show without screwing up Not to prolog this subject because weers listeners want to hear about Apple stuff, but yeah, that's right I don't think that's I think what it is is just not not practiced at that becausecause I used to do the same thing But I I mean, I've been doing this long enough. Yeah. But see, the thing is you're an editor at heart And what I do the same thing. I maybe I'm a podcast host heartot. I even read other people's stuff and I go, you know what? that needs to be fixed. Or that could be phrased better or something like that. Maybe. Anyways All right, Well Apple pricing If you want to comment on my hosting abilities or anything else in the Apple world, you can contact us through Blueky, Facebook or Threads Sarchion Macro look for the Blue Mouse logo, send an email to podcasts at macro. com comment under a video, comment under a post Send us a personal email Um and we'll discuss We'll discuss it on a future show. Maybe are thousands because we're getting very close U All right. Now that that's all out of the way So welcome back, David. It's good to have you U Thank you for having me. Before we start, I always like to pepper you with like England related things because you're more cultured than we are That's not true. Well, you sound more culture than we do Are you u U A you into the Rorld Cup? I assume you're rooting for for England I think they're still in it, right? I think they are, but Oh, you're not interested I don't really like football Oh way, I didn't know that I'm a on sport man, Michael Well, cricket, I know is your thing. I love cricket, But you do make references in your in your writings to like Soccer players So I thought you were a A fan, I guess not. just know you just know references. I used to be into football when I was a younger man So You would have maybe noticed a pattern that all of the football as I referenced played for Everton Football Club in the late nineties or early two thousands ty sort of window out of it If you told me about somebody in the World Cup right now, I wouldn't know you You never verying, right Are they who is it? U S is in I mean, I don't I don't really follow you. There's like a next round. I know England's I know the US made it I don't know like if they're favored or anything or But I do know that it's happening and I thought that I thought you'd have more more to say. let's move on. is a disaster Sopple Apple last week on Thursday shhut down its store at about eight o'clock And whenever that happens on On our site, it's somewhat exciting because usually that coincides with a new product, a new something to come out Um, this time it was such a a random H. assumed it was related to one of two things. The apples back to school promotion. Usually happens around now, like like mid to late June And or it could have been related to price hikes because the week before, Cook said It was inevitable that Apple had to raise is However We didn't expect anywhere near the extent they I'm trying to find. I'm Okay. I just got the list. So we made a list. of what went up. So all right. so the store went up at about eight thirty AM my time and All the little products at first have like new next to them The only thing newew was that they cost a heck of a lot more than they did before. So I'm just going to run down real quick. the highlights So MacBook Neo, which only came out in March, and it was a big deal It was u ninet nineents started at and everyone' like, my go, that's a great price and it's cheapest mac ever. And. Tim Cook said that we sold more macs than ever d during the lunch and blah, blah, blah blah. costs that starts to six doll ninety nine cents, which is one hundred dollars more or Was that that twenty percent more than or maybe more Sinding een There you go. Thanks than than, thanks Dick. Yeah, seventy percent more than before. And that's for both models. So sixars ninety nine perents seven and ninety nineents is what they start at now The MacBook Air went up two hundred dollars Maca Pro went up three hundred dollars at the low end and like five hundred dollars at the high end. The Mac Mini went up two hundred bucks The IMac went up two hundred bucks The Mac Studio went up five hundred dollars for the U the M four What is it Roman? The M four max. Max, yeah. And the M three Ultra went up like thir thousandteen hundred dollars or some craziness Um So that's just a max. I'll stop there for now David, you wrote a column the other day or yesterday? Yes, Tuesday. You wrote a column yesterday about your thoughts on what Apple did and whher in that day too far or I don't really have a question More of a common than question. More of a commment, but I do want to give you space to talk about this stuff for. I feel like they maybe did go too far It's hard. So before before we talk about this, we have to sort of acknowledge that we don't have access to the The minutia stand you know, if if they're contracts with all each of their suppliers, You look at the The price likees other companies have done It was inevitable I think I think Microsoft just announced aroundound about the same time a second price hike on the box within the space of about year. so it Everybody else is doing it you know, the price of the components were going up. They You know, they weren't going to keep it the same with that pressure But they put them up by so much that that you have to wonder What margin they had how much they could have absorbed and still make profit and why they didn't Wh they didn't take some of the hit themselves because we know Apple has a high marginal rate of its products. That's its thing. They' slightly lower volume than other companies with a very high units profit margin. which gives them exactly the wigger room they need for situations like this. And they had they had a Prime opportunity here. to put their prices up If they felt that was necessary, which I can totally understand, but then put them by a reasonable amount and still make money and then look like great value compared to other companies. And they didn't do that. slammed the prices