perfidy

Apple to impose 50% fanboy sucker tax on iPhone consumers, reports AppleInsider. (h/t to gizmodo) It seems that it's only going to cost about $250 to manufacture the iPhone, and so Apple gets the 50% profit margins that in the past have made it rich, yet contributed to its marginal status in the computer industry. And Cingular gets a two year lock for free, since they ain't subsidizing shit. This is as annoying as it always is. It's why I've never purchased a new Mac computer.

I think I might wait a little bit until the fanboy rush subsides and competition, hopefully, forces Apple to lower prices. But competition from Dell, HP and a thousand others never forced Apple to lower Mac prices. Will competition from Nokia, Samsung, Sony/Ericsson and others come to the same? Or will Cingular try to convince Jobs to lower the price to keep people coming? You'd think Jobs would have learned by now that if you sell a hundred computers at a 10% margin, you make a lot more money than selling five at 50%. (Assuming about the same price to manufacture, you make twice as much.)