Cynicism in regards to Apple pro stand

[Billy Pilgrim]

I feel like a lot of the outrage about Apple's $999 stand is an intended marketing scheme. At this point the monitor and stand both fill a niche in the market that few other products inhabit and the intended audience will buy it regardless of what other people think about the products. All the outrage is serving to provide free marketing for Apple and this product and as the saying goes "No publicity is bad publicity."

 

Does anyone agree with me on this?

[Origami Cactus]

The price for the stand is a decoy, to take away from the 200$ vesa mount.

And that plan worked great.

 

I am fine with the stand being 999 or however much, but when you have to pay 200$ just to use the monitor it is kinda dumb, vesa should have been built into the monitor, no excuses. It is a mounting standard, that should be followed.

[SupaKomputa]

3 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

The price for the stand is a decoy, to take away from the 200$ vesa mount.

 

I am fine with the stand being 999 or however much, but when you have to pay 200$ just to use the monitor it is kinda dumb, vesa should have been built into the monitor, no excuses. It is a mounting standard, that should be followed.

Yes, i completely agree with this, is to justified the $200 vesa ADAPTER.

Like they justified the $6000 with the Sony $43K.

This thing is set to professionals which likely won't use the stand anyway.

 

But regardless of the price,  i have to give it to Apple with the new mac pro, it's a beauty.

[DrMacintosh]

I don't think Apple indented consumers to fixate on a product accessory that is completely out of their league. Apple designed the Mac Pro and its display alongside Pros. Those Pros told Apple that they don't really want the stand. However Apple can't just sell a VESA only monitor so the best compromise was the make the user select what mount they want and also makes it easy for the people that bought them to buy more or a different mount. 

[Billy Pilgrim]

9 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Apple can't just sell a VESA only monitor

Why not?

9 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I don't think Apple indented consumers to fixate on a product accessory that is completely out of their league.

Couldn't consumers act as free marketing here?

32 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

The price for the stand is a decoy, to take away from the 200$ vesa mount.

That may make a bit more sense than my theory

[Origami Cactus]

15 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I don't think Apple indented consumers to fixate on a product accessory that is completely out of their league. Apple designed the Mac Pro and its display alongside Pros. Those Pros told Apple that they don't really want the stand. However Apple can't just sell a VESA only monitor so the best compromise was the make the user select what mount they want and also makes it easy for the people that bought them to buy more or a different mount. 

Why couldn't apple include the vesa mounting points in the monitor itself, and then sell the stand to those who wanted?

 

As i said, i am totally fine with the price of the stand, but taking out the most basic monitor functionality and charging 200$ doesn't make sense, especially because they market it as a "professional" monitor.

 

Professionals have standards. (lol tf2 quote)

If you want to make a professional product you have to follow those (vesa) standards.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Origami Cactus said:

Why couldn't apple include the vesa mounting points in the monitor itself, and then sell the stand to those who wanted?

Then you would have surplus waste VESA mounts from people who wanted the Pro stand. 

[Origami Cactus]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

Then you would have surplus waste VESA mounts from people who wanted the Pro stand. 

If the vesa was built into the monitor there wouldn't be any vesa mounts surplus, because those wouldn't exist?

But anyway click f5 i edited my previous comment.

[Curious Pineapple]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Then you would have surplus waste VESA mounts from people who wanted the Pro stand. 

Not if the VESA pattern is in the monitor itself, like every other manufacturer does. 4 little threaded inserts which cost nothing in the grand scheme of things.

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, Origami Cactus said:

f the vesa was built into the monitor there wouldn't be any vesa mounts surplus,

If VESA was built into the display there would be nowhere for the stand to go. 

 

Trust me, Apple thought about this. 

[Curious Pineapple]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

If VESA was built into the display there would be nowhere for the stand to go. 

 

Trust me, Apple thought about this. 

They did think about it, about how much money they can extort from customers. VESA is a standard for where some holes are, all they need is 4 holes in the monitor with threads in them. Simple and won't get in the way of anything.

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, Curious Pineapple said:

. VESA is a standard for where some holes are, all they need is 4 holes in the monitor with threads in them.