up dramatically. Youve seem particularly dramatic after they'd held on for so long. they sort of U they described it as shielding us They put out a stab feel is a little bit Dad. a little bit arrogant. They said they were shielding us for the price rises and then then when it came to the end, they put them up by as he said. five hundred dollars in some cases, over a thousand dollars in some cases I feel like they could have got away with not doing that. We know Firstly, that they weren't really shielding us. It was that they had the leverage to not need to put up the prices because of the preferential treatment they get from suppliers. We know that people in the supply chain will give them the RAM before other companies, they have that written into their contracts. they will give them the best prices they can becausecause losing the contract with Apple is a catastrophe for any supplier. So they were already getting good prices, far better prices than any other company. They were themselves shielded from the situation. And as soon as I could read Sorry go. I can read the fullse statement Real quick So it's relatively short. The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage We have never seen a component price increase this much this quickly We have shielded our customers from these increases so far We have reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find Solutions. You can't disagree with that, cant you? I mean, Right As a general principle, that is all true, that is all fair Prices have gone up and it would not be reasonable to expect them to sell at cost or make a loss But they've put them up by so much that it seems excessive. And we know that they have the leverage, they have the wiggle room they're in a far better position than any other company because they have they have cash reserves as well They have these large margins that could be shrunk and still make a profit. They have the preferential contracts with the suppliers. They have all of these factors in their favor. and despite that, they went They They made a decision to go hard with the price increases. And I think they've gone too far. and I think that's a deliberate decision Because they don't want to do it multiple times. Beuse I was just gonna to ask you that Yeah. So if happena let's say all of the increases right now are cut in half No went up fifty bucks. MacBook Air went up one hundred Pros went up one hundred and fifty. and then in November or sometime before the year' up, they did it again. Same thing. Neo' now up. So now they're back there what they are now Psychologically Is that better for consumers or for Apple? Or is it better just to pull off the bandyid all at once and say, hey We're doing this. I have to assume They're not going to go up for at least another year if ever Like I have to, you know, Apple is obviously a gigantic company. Tim Cooks is an operations guy They have people all over the world. They have contracts suppliers, they have contracts, all this stuff. They must have figured out This is what we need to raise deal with this situation, which you wrote a story yesterday, is not getting better in twenty twenty six. it's not getting better and for most of if not all of twenty twenty seven. It is a problem that is here to stay right. It's going to get worse. So. I got to assume they factored all of that into their decision because they knew they were going to get slammed, both in the press and on their stock price and everything else. Like it's a, when you're a four trillion dollars company and you make such massive moves. You're going to get hurt, you know in the short term You know, it'll all calm down And as you said, they're not the only one Microsoft Playsttation went up. laptops have gone up steam deck. that's that, um littleittle handheld thing That went up a couple hundred dollars last month or maybe this month, I don't recently. So It's a problem that is industry wide and you're right. Apple does have way more leverage than even Microsoft because they make more hardware and they sell more hardware and they're bigger than all these other companies What we don't know is how long Apple has been absorbing C It's at all. like I don't know. Mbe maybe they haven't been This isn't a new issue. This started I want to say like midway through twenty twenty five RAM started to increase. maybe Maybe to toward the end of twenty twenty five Ram started to like on the consumer level. Like you saw what was eighty bucks is now one hundred and twenty dollars and. months later, it's one hundred and eighty dollars. Like it kept going up And Apple has these contracts in there, you know, from what we what we understand They're, you know, roughly six months, a couple like maybe maybe a quarter at a time, maybe maybe half a year at a time And they adjust It could be that june thirtieth. which is today all of these contracts with all of their RAM suppliers because it's not just one They all expired And they went from I'm just going to throw out an arbitrary number twenty dollars for eight gigs a RAM to one hundred and ninety dollars for eight ks R. I don't know I don't know what the prices are fromom what I'm reading, they've gone up. They've doubled tripled Quadrupled at the supplier side So It's entirely possible that They haven't absorbed any costs upntil now Everything ran out now and they said, okay, everything's going up, so we're going to charge more Or They've been absorbing costs since January And it just got to be untenable. And they said, you know, we're becausecause they they're selling more max than ever. they're selling more of everything because, you know tle. They grow every corner Last quarter, they just had like their biggest what is the second quarter in history. So One of two things are true. Either way, I hear what you're saying because Apple isn't in a unique spot, whatever they're paying stillill probably less than their competitors, I would assume. I mean, mean who knows, mayaybe not Because right now the RAM companies hold all the cards. so So maybe Apple is is they they don't