How Apple makes more profit on their systems...

[Alex Hewitt]

Yesterday some friends asked me to accompany them to the Apple store in 
Salem to help them purchase a Mac. I had talked to them previously about 
some of the advantages of the platform including decent reliability and 
in their case the much lower amount of malware targeting the system.

But before going I decided to check out the Apple web site. They were 
planning on buying a Mac Mini which is probably Apple's best bargain for 
their budget. Recently a customer had purchased the current (early 2009) 
model and I already knew that if they were going to use their VGA CRT 
type monitor they were going to need an adapter. The Mac Mini used to 
have a full size DVI connector on the back capable of both Analog and 
Digital connections. The new model has removed the DVI connector and 
replaced it with two much smaller connectors. An included adapter 
produces a DVI-D connection (single link, Digital only) and the other 
connector requires a "miniDisplayPort to VGA" adapter. That has a 
standard VGA connector (what they needed). The miniDisplayPort adapter 
costs $29.95 (and probably costs $2.95 to manufacture in China). I 
actually don't know the right combination of cables that would allow you 
to connect most current digital flat panels. The Apple site doesn't 
provide that information and they don't seem to offer the correct cable. 
They definitely don't tell their customers that they won't be able to 
connect their current monitor unless they are just plain lucky.

I asked the sales guy (who was quite pleasant) why the Apple web site 
doesn't provide enough information for a customer to properly connect 
their new Mini to their existing monitor and he essentially said that 
Apple wants these customers to buy one of their nice shiny "Cinema" 
displays. Of course the Cinema display comes with precisely the correct 
cable to hook up to the digital only DVI-D adapter and only costs $899 
(which is $100 more than the higher end Mac Mini).

My conclusion - Apple isn't in the business for their health. If an 
unsuspecting customer walks through their door and all they needed was a 
decent low end system to web surf, read their email, play their music 
and view their photographs, they will walk out of the store about $2,000 
to $2,500 lighter in the wallet. The Mac Mini is actually a pretty 
decent value for a small form factor system. They have upgraded their 
graphics from the sorry Intel video they previously used to a decent 
nVidia 9400 based chip set. That's all to the good but taking big chunks 
of cash from unsuspecting customers seems to be on the verge of bait and 
switch.

-Alex

P.S. There are a lot of ways to spin this but for me it has a bad smell.