Apple Price Increases

[machinesworking]

One of the backlashes of competition is that we're plunging headlong into AI data centers competing with China etc. driving the price of normal computer parts up, and it seems to me that AI will drastically be improved by stable affordable quantum computing, So when this happens all of a sudden billions of dollars worth of data centners that robbed us of RAM and SSDs etc. will be rendered useless. Fun.

[DrGonzo]

Maybe it's time to start buying tulips again.

[ksandvik]

Data centers might become good pickleball halls in future.

[machinesworking]

Data centers might become good pickleball halls in future.

well then hopefully there's one near my half brother in Oregon, he loves pickleball.

[george]

The Apple TV's price hike from $129 to $199 seems excessive. I hope the upcoming 2026 model doesn't increase the price again.

[ksandvik]

I suspect the $199 pricing is for the upcoming AppleTV hardware upgrade that will happen, most likely more Siri integration, so I would not get an AppleTV unit just now unless it's refurbished cheap one.

[george]

Yes, if new models are going to increase from 8 GB to 12 or 16 GB RAM, then it becomes more justifiable.

[Gamma-UT]

...and it seems to me that AI will drastically be improved by stable affordable quantum computing, So when this happens all of a sudden billions of dollars worth of data centners that robbed us of RAM and SSDs etc. will be rendered useless. Fun.

The first bit: nope. Followed by aw hell nope.

State preparation on quantum hardware is verrrrrrry slowwwww. This is basically death for anything like machine learning. If you've got a system with a lot of dependent variables and need to find an optimum state, quantum is good for that. But that's not how pretty much all AI that exists today works: it relies on the ability to stream data through very quickly. Which is the opposite of what works for quantum.

Even if it turned out there was some magic step towards AGI that did rely on that kind of calculation, there is a very good chance digital hardware that simulated the quantum steps would still work out cheaper. This has already happened for quantum-annealing systems like D-Wave's: you can do much the same with a box of FPGAs. And the annealing systems are very sensitive to how the problem is laid out. Get it wrong and it will never give you an answer.

Quantum only gains an advantage if you have a lot of entangled states. There are scientists out there who reckon even simulating things like protein interactions with drugs don't fall into that class. Quantum could well turn out like VR or flying cars.

And yet, a lot of that AI data-centre hardware is probably going to end up in the recycling bin because it only takes an alternative to the Transformer to remove the need for very fast memory and the humungous number of calculations per second that gen AI requires today. And we've seen a bunch of AI scientists defect to startups working on those kinds of system (mostly going under the banner of "neurosymbolic" AI).

[ksandvik]

Yes, I doubt quantum hardware will be ready -- it's been one of those 'available next year' projects for ten+ years now. But personalized LLMs on the handhelds and computers taking down the need for huge LLM installations, that might happen. You don't need a huge LLM model to clean up your daily report.

[aMUSEd]

Blaming it in AI driving up the price of RAM is a bullshit excuse when the very companies making gazillions out of AI are the ones pushing up the prices of their own products

[Touch The Universe]

Thanks for vibe coding and talking to chatbots.

HomePod mini: $129, up from $99 (+$30)
HomePod: $349, up from $299 (+$50)
Apple TV: $199, up from $129 (+$70)
iPad: $449, up from $349 (+$100)
iPad mini: $599, up from $499 (+$100)
iPad Air: $749, up from $599 (+$150)
iPad Pro: $1,199, up from $999 (+$200)
MacBook Neo: $699, up from $599 (+$100)
MacBook Air: $1,299, up from $1,099 (+$200)
MacBook Pro: $1,999 up from $1,699 (+$300)
iMac: $1,499, up from $1,299 (+$200)
Mac mini (M4 Pro): $1,599, up from $1,399 (+$200)
Mac Studio (M4 Max): $2,499, up from $1,999 (+$500)
Mac Studio (M3 Ultra): $5,299, up from $3,999 (+$1,300)
Vision Pro: $3,699, up from $3,499 (+$200)

They lose money on vibe coding. These people are doing these things because one day "all will be possible". They are taking the hit. It's a religion, because "all possible" is delusional godhood.

[GaryG]

I've been biding my time (a few months) to see if a new base ipad would be out anytime soon, see the current a16 is now £429 on apples site though still £329 or less on others (amz, john lewis...). Maybe I should grab one of those while i can.

[PAK]

I've been biding my time (a few months) to see if a new base ipad would be out anytime soon, see the current a16 is now £429 on apples site though still £329 or less on others (amz, john lewis...). Maybe I should grab one of those while i can.

Unless you want to pay £100, for no reason, I’d grab one. Right now “Golden Gate” requires a minimum spec of an iPhone 17 Pro / Pro Max to be able to run everything (AI related) it can locally on-device. A new base iPad would be unlikely meet those requirements (12GB ram) due to costs, so I don’t think you’d be losing a whole lot by not waiting.

The one caveat I’d add is some of the changes, in MacOS 27, seem to suggest touch devices are coming to MacOS itself. Whether that’s related to their much hyped (and very expensive) foldable phone, supposedly coming in September, remains to be seen. They could pull a surprise and show it running the full Mac OS, with whatever follow-on implications that has for devices with the specs to run Mac OS..

[pekbro]

best thing to do is pretend your involved in edu for the discount, they don't even check...
or go through someone who works for them, even better...

[elxsound]

And Microsoft also raising prices.

I’m not liking where this is going. I’m sure more announced price hikes for anything with a hard drive is coming soon.