care if they lose Apple at this point. likeike will someone will buy this rent. We don't care who we sell it to. Someone's going to buy it So Um I don't know.'s it's a shock. I do think in three months time Th You know, a nineteen ninety nine for a MacBook Pro will just become the normal it as they as it often does You know, we just We just move on a question In general, Maroman, you can answer too if you because you wrote an article about this last week too. do you think prices will ever go back and any whether it's to what they were or just lower in general Do you think Apple's ever going to? uce prices on any of this stuff again tend to think that they won't go back. Maybe they'll do a thing where I mean, for instance, with the MacBook Air, I think Did't wasn't it like a year or two ago when they cut the price by a hundred dollars or something like that? Yeah and with the M two, I believe, yeah. Right. So I could see them doing something like that. The thing is there are just way too many factors to figure out in terms of Apple' In terms of the pricing looking that far ahead in the future because Like we know this RAM thing isn't going to die down anytim soon. No And it may never end It's not just you know, I don't know this for sure. I haven't done enough research, but It's not just RAM because you know they're building whole computers. RAM just happens to be the compart that they need a whole lot of But you know, there are other components that they need And I could eventually see, you know, issues supplier issues happening with those components too Yeah, that could influence sur prize And then you know, for instance, in the United States, there are all kinds of other economic factors like inflation and things like that Everything's just much more expensive now. you know' what what I think could happen is We're all just going to be get to a point where We accept that these are the prizices now and they're kind of, you know, They accepted as normal now And so why should why would Apple need to cut down the prices? So it's not that they're trying to manipulate the price so they can make more money. It's just that The cost of living nowadays is just higher Yeah You know, and it doesn't seem like we're going to get any relief anytime soon. So I should preface I should have preface. Preface. He've been talking for like twenty minutes. Yes. I should have preface it by saying, I am not an economic expert or anything like that. It's just hard to see that after these prices have been in place for a year or two, Apple going, Yeahah, we're gonna to cut that You know, maybe they'll cut the MacBook Neo down to five hundred ninety nine. Yeah. That seems like that seems feasible That seems like actually that they they would prefer to have that price point for that particular. I think so. yeah, I think so. But other things like, you know, who knows what the iPhonees is are going to be priced at when they come out this fall Products that have gone up two hundred, three hundred dollars you know, I think that's new normal now. Our roll battery is the same That's like asking if all soccer players are the same. Take Messi, the most decorated player ever. Is there any other player who has achieved that? No, just him. Now take Duracl. 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David, reviewed that iPad Three years ago, maybe And at the four hundred forty nine price, that's what it was introduced at And you basically said, like this thing ain't worth it. Not for that price. and not when the iPad Air is five dollars ninety nine cents. Well, now the iPad Air is seven doll forty nineents which is crazy to me I love Yeah. like not love. I don't I don't necessarily care personally about it. but We would like if somebody wanted an iPad that I knew That's the one I'd recommend. eleven inchi pit air iss five and nine. You get a fantastic screen, you get an M four processor or an M three processor, which everyone was at the time At seven forty nine, I don't know. I don't know if I can if I Would recommend that and I also don't know if I'd recommend the base level at four hundred forty nine. I mean you can get it cheaper at Amazon Always or best buyer or wherever you're shopp I don't know But as Roman says, all of the comparators have gone up as well. So it's it's hard to hard to recommend things But at the same time, you think, well, what's the alternative? You know, if I'm telling a relative You shouldn't buy that. It's overpriced. They'll say, okay Do I get a tablet from somebody else and well they'll all have gone up as well. Well maybe we don't need them. Maybe people start realizing that a lot of the things we buy and I include myself absolutely in this We don't nearly need I don't need an iPhone every year I don't need a MacBook and an iPad and an iPhone I don't need three, four five home pods. You know what I'm saying? Like Once the prices go up and you start thinking considering Ne versus want You know, Apple might be inadvertently causing people to reconsider whether or not, not so much that they're going to buy an apple or something else, but maybe they don't need it at all Right now. or they go refurbished. I think we' the sort of halfway house probably acknowledge, I think this is going to trigger an increase in demand for second hand. Really. And it fitted quite nicely with the sale as well with the Prime D day sale Yeah did. I wonder if they plann that with Amazon I didn't see a lot of enormous bargains, but And with the back to school thing as well, it did feel like they calculated it carefully But the one factor we haven't Sorry, the one factor we haven't discussed so far is the Tim Cook leaving as CEO Yeah which may be quite a big factor in them not putting them up now and then putting up them putting them up again in November. Because this means Tim Cook can put his name on it. He can be the face of price rises Every like a skim Um John Turnnus comes in September He then gets to enjoy the new normal The high prices, the high margins. without anyone blaming him. although he may have to. annn