Since then, however, the company has tried to simultaneously expand its footprint and satisfy Wall Street, creating an identity crisis that seems to plague every new product announcement.

The complex reality is that Apple has been selling a mix of high- and low-priced products for years, historically with a greater mix of high-priced ones, but appeared to be on a trajectory to democratizing its hardware until Steve Jobs’ untimely death in 2011. If one wanted to read a message into this, it would be that Apple doesn’t want the $49 iPod shuffle, $149 iPod nano, or $299 iPad mini customers any more, at least unless they’re willing to cough up some more cash for newer models. More recently, Apple has pushed up the entry prices for its flagship and near-flagship iPhones, Apple Watches, iPads, and Macs while killing off inexpensive models. The past five years saw the introduction of gold Apple Watches and trash can-shaped Mac Pros that were seemingly made without worrying whether actual customers would purchase them. As a particularly brilliant tweet noted, the Thunderbolt Display somehow was a full best-of-class LED monitor for $999, while what Apple offers now for the same price is just the stand.Īpple didn’t just get to this point on Monday. Only months earlier, it had introduced the 27″ LED Cinema Display for $999, describing it as a “perfect fit with our powerful new Mac Pro.” By July 2011, it released the improved Thunderbolt Display at the same price.īut if there was any question that Tim Cook’s Apple isn’t looking to save its customers money, it’s been answered by this week’s tone-deaf announcement of a $999 “Pro Stand” accessory for its latest professional monitor, which, as none of its customers would have guessed beforehand, ships without a stand. But what might superficially seem like a linear progression from selling $666 motherboards out of a garage to hawking $17,000 gold watches in shopping malls has actually been a much less orderly transition - and one that at times has gone in completely different directions.Ĭonsider, for a moment, Apple’s January 2005 introduction of the $99 iPod shuffle, which helped Apple win millions of new budget-conscious customers, and its September 2010 release of the fourth iPod shuffle - a complete music player for $49. If you’ve followed Apple for a while, you probably know that the company has spent decades evolving from a personal computer maker to a luxury retailer that outpaces diamond vendor Tiffany & Co.

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