Apple sings another iTune following Brexit as prices rise by up to a third Apple has confirmed to developers it is raising app store prices by up to a third, more than countering any downward currency swing in the British pound since the Brexit vote in June. The changes (PDF) will happen in seven days and will see the cheapest app go from 79 pence to £0.99 - in the US the entry level price is $0.99 …
You know how dragons are meant to have a hoard and guard it jealously?
We best give them all this money. I mean they obviously need it to add to their pile. I mean we obviously know what to do with our money - give it to Apple. It is just that they don't know what to do with it...
I mean we obviously know what to do with our money - give it to Apple. It is just that they don't know what to do with it...
Oh but they do. That cash pile will be slowly returned to shareholders in an effort to prop up the share price once those investors finally realise the sort of growth iPhone brought about ain't gonna be repeated.
>Perhaps. Vote with your feet.
Exactly.... except have you seen how they went after Samsung over the most trivial cosmetic things? How likely is decent competition in that environment?
I'd be happy without the mobile ecosystems of Apple and Google, if I could have a mobile equivalent of my linux desktop, plus maybe maps.
Well, fanbois not withstanding, they are in the business to actually make money after all, aren't they? I mean, they can't really spend the rest of eternity spending the gigantic cash reserves that Jobs built up for them á la Ballmer, or can they?
It is also perhaps worth noting that Apple uses a basket of exchange rates to measure potential changes. For example right now a $2,799.00 top spec MacBook Pro would cost you £2,260.48 at a clean exchange rate, yet £2,699.00 via the UK AppleStore. Compare that with the £ to € or the £ to CHF and you start to see that there is actually quite a lot of fluctuation in the rates.
Of course once production fully starts again in the USA I rather suspect that we are REALLY going to have the chance to bitch like hell about Apple prices.
A top of the range 15" MacBook Pro is $2,799 **before tax**.
$2799 is £2269.89 today. The UK government then wants VAT. So that's 2269.89*1.2 = £2723.89.
Apple charges £2,699.
Therefore Apple charges **less** in the UK than in the US.
Apple are scumbags, but this is purely brexit effect, with lots more to come. If you are looking for someone to blame, blame the braindead cretins that don't understand economics, but can just about read a few easy words on the side of a bus and are willing to vote based based on the 1% of the picture they think they understand, ignoring the 99% they don't.
Prices in the USA are always without Sales TAX. So everywhere apart from Oragon, Delaware and New Hampshire, you pay State and local taxes on top of the quoted dollar price.
I see £0.99 (inc 20% VAT) apps going for $0.99 in the USA.
Not quite where we were in the early 1990's where companies were charging £1==$1 before TAX was added but getting close.
Remember how you voted last June before commenting.
More than 50% voted for this sort of thing to happen.
>> 'That's still a rather small proportion of the electorate, let alone the population.'
> Although rather more than any political party has got in recent time and in terms of sample sizes
> it's probably fair to say it's statistically significant.
Absolutely it is still significant (and I'm not saying that we should invalidate the referendum*)
But it's a long way from the majority which is so frequently claimed. It was a very slender majority of 70% of the electorate, which is about 70% of the population (i.e. a slender majority of just under half of the population)
~25% of the UK voted for Brexit <- That does not fall under any category of 'most'
*OTOH I do think we should actually look at it as a measure of dissatisfaction rather than an decree absolute...
"No - more than 50% of those who voted, voted for this...
That's still a rather small proportion of the electorate, let alone the population."
This unwelcome price rise is yet another unsavoury side effect of the Brexit vote and the resultant crash in the pound's value. Everyone who voted Leave directly contributed to all the recent tech price hikes and if any Leave voter has the nerve to complain, my message to them is just STFU because you directly caused this mess.
Anyone else think running a big balance of trade deficit for a long period of time caused problems? UK has been flogging off assets at a furious rate to compensate and whereas cheap imports are great for offsetting lack of growth and hiding underlying inflation the real price gets paid when the cheap money runs out - the new owners will not start by cutting costs in their home markets.
I'm hearing $1.10 as a mark of sustainability.
Apple has behaved in a rational manner. The Prime Minister is currently outlining the suicide of the British economy. Apple can do nothing other than raise prices before inflation and financial whiz-kids shut down all foreign trade.
I do not have any Apple devices due to their dodgy business practices but this is not one of those, Other business, technology related and otherwise, are either doing the same or should be planning it. If you are going to do business here for the next few years, the ride will be rough...
Inflation can be caused by several things including...
Price Rises
War
Pay Rises
Economic mismanagement
I think Brexit may be judged as the last item listed.
It's pretty much positive feedback anyway. Inflation causes price rises, causes inflation, causes price rises ad infinitum.
In this case it's the devaluation of the currency driving inflation.