iPhone Yeah, I literally have that written down right here like So Apple did not announce price hikes for three products. iPhone, most notably AirPods and Apple Watch So Two of those three products, we know for sure will be announced in September the iPhone, eighteen Pro and eighteen Pro Max and the new iPhone fold or ultra, whatever you want to call it And obviously the series twelve Apple Watch. Th those always come out in September and Yeah So turn us avoided being the bad guy for Macs and iPads. but if he announces the The iPhone eighteen Pro starts to twelve ninety nine and the Pro Max starts at fourteen do ninety nine. Oh, and the iPhone Ultra starts at twenty four ninety nine and the Apple Watch Series twelve starts it for fifty You know Those are on him and those are the ones that well, I don't know about a watch, but the iPhone obviously is the biggest bigiggest seller that Apple has and You know, that howid a quarter is extraordinarily important. for Apples's, you know, just its fiscal year. I mean, that's the one that they're selling, you know, the biggest quarter and it's it's Christmas and awesome. So you know, he's not Off the hook here. because I have to assume iPhones will be going up. Felipe Esposito, our contributor wrote a story last week that his His source says, They're looking at probably fifty to hundred dollars, probably a hundred dollars increase across the board for for iPhone And you know iPhone foold, that's not priced yet. So that they have wiggle room. We were thinking nineteen ninety nine would be a lot That might be twenty two dollars ninety nine cents for the base or something like that. So U Turnnus is going to have to turn on his charm real quick to sell these these high prices to u to people who are, you know, kind of reeling You know, I'm reading this I was reading the story yesterday, u, Gamers Nexus interviewed U so I mentioned before, Steam Steam Deck. It's like this little PC handheld thing that plays steam games. And they just went up a couple hundred bucks And the quote from Valve, who is the company that makes steam deeck He says, um, when talking to the RAM suppliers They give us they give us a price and they say you can buy that money. it's a yes or a no. And if we say no, they never talk to us again So RAM companies are holding all the cards right now So All the chips that just increaseed, they're all older chips you know, M five M four. I mean they're, you know, they're current but they've been being manufactured for a little while But the new chip the A twenty A twenty Pro, presumably in in the new phones, that's brand new So we don't know what Terms Apple Got for that for that RAM for that chip. and And they can get real messy Real quick If a ninellars ninety nine iPhone suddenly starts at eleven ninety nineents. That's a nightmare for John Turnus Yeah. I don know how that's going to affect that quarter I know Yeah The one thing you can say is Apple is in that same position. You know, the episode of Mad Men where all the cigarette companies have to stop advertising This is a problem that affect all of Apple's competitors too. Sure, sure. It's going to be a test of of the consumer market whether people can not buy a smartphone as often as they do at the moment Yeah twenty two hundred for the iPhone ultra That's a lot That's That's a lot of money for a phone. Folding or notut So this is the interesting thing then is why they didn't raise the price on the existing iPhones now Because what this and they and there's a signal there in the statement that they say, we're going to have we're going to have to put up prices starting start including the. So this statement is very clear. there's going to be more Or there could be more, but they're certainly leaving the door open. yeah. Yes. Eactly. So Any consumer that looks at that is going to see Maybe I should buy my phone now. is this the thinking? that they know that they I mean, possibly, very possibly. yeah. They can't stem the tide on the A twenty generation of iPhones They are going to have to be expensive. So they're sort of saying to us, buuy these now. Buy these now before we have to make them expensive. aybe they'll Yeah based on the rumors, the eighteen proro isn't going to be all that different from the seventeen proro at least visually, there'll be a couple, obviously a couple new things, you know. road and stuff. But for the most part Yeah, for the most part, you're getting similar. similar phone. so yeah, maybe. And also the iPhone the base level, the iPhone eighteen isn't supposed to launch until next spring Now all along We thought it That was because they were splitting up the pro phones, which is the new folding phone and the pro and then leaving the lower end stuff for the spring maybe They're also doing it to give customers another couple of months to buy an iPhone seventeen And while, because I would be shocked if they just raise the price of that phone. it's, I mean, it's possible that all of a sudden starts at eightll ninet nineents instead of seven ninety nineents in September. My guess is they're going to leave those prices alone. the seventeen and the seventeen E And There'll be a surge, somewhat of a surge in buying for for that phone which is also rumored to be not all that different and the seventeen That because that's the other end of this is that Apple disaffects future phones, future products because the way they have to design them, the way the chips that they have available, to the way they they They could work with what they have. and the price. changes how you develop future products. There was a report last week about the the M six and the M seven chip for the Mac Apple might just skip to M six Pro and the M six Max chip Because it's just not cost effective for them to make these families of chips anymore because it's because of the rAM and because of the suppliers and everything else So they might just stick with the M five Pro Max or another Six to eight months and then jump right to the M seven T us. various reasons, but among them It's just not Cost effective