Comment by Shalomboy
6 hours ago
This is such a better deal than I had growing up, Apple has to be taking a bath on these.
My high school required students to bring their own laptops to school when I started in 2010. Their shopping list suggested a MacBook Pro 13" with a case - I looked up "MacBook Pro price" for the first time in my life and just about walked into traffic. I didn't have a laptop to bring, I didn't want to bring the wrong kind of laptop and get double-screwed, so I bit the bullet and brought my car savings to the Apple store at the mall. A tremendously thoughtful sales rep told me "that's crazy, what school requires a MacBook Pro for 9th graders?", led me to the white unibody MacBooks on the side, and showed me that if I was buying it for school, I would get a discount on the laptop, a free inkjet printer (with ink!), and a free iPod Touch. This blew my mind. I thought it was a scam.
If I recall, that model of MacBook compared admirably against the same year's base model MacBook Pro 13 on a stat sheet but felt worse in hand. The MacBook Neo might actually bring up the rear on fit and finish at the expense of I/O and like, the questionable idea of running an A-series chip in a laptop running Tahoe and Chrome. I'm thrilled with this release.
Wow props to that sales rep. Not many would pass on the opportunity to sell something more expensive. I'm assuming they make some sort of (paltry) commission
I've had a similar experience with Apple Store employees many, many times: I walk in and vaguely describe what I want, and they steer me to the cheapest item they sell that could possibly meet my stated requirements.
I've also returned Apple products multiple times, once (recently) without the packaging, and once several days past the return window. They refunded me every time, no questions asked.
This makes me wonder if it's part of their training?
It is - you’re not trained to upsell, only to give the customer what they need to do what they want.
Can be a little annoying (an employee actively tried to downsell my partner, even though they knew what they wanted), but overall it’s a nice practice.
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I worked in AppleCare and even we support techs had incentives to sell products.
Incentives matter more than training.
That assumption would be wrong, and is why you get that kind of service from them. They may have targets of units sold but the real target is customer satisfaction and part of that is getting the customer into the right product so they're happy with it
Targets of units sold is a better metric than targets of total revenue, if a company is focused on customer satisfaction.
Apple Store reps don't make commission.
My experience is that they are more focused on finding the right product for your needs. I've been there more than once where they happily downsell a customer.
At some point in the 2000s I was buying a laptop at an Apple retail store, and just before we processed the transaction the salesperson asked if I was a student.
"Umm, I kinda look like a student."
"Good enough for me!"
I got a student discount.
I’ve found that experience fairly common at our Apple Store. They’ve talked me down.
no commission
Does not mean no incentives.
> This is such a better deal than I had growing up, Apple has to be taking a bath on these.
Apple doesn't sell anything where they're taking a bath; their margins have been high 30's to low 40's for many years. All of the technology in the Neo already existed; they didn't have to create anything new.
To me the price seems to be so uncharactaristically low for Apple during a time where hardware prices are rising across the board that this almost feels like an attempt to try and capture the desktop market. During a time where Microsoft is fumbling with Windows on every front, having a competitively priced Macbook even for budget-concious people seems like a smart move that will pay off even without direct high margins.
USB 2 in a type C form factor is pretty novel.
Apple has been doing that on their base spec iPhones for the last 3 years.
How so? Buy a newish keyboard it has USB 1.1 in type C form factor.
> Apple has to be taking a bath on these.
Why? Lots of companies sell Windows Laptops for under $200 (a 1/3rd the price of this). Personally I'd expect Apple's costs to be lower. Plus, Apple gets services money (iCloud, AppleTV+, ...)
> My high school required students to bring their own laptops to school when I started in 2010. Their shopping list suggested
How could they make you buy your own laptops? What if you didn't have one? ... Was that a private school maybe?
Pretty common in Australia, public and private schools. If you can't afford it, some schools have loan laptops.