Last week one Groat bought you a chicken, this week it only buys two thirds of a chicken. Ergo, the 'price' of the chicken goes up (inflation) as a reaction to the Groat buying less. There are no real price rises happening at all, merely realignment with the current market value of the item you exchange for goods.
15-20% seems to be about the norm across the board. It's been that way for a lot of imported goods since last August/September. I think a lot of companies have held out on the price rises, taking the hit in their bottom line until after Xmas to keep sales up. Now they're taking their margins back to what they were pre the slump in the pound.
Some many price rises driven by... what exactly?
Nothing has actually happened. Blaming a future event (the details of which we don't know) for the devaluation is a little spurious. If we joined the EEA, what would change, exactly, that would cost an extra 20%?
On the other hand, there has been plenty of war, which wastes resources, financial mismanagement of public debt, mismanagement/lack of oversight of the financial markets which has led to institutional misbehaviour and losses which the taxpayer has picked up.
We've been living on credit for years - check the UK public debt figures. Now its time to pay the piper.
Now, which of these are likely to cause a loss of value of the pound?
She's an idiot. Any rational person would have stated by now that the first thing the uk would do is join the eea, which retains single market access without the customs union, then start to negotiate any further deals from that position. Instead she had listened to the headbangers and the Westminster bubble, and concluded that the best option is to hold a gun to her head dare the eu to pull the trigger.
@nathan 13
"Thats because we voted to leave the EU, it is that hard to understand. That means the single market, freedom of movement, EU courts etc etc etc
Errrm, actually it doesn't. Leave the club means leave the club. The ballot paper said nothing about getting rid of all the good things which can be retained in other ways.
We voted to leave the integrationist political organisation called the eu. The single market is a separate thing, to which it is possible to retain membership without being locked into the political and customs integration the eu requires for membership.
EEA members are part of the single market without having to be part of the customs union. They also have direct membership of the unece and other Un orgs, where they get to have direct influence over international trade, standards and economic policy, whereas eu member states are all represented by the single eu rep and only have one 'vote' to share between all 27 members.
"The single market is a separate thing, to which it is possible to retain membership without being locked into the political and customs integration the eu requires for membership"
^ This. It also speaks volumes that even neutral and very independent Switzerland feels it economically necessary to be part of the single market trading area by virtue of a set of agreements.
All May has done today is press the big red economic self-destruct button.
"Thats because we voted to leave the EU, it is that hard to understand. That means the single market, freedom of movement, EU courts etc etc etc
Its called democracy"
No it's not. It's called economic self destruction caused by outright pig-ignorance*.
*Dictionary note for non-UK English speakers - pig-ignorant means to be extremely, thoroughly and profoundly ignorant - you get the picture.
Ah yes, democracy - taking power from the corrupt few and handing it to the incompetent many.
The funny thing to consider is how would the same vote go now that people are seeing the consequences? Yes, I know this is what the experts predicted, but the public was apparently tired of them.
'incompetent many' is a phrase often used by the liberal consensus to justify foisting their minority ideas on a population that has resoundingly rejected them at the national ballot box for over 100 years.
The liberal response to that was entry-ism. Local government, schools of ed, charities, the BBC, the EU: places where you couldn't be voted out because you were never voted in in the first place.
Along with the feel-bad factor of static incomes ('immigration') the rejection of non-democratic political institutions was a major influence in the referendum outcome and recognising that bought Theresa May her current meal ticket.
If you're a liberal, expect a generation of pain.
You're assuming the UK would be allowed to join the EEA. I doubt they would. What incentive does the EU have to make it less painful for the UK to Brexit? Instead they have all the incentive in the world to inflict maximum pain, as an object lesson to other countries in the EU that might consider this route, because if another country leaves the whole thing will probably come tumbling down.
I suspect others who might be interested in doing the same thing (i.e. LePen and a Frexit) will be watching closely to see how the UK does. The EU wants you guys to suffer, and are not going to throw a lifeline other than maybe allowing you back in the EU as a full member in the future if you have Regrexit - but they would require FULL membership meaning goodbye pound.
Doug, the EU has no say over whether or not the UK can join the EEA. It is a separate treaty organisation, not some EU adjunct. We'd be negotiating with the EEA council, of which the EU is only a small part.
Of course, given pronouncements by her mayjesty yesterday, that path has apparently been ruled out.
So far our (UK) governments best ideas are these;
1) Grammar schools, duh! (I went to one and it was crap)
2) Become a tax haven, so it's a race to the bottom and none of the multi-nationals will pay any tax*
3) Stick our heads up Trump's arse and hope for the best.
I kid you not that (apart from the Cuban missile crisis) I have never been so depressed about the state of our country.
*http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36727853
How about Harold 'Gannex' Wilson and the 'White Heat of Technology'?
Politicians of all parties are numbskulls when it comes to knowing what is best for us plebs and even more so those who have been on the Brussels Gravy Train.
just my personal opinion you understand
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