doing things the way that they were doing it. So I don't want to give. I don't want to make it sound like I'm giving Apple a pass here. But I can understand where these price increases are coming. and I can understand that they're under just a massive amount of pressure. to figure out how to do this without looking like it's gouging customers, although it certainly has the appearance of that because We're paying two hundred hourars more for the same product we got last week for two hundred hourars less Um, Man, it's just a messy, horrible situation all around. Well I have a question then. Yeah the usual you what we are taught to expect for supply and demand If the RAM companies hold all the cards are seeing massively inflated. demand, they're able to charge much more for their products Why aren't they because this has been going on for What six months a year already and it's forecast to carry on for another eighteen months Why aren't we seeing the RAM companies ramping up production increasing their output. so that they can make more money from supplying more tips That's the thing that confuses me about all of this. It's the same reason why when there's an oil shortage Prices at the pump go up, but they don't make more gasoline because they want you to pay more. So Micron, I'm just going to use this as an example because this is the first one I was able to pull up Micron, which is one one of the bigger RAM companies is only a couple EsK Heincks Samsung, I guess, Micron. mayaybe there's three or four. I don't remember maybe you can correct me there. But there's not many major RM suppliers out there U last quarter Micron reported forty one point a fivealf billion dollars in revenue, three hundred and forty percent three hundred forty six percent increase year over year That's why they're not rushing. to make more because they can just charge more. for what they have And as they make more, they charge less and it's basically a wash So it's not like people, it's not like they don't have it It's I guess it's the forecast or what? I don't know what it is. Gram is available It's just that more people want it than I don't even know. N'm not sure how supply andmand works because the supply is there Regardless, they're just charging more for it. You think if they can get away with that Other companies would join the market and say, well the RAM is available can be produced prices have gone up So like this is you know, the Adam Smith stuff, you know, you naturally expect as the naive consumer that other companies would slide in there and supply more rAM. Right T take advantage of the high prices I don't think those companies exist and the ones that do exist so that there's There's a few Chinese or China based RAM companies that Apple has actually petitioned the White House to remove Yeah the blockade on on imports because they're not allowed to buy from them and that would obviously Lower prices. My guess is that's going to stay because some reason why they're doing it and You know, Apple is using its leverage to say, hey, you know, we're getting crushed here Can we buy RAM from this company that we previously couldn't buy? because is going to end up being cheaper for the consumer. I do believe that Apple wants to lower price, not will lower them. I do believe that Apple didn't want to raise prices I can I can I can believe that But I also don't think that they necessarily care about in the sense that if we're willing to pay two thousand dollars for a MacBook Pro, that was seventeen hundredars before. They're fine with them. one hundred percent agree We also didn't talk about the two products that I would highly recommend not buying. is the Apple TV So this one, this is the one where it's like, well maybe Apple is being a little bit greedy here. So Apple TV is like five years old. It has like, I think, an A fourteen processor in it. and on Wednesday It was one hundred and twenty nine bucks for I think thirty two gigs And and one hundred and forty nine four one way with the En Sn like that Those prices went up to onears ninety ninell two hundred fiftyents It's like like an eighty percent price increase or something. you're better a percentage as than I am, David, but it's some crazy amount. I think the bigger one is eleven percent. Yeah. It's like so like I would not recommend anyone buy those You're talking about a four to five year old product that just almost doubled in price. That baffles me Do you think anyone was? buying those. consonsidering the age Is this a sort of anchor pricing that they're saying, Oh, look, we put this up by this much to make the other price increases a look more reasonable Baby I mean that that's possible where it's like, look could we could have raised it more. L look what we did to those Um I don't know. I mean, listen, I love Apple TV. hereere I go loving Apple products again. I really like my Apple TV. L I would it's the best I've Love is okay I've used Google whatever Chrome cast, I've used the Fire TV, I've used my my TV one like all of them. And Apple TV is like so much better than anything I've ever used I still wouldn't pay two hundred bucks for one N for notot for one from four or five years ago that doesn't even It's not even getting like the new seri or anything like that So there's a bunch rumors that there's new ones on the way. And maybe maybe, you know, This is a signal that they are coming or aybe it's a signingal of they're not coming I don't even It just seems crazy that they raised those prices on Homepine Mi went up to from ninety nine to one hundred thirty homeome pod the big home pod went from one ninety two ninety nine c to three hundred fifty And Apple TV went up, you know, what I could have said. So I love all the products that they have. Like I have issues with the iPad pricing, but those I would be like there's no like there's no way you can convince me. That's worth. dropping two hundred bucks for when you're dealing with a product that came out in twenty twenty two Well its it feels so arbitrary as well. Yeah didid they have a particularly large