Comments on: Two Things About the Apple Tax: It Doesn’t Just Apply to Apple, and It Isn’t a Tax

By: Naime

Naime — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 12:34:01 +0000

While I'm not sure you can call it a tax, Apple does impose restrictions and fees on resellers and developers that do not exist on the PC side. As a reseller to academic institutions, if we wanted to be authorized to sell Apple computers, we would have to agree in the legal contract to not sell any other brand of computer. We also would have to pay an annual fee to Apple for the privilege of selling their products. As a developer, we would also have to pay an annual fee of several thousand dollars to be allowed to develop for the platform. And of course, as a PC manufacturer, Psychsoftpc, not to be confused with those other guys, are not allowed to legally make Mac clones.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:32:51 +0000

A Microsoft tax is an OS that doesn’t work right. Plug-ins that don’t work. And mucho dinero for firewalls, anti-virus, anti-spyware software.

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:28:45 +0000

“any company who forgets about the leap year in their software has no authority on a software “tax”, i’d pay 1000 times to keep such kludge off my desktop.”

That was a hardware bug not a software bug. Toshiba made the hardware for the 30 not Microsoft.

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/01/05/problem-with-zune-was-toshiba-s-fault-not-microsoft-s.aspx

By: jonk..

jonk.. — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:15:30 +0000

any company who forgets about the leap year in their software has no authority on a software “tax”, i’d pay 1000 times to keep such kludge off my desktop.

By: ex2bot

ex2bot — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:34:50 +0000

I do pay more for less. I do admit Apple machines are too expensive. I don’t think it would hurt Apple to knock two or three hundred dollars off its machines.

But I pay more for less. I pay more for fewer yellow speech bubble notifications, for no “Genuine Advantage”, no “Activation”, or product key, for fewer control panels (because OS X’s Preference Panes are better organized), and fewer “wizards”. To name a few. For the sake of brevity I’ll leave out awkwardly organized configuation windows, lack of interoperability with non-Windows OSs, Microsoft’s historical heavy handedness w/other companies, ME, and all the often annoying trial software most machines come with.

[Now, I know there are a lot of good things about Windows. Heck, I use it myself sometimes because it’s an excellent game machine. But I definitely prefer OS X.)

Bot

By: Vaughn

Vaughn — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:15:08 +0000

Many of you are correct that Apple is free to charge whatever the market will bear. There is nothing wrong with this. I would actually like to own a Mac but I think it is cost prohibitive and not worth the money. I can do everything that I need to do with Ubuntu that I could with OS X.

I just don’t understand why they can’t make a good lower cost computer. I’ve heard a lot of terrible things from people who’ve tried to use the Mac Mini on a regular basis.

By: Chip

Chip — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:00:14 +0000

Microsoft needs to be careful with this, because another way to look at it is:
“This is how much people are willing to pay to avoid using Windows.”

By: joecab

joecab — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:41:50 +0000

You have to put a price on the operating system and user experience. If you did, I doubt Vista wouyld get more bang for the buck.

Also, if this is an Apple Tax, I wonder what Microsoft called it back when their deals with computer makers had them pay a fee for every computer they sold, whether or not it had Windows on it?

By: JakeB

JakeB — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:04:55 +0000

Amazing how confused people can be about a free market. I don’t recall seeing a gun put to anyone’s head forcing them to buy Apple. OTOH, a few years ago when Microsoft had ~95% market share, you could make a pretty good argument that most people were compelled (by a monopoly) to buy Windows. A tax would be like being forced to pay for Windows on every PC you bought, whether you wanted Windows or not. And that never happened, did it? Oh wait . . . .

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:41:58 +0000

Using the word “tax” is sneaky… “Apple tax” is a muddled conception of why Apple charges what it does. (A tax is compulsory and for the state.) Marketers — Apple too — and politicians do this a lot. Bad, ultimately, for the consumer.

“If language is not correct…the people will stand about in helpless confusion.” -Confucius