Yeah, and I'm pretty confident that just those 4 screws did not make a secure mount for the display and that's why they designed their own. That thing is heavy. 

[Origami Cactus]

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

If VESA was built into the display there would be nowhere for the stand to go. 

 

Trust me, Apple thought about this. 

Then the stand would connect to the vesa like any other professional or non professional monitor?

 

But i agree, in the current weird mounting situation it makes sense to not bundle neither, and sell them both as separate options, so no surplus. I just don't understand why vesa wasn't built into monitor, and then the stand would connect to that.

[Curious Pineapple]

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Yeah, and I'm pretty confident that just those 4 screws did not make a secure mount for the display and that's why they designed their own. That thing is heavy. 

Okay, you're right. My 50+KG plasma TV has 4 VESA mounting points but sure, Apple made a heavier monitor.

 

Edit to save another post....

 

The "cheap" adaptor convert the Apple mounting system to guess what. One guess what 4 hole standard pattern is on the other side of that adaptor.

[DrMacintosh]

3 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

I just don't understand why vesa wasn't built into monitor

Probably tooling costs. They had to invest into making the Pro Stand already, so just use that instead of tooling the chassis to support mousing VESA directly, just cut the cost and throw a VESA mount on the mount for the Pro Stand. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

Probably tooling costs. They had to invest into making the Pro Stand already, so just use that instead of tooling the chassis to support mousing VESA directly, just cut the cost and throw a VESA mount on the mount for the Pro Stand. 

Probably an idea for an LTT video to design a VESA bracket for the Apple monitor and add up all the costs, including labour for the bracket.

[Curious Pineapple]

5 minutes ago, floofer said:

Probably an idea for an LTT video to design a VESA bracket for the Apple monitor and add up all the costs, including labour for the bracket.

I'm going to guess the Crapple mount is nothing more than a few screws into the monitor then the standard VESA pattern. £50 most for a milled alumimium bracket supplied with a handfull of screws and 4 threads tapped for the VESA mount. One off price of course.

 

I think Apple treats it's engineers like they're making one-off products. We have this design and you will make it fit this stand and you cannot deviate from our asthetic vision.

[Billy Pilgrim]

3 minutes ago, PacketMan said:

Are you worried about providing free marketing for a brand?

No, I already know that I am.

[imreloadin]

I mean it's pretty obvious why the did it. The trendies will buy the stand whereas the "money-conscious" people will look at the absurd price of the stand and suddenly the stupidly high price of the VESA mount doesn't look so bad anymore. This will only drum up more buyers for their VESA mount which is pretty much pure profit on their end.

[mr moose]

My opinion is that apples marketing skills are a long shot from what they used to be.   At this stage it wouldn't surprise me if the whole concept was a failure and was intended to work out different.

[rickymohk]

Even Apple somehow decided that built in VESA mounting holes are not possible, they could have split the price more nicely. Instead of $4999 for monitor + $199 for VESA adaptor, it could have been like $5139 for monitor + $59 for VESA adaptor. The monitor would be worth the price anyway even a few hundreds up, but $199 for a VESA adaptor alone looks so stupid. 

[Billy Pilgrim]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

My opinion is that apples marketing skills are a long shot from what they used to be.

Apple's Marketing Skills are great. They occupy a large portion of mindshare especially among younger people. The stand is a great marketing trick to make the VESA adaptor seem cheap.

[Arika]

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Billy Pilgrim said:

Apple's Marketing Skills are great. They occupy a large portion of mindshare especially among younger people. The stand is a great marketing trick to make the VESA adaptor seem cheap.

 

that mindshare is largely still a thing left over from how they used to be.  Apple were the gold standard in product branding and marketing back in 2009.  It was so good they had most of the population convinced they invented smartphones and multitouch screens etc.   Not so much these days, they are clinging to a hipster fueled marketing campaign and playing whatever security card they can. 

 

1 minute ago, Arika S said:

I see he lashed out for the optional tri-point zero gravity porta-stand.

[D13H4RD]

Well, it had better include motor-driven adjustment settings for that price