amount of RAM? No so no Why do they? And they run in Apple Watch chips u The Apple TV is running iPhone chip and the home pods are running Apple watch chips so Those didn't go up in price, I don't know. Yeah, arbitrary is the best word for it. It just it does seem very. Or maybe they did it because as you say They can use it as like a false flag or whatever you call that Canary in N Coma, I don't know. W there some metaphor there? and they know that like those aren't high volume products and you know, people aren't going to People weren't really buying them before and the few people that buy them now would just pay more We don't speak to the fact that There's a lot of people out there that go to the store to buy something and don't really know how much it's supposed to cost. They don't have, they don't I mean, obviously they don't work like we do But they also don't go in stdy prices like my brother, for example Like he'll call me up and be like, oh, I saw this this thing shouldhould I buy? Like, No, don't buy that would you crazy? Like like they just don't, you know, people don't study prices like like we do and they don't always know A A MacBook is supposed to be sixteen hundred, not twenty two hundred So there's a certain segment of the owniers that would just go and oh, I want that, so I'll buy it It's just it's it's it sucks that The iPad is one hundred and fifty dollars more and the No that was, you know, like Two months ago it really seemed like Apple was all of a sudden became like like a Comany for everybody And now once again, they're back to just being the a luxury the luxury PC maker that, you know, You can't really afford Yeah lasted about a hundred days. Yeah, Rick. It's trick it is depressed. in a sad episode A little bit. I mean, five ninety nine still good. like That's what we thought the price was going to be when they came out. six hundred sixars ninety nine, Rather Yeah. Like that's what we expected And then five then I was like, oh wow, this is amazing. and now it's back to what we thought. they are who we thought they were W dispose us The effect you have from ye When you think a price is going to be something and then it's something else and it shifts your perception. Totally And so not the iPhone seventeen E You know, we're thinking is a bargain. when when that came out, I was at the front of the queue complaining that it didn't cost the same as the iPhone SE Now that's become established. so maybe any going to become normal and We're just going to buy phones less often U And it's going to be like It's going to be like the companies that make the rAM or make the or, you know drill for oil and Apple is just going to take advantage of the fact that there's more or the same amount of demand for smartphones there ever was, but less supply just go up the prices and enjoy the fact that people are going to still quite often want to buy an iPhone kind of charge what they' I Yeah, I also don't think that similarly speced Android phones are going to be any bargain. I'm sure Samsung's going to raise their S twenty six prices or twenty seven prices as soon as Apple does anyway Everyone's dealing with it. The PC world are sister publication. They ran a story a couple of months ago like Samsung wouldn't sell RAM to Samsung. The phone division wanted RAM and it like no Like you like we're not selling it to you because we have this other supper that's going to pay more. So like they're doing, like everyone's wrapped up in this stuff. the question I have is and I'll have to ask Jason next week because I don't have the answer and No offense, but I don't think Roman does either Can Apple just start making RM Like can they start trying to develop Like they made chips Kay within the next, I don't know, twenty four to thirty six months design their own RM and make their own first party rim. I don't know Roman wrote that down. I gotta, as J said, let's fak I don't know if he knows either but he'd be the closest to knowing Yeah. I don't think they would though The whole thing under Tim Cook has been outsourcing the risk outsourcing the inventory and the supply getting everybody else to do that for you. and then you just pick and choose from around the globe wherever Labor is cheapest orver parts are cheapest and just have your spider's web And to make it yourself, you then have you're then responsible for paying the employees. you're then dealing with the tax in whichever country Well, I mean, I don't mean like like fabricating it themselves, like designing it like like what they do at chips and what they do with the modem now and what they do with the end two stuff. L like they make more onents that they didn't make before Silicon components than they ever did. They in the next years I don't know make LDR five LDDR five, whatever it' his RAM That's Apple, like you know, Apple, actual App and not buy it from EsK Hangarks or Micron or wherever they're getting it from To be continued, if you' len to this. We might have an answer for you next wee Oh two weeks we're off next week I'm going to forget by then. We're never going to early anwer the Iish. Wess somebody just have to write in a comment Yeah, right. seend us a comment and remind me to ask Jason, or if someone out there knows So on't buy an Ale TV, don't buy a homebo Maybe by a mac. Stongly consider whether or not you need to buy an iPad I I in seventeen Yeah, buy an iPhone seventeen and keep your fingers crossed that the iPhone ultra will cost under three thousand dollars Okay Roman, that was depressing. Let's let's talk about something more fun This week in Apple History So this week in Apple History, so I need to lead up to it a little bit So in june twenty ten was the release of the iPhone four The best phone ever made. The best phone ever made, according to sources. Soon after its's released, there were reports of cellular reception problems And these reports Pickking up steam Oh became a thing and then so then on july second Tan A few weeks after the release of the iPhone four, Apple published What is titled letter regarding iPhone four