These how-to articles are seriously insulting to the designers and programmers who work their butts off to make this gear. To say nothing of R&D and ahem, profit. If it were all about the $22 in parts or whatever, why hasn't anyone else come up with this design until now. I don't know of a single company in the world that sells it's gear at the cost of the parts, because they would not be in business. So please stop printing these utterly pointless stories.
Before calling the writers dumb, next time please read the link posted. Because I'm assuming most people won't I'll paste this:
"That’s about 28% of the device’s retail price. The smaller the component cost as a percentage of price, the higher the potential profit. This suggests the per-unit profit margin on the shuffle is higher than on other iPod models. The component cost for the first iPod touch released in 2007, for instance, amounted to about $147, or about 49% of its $299 retail price. The component cost of the third-generation iPod nano, also released in 2007, amounted to about 40% of its retail price."
Now do you understand the point? It's not that the components are cheaper to manufacture, it's that they are *cheaper* than any other ipod. And also, it is possible to make a profit selling at cost (theoretically) - look at the consoles (not including the wii). Of course, Apple's current model is better than if they made everything half price, but charged us an extra 10c if we wanted to use ID3 tags :)
HP has had plenty of time to fine-tune its finger-friendly TouchSmart software, and now, its newest model, the TouchSmart 610, ushers in a fresh design, highlighted by a hinge that allows the display to slide down and lie nearly flat.
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These how-to articles are seriously insulting to the designers and programmers who work their butts off to make this gear. To say nothing of R&D and ahem, profit. If it were all about the $22 in parts or whatever, why hasn't anyone else come up with this design until now. I don't know of a single company in the world that sells it's gear at the cost of the parts, because they would not be in business. So please stop printing these utterly pointless stories.
I quote Nomad:
"The KIRFsters wouldn't want to sully their names with cloning such a poor product"
Before calling the writers dumb, next time please read the link posted.
Because I'm assuming most people won't I'll paste this:
"That’s about 28% of the device’s retail price. The smaller the component cost as a percentage of price, the higher the potential profit. This suggests the per-unit profit margin on the shuffle is higher than on other iPod models. The component cost for the first iPod touch released in 2007, for instance, amounted to about $147, or about 49% of its $299 retail price. The component cost of the third-generation iPod nano, also released in 2007, amounted to about 40% of its retail price."
Now do you understand the point? It's not that the components are cheaper to manufacture, it's that they are *cheaper* than any other ipod. And also, it is possible to make a profit selling at cost (theoretically) - look at the consoles (not including the wii). Of course, Apple's current model is better than if they made everything half price, but charged us an extra 10c if we wanted to use ID3 tags :)
Because no one except Apple dares to sell such a crappy product. KIRFs have a by far better feature set than the Shuffle.
As far as I know, Sony sells Playstation 3 for below manufacturing costs.