- There was a very interesting podcast that went into all the details of the AI supply chain shortage [1]
The key takeaway for smartphones isn't so much that iphones will cost $150-200 more, which apple customers have shown they can stomach. But that cheap $200 chinese smartphones will need have to hike prices by about the same amount, which will decimate that market.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDG_Hx3BSUE
- Of course they were, not even Apple has infinite stock.
What they have are sweet margins and deals in place that helped them to take some time until the inevitable came to be.
In the other hand maybe all these prices drive folks to program like we used to, conscious of the hardware limitations, without extra slots to rescue from bad programming.
- There’s probably a big marketing opportunity for anyone who can make more memory-efficient alternatives to some of the bloated apps that have normalized the need for >16GB RAM in a desktop computer.
Alongside dark mode, apps should have a “slim mode” that turns off some of the more wasteful features in order to run on older/smaller hardware.
by ThePhysicist
5 subcomments
- Apple RAM prices always had quite a bit of margin though, I think they charged around 4x the going market rate per GB (that said you can't fully compare their RAM to a loose DIMM stick). I was planning to pick up a new Mac Studio this autumn, now I'll have to see if I can afford it, though I have been spending 1,000 USD on LLM subscriptions in some months so I guess even a 10,000 USD Studio Mac amortizes quite fast if it allows me to run coding models locally.
- I read somewhere (don’t recall where) that Apple typically enters into contracts for RAM on a six-monthly basis and avoids longer term ones. Even in the current situation since last year, it has avoided getting into multi-year contracts like the AI companies have.
It’s certainly possible that the AI companies and their prospects may get a true reality check and then memory prices could cool down in a year or two. If that happens (I personally believe there is a good enough probability), then Apple will come out looking prescient for not getting locked into long term costly contracts.
It remains to be seen for how long the investors in the AI companies are willing to wait for total market capture and/or growing profits.
- Enough of this.
It is time to activate the Chinese.
Seriously let ASML sell to CXMT etc.
by unsupp0rted
0 subcomment
- You can offset this cost by investing in memory stocks.
Apple product got $200 more expensive? Well you made $200 speculating on $DRAM.
Lost $200 speculating on $DRAM? Well at least your Apple product got less expensive.
by noobermin
8 subcomments
- Tbf, this current era of capitalism really is a lot where absolutely no one wants to enter the market and take advantage of a clear overpricing of memory for consumers but simply wants to charge the same amount as everyone else. So much for "efficient markets."
by dist-epoch
0 subcomment
- Thanks, AI!
- Ohhh look, the companies that started the problem have to raise the price! sure yes, I will not buy any product, untill price goes down. And others should do, but each on their own.
Price hikes on my food, home and now tech. I have a pocket and a voice, and I will stop buying any product.
- perfect time to make smaller phones, simpler UIs, smaller apps, smaller screens. SMALLER EVERYTHING. Affordable, small phones is all most of us need.
- Props to them for making it this far into the crisis without raising prices.
It had even led to some anomalies where Apple machines were a better price than similar Windows machines.
- Do we have any estimates on how much the price might increase? I was waiting for the MacBook Pro with the M6 Max and 128 GB of RAM, especially since there are rumors that it will come with a design refresh
by ChrisArchitect
0 subcomment
- [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48576901
- I'm not sure how much of it is just an unintentional side-effect of greed from promises of international capital based in NY, and Dubai, and how much was intentional malicious behavior to destroy home compute to force people to pay for openai subscriptions, but the role of a functioning government typically is to keep corporations from doing exactly this.
Regardless of which one it is, I absolutely despise the cartel that is running the US government right now, that created this situation for their crony big tech buddies.
by fortyseven
0 subcomment
- Or, considering you're already considerable markup, you could just make a little less money on each one... HAHAHA I'm just fucking with you Apple.
- [dead]
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