we pause for a second. Yes. Did Steve Jobs is famous Which he didn't quite say this, but like you're holding it wrong. Was that before or after the letter? do you know Um, so As I understand it The whole He didn't exactly say you're holding it wrong. He's like, just just just just don't hold it that way. Right. But what happened was Steve Jobs was getting emails about this problem And he sent a reply back saye Don't hold it that way essentially It's so many words. And then this person who wrote Steve Jobns happened to be a reader of Mac rumors And Mac Rumors has a for up and he posted that reply on MC Rumors. Right? Was that before I answered the letter though You you know I want to say it was Be I had to assume it was before, right? Iagine imagine you're I did look this up but now I can't remember, of course. It was Yeah, it was before, it was before the letter Imagine you're Steve Jobs and some guy send you an email saying I can't use my iPhone for L like what the hell?ike just a hold of that way, dude The exact quote was non issue, just avoid holding it that way. Right. Unfortunately, holding it that way was holding it like the way you're supposed to hold a phone when you're tryed to talk. Right But I supposed to been natural Right. And then that as everything as things, you know, the game of telephone it got, you know, reinterpreted to you're holding it, you know, don't hold you're holding it the wrong way kind of right To be fair, that is pretty much what he was saying.ike m There' no difference for sure. It's like it's like Lu I am your father. Like it didn't quite come out But that's the implication. Right. It is the same thing. You just yeah U, So then on july second, they post this letter Rearding Apple iPhone four and it basically talks about how You know, sometimes there are issues with cellular reception and Apple's gone to, you know, this great extent to try and Have their iPhones perform as well as possible that It's it's notable couple of things are notable. One I have one for was that crazy leak that Gizmoto right L But the iPhone four was the first iPhone that was made of glass And that's what the issue was where the iPhone three G, three GS and the origin iPhone had plastic back, so like all that cellular stuff can go wherever with the iPhone four It had to come out the sides those little bnds. So if you covered those bands, becausecause you know, the technology wasn't nearly as advanced as it is today So if you covered them and they were like literally at the bottom of the phone where you hold it could Dpending on the strength of your signal while you were walking around, and that was this was before five G and LTE was still relatively new Um like you would get drive calls That one was incredible. I wish they would make a retro version. I would buy that in a second. It was awesome So the thing in this about this letter is it says that the reason why people think They're getting poor reception is because Apple was miscalculating It's like the bars soon. Yeah Yeah it's true. They were Yeah. And so they said they were going to fix it right And so what that means is that like you would see your phone And it would say four bars and all of a sudden they would drop. you' like what the he So they recalculated that to say like it's actually two bars So what of two things is going on there? either they' They're manipulating you before or after the fact because Like either they were telling you you had four bars when you really had two they were telling you had two now when you really had four because I'm sure it was It was somewhere like one of those two things were true And then they also gave away those bumper, those bumper cases that that solved the problem becausecause it spread the signal throughout the top. was able to be read easier And then Apple did follow up with a press conference on july sixteenth the Apple campus. I did not go to that particular pross conference, but if I remember correctly, it was kind of a contentious But probably Yeah. I mean, you know, Steve Jobs was very, he didn't suffer any fools So he was he must have been like, what the hell? Like have you seen this phone Becauseuse like we don't understand like people who are new to Apple. Like the iPhone four was like, oh my god Because the three GS was fine. it was plastic and you know, black and white and what a four was just like this gorgeous glass and metal A thing at had square s side the retna display, it was amazing And then he has to deal with this crim. I like the ending of the letter. It says, than you for your patience and your support. That's like just dripping with sarcasm. Like just leave us alone to buy the damn phone people. David, did you have an iPhone for Yeah, that was kind of my first one I did So I was working for PC advisor' since become tech advisor. I was working for PC advisor when the first iPhone came out and I covered it for them I got an iPhone four when I got my job as the editor of iPad and iPhone user. So that was when I'd fully joined the Apple world and I got this amazing phone I knew at the time that it was Incredible. But when this story broke, it was justust the weirdest thing. like Loo at it now, the idea that people were able to just Get hold of Steve Jobs email address. Well, there's that too, yeah and just send him whatever was in their heads. just, I don't like the I don't like this phone. And he would reply And might not even reply in like a guarded Like the way you reply if you sent her a letter and it wouldd be like, you would just Honestly, like just give it you with both barrels And just say this really like PR non sanctions, just stuff about you need to hold it in a different way, which is just terrible, Because as he said, it was a great phone. It was a brilliant phone But if a phone is dropping calls,ounds like the lowest bar it has to clear We would just go, oh well, you know, all the phones do that. Well that's not you like you can add there was a meeting when they were when they were making it And Steve Jobs was testing it and it started to drop calls. And one of his underlings said, Well, all phones do that. Would he have accepted that? No, he would not. He would have yelled at that person it was It was a great phone. but it was Kind of a big deal that it Yeahah, yeah. I mean, they gave away everyone those those free bumper cases, which, you know not an insignificant cost to them. So clearly they wanted to rectify it. But yeah I totally get that But yeah, that's like dripping with sarcasm. L just don'told it through. Just just avo hold it that way.ike imagine you're Steve Jobs and that's your response to this Imagine you're that guy who you get the respon like, holy Gody Like Steve Js, not only did it respond to, he basically called me an idiot Yeah, there's no filter. There's no There's no gatekeeper that that the email goes through. like there's no secretary that says, maybe you should reply to this differently Just Yeah, just whatever you want. I mean, he didn't care. By that point, Steve Jobs didn't care I mean, it should be noted that he only he only had like another eighteen months to live. R. So but regardless of his own mortality, he didn't care. he was a god by that point We're all just peasants. So we need to wrap this episode up pretty soon. So why don't jump into comic corner quuick. so just a few people have comments about the podcast in general. A fan in Durham, North Carolina the email said, just a brief message to let you know that I really enjoy your show all are just as informative and more fun. and it seems like genial, smart, regular dudes. I even enjoy Michael Simon's epic struggles to get the outros right I do have a where are they now inquiry about the hosts of the previous iterations of Mackeroll podcasts that I love What are some of your former hosts? of that show up to now I can briefly go through that really quick So what you know I don't even know they. I don't know where theyre doing.. So let's go. Mike is the host now. I hosted it previously. So before I hosted The podcast was hosted by Glen Fleichmann who was a contributor for us for a while. now He's kind of doing his own thing. He writes for Jason No at six Cars He's published a couple of books on typography. He's a big typography guy. h so he's kind of got his He's kind of doing different things. Suzie Oaks used to host a podcast She's working at Apple Before that was Chris Breen. He worked at Apple, but now he's retired before that was Cyrus Favar and he's He's done several different things. I think his m. I' never even heard of it. Yeah. He started the podcast. No no way His most recent gig, I think he was the editor he was a news editor for the SF standard here in San Francisco. But he'ss he's kind of done a bunch of different things in published books. He worked for Wired at one point Th then there are different people who have kind of like co hosted like Philip Michaels co hosted for you know, he useds to be a Pilill in host. And He's a Tom's guy, I think, right? Or he He's a Tom's guy, but now he is currently working looking for work. No U So should we be saying that So actually he writes for Jason Snow at Six Cors And he has said that he is looking for work in his ar. He makes it as a smark. As long as it's public information. Yeah. so Sex Colors appears to be a dumping ground for X Mac World podcasts. Yes. Maybe I can get a jumping. Jason Nnail's been, he does six colors. He's kind of like an independent Apple journalist Dan Morren has used to coost every every once in a while. He's kind of like a freelance Apple journalist as well. There's a guy named Lex Friedman who kind of like co hosted every once in a while. He's he does his own thing. He's like an independent business consultant now. Uh, whoo else can I bring up? Dan Franks works at Apple Um, I think that covers pretty much people who have done the podcast This is like a who's who of people I worked for but never met That's a lot of ' them go. And then this last email real quick CLH one twenty six via YouTube said. Really enjoy the podcast. No need to keep apologizing for going long. It's a long form format by design. and one of the main reasons podcasts and our video podcasts are such a successful medium. Best regards and good work, guys. So there a couple of emails patting us on the back Well we actually, we have a meeting All three of us in like two minutes. This why we're Russian So that does it for Cvement quarter. Yeah. Roman got up at five o'clock in the morning to host the host of the light do. And the lights are still not working there. We're alls today And they just went on The lights. Did you just press the switch So that doesert For this episode of the podcast,, Jesus surpris, I screw it again. That does it for thispisode of the macro podcast episode number nine hundred and eighty. No, it is nine hundred and ninety, as I said before Thanks to I didn't fix any of this. Thanks to David.ike we got a meeting I keep getting to get wrong Thank you, Roman And thank you audience for tuning in. You can sucribe to the Macro Podcast and the podcast app on Sotify on YouTube at the Macro Podcast channel or through any other podcast app. If you have any comments or questions, contact us through Blue Sky Facebook or Threads S for Mac, we're looking at a blue mouse logo Comment under a video, comment under a or post, send an email to What is it? Podcast?od Yeah, pod Jesus. I totally forgot. Podcast at backacworld dot com U, send a personal email, just get in touch with us somehow. Let us your those. And if you have any idea, any thoughts on whether or not Apple can make its own RAM within the next twenty four to thirty six months, let us know And you can join us in Ohh, wait, Roman, we're off next week, right? We are off next week. Yes. So it's kind of our delayed july fourth But Romans's on vacation, I think you're you're off next week Someone's not nice back cou days next week celebrating America's birthday helping my son move sir So yeah, so we will see you all in two weeks. Thank you, David for joining us Brush up on your World Cup knowledge for next time And we will see you in two weeks. Bye bye