I'm surprised it cost that much...
I'm surprised it cost that much...
Fine.. go make your own. Not you OP but incredibly stupid concept for a story.
And the knowledge of where to get it, how to charge it, how to manage it's charge level, how to test thousands of them, how to fit it in the phone, how to connect it to the phone's electronics, what are it's safe charge limits, how to protect it from overcharging and undercharging, how to protect it from shock damage when the phone is dropped... all this knowledge is worth... nothing?
499 pounds = 10,659.54 pesos
Apple Ping List
Pack of dumbazzes!
What is something worth? Whatever someone else is willing to pay for it!
Sure, the components may only be worth XXX dollars/pounds, but how do you pay for R&D, advertising, programming, etc. etc?
I’m beginning to believe that too many of the world’s population think that ANY profit is unacceptable.
These teardown type studies are nothing new whatsoever - they get done on basically every device that ever hits the market.
Usually the cost that the phone manufacturer charges the carrier is roughly 2x the COGS (cost of goods sold). Then the carriers turn around and subsidize the cost to the consumer in return for a 2 year contract.
Nothing at all new here except in this case it’s the 4S.
I’m assuming that doesn’t include the $.37 in labor needed to assemble it.
you do realize there is a cost to marketing and paying people to assemble it and paying people to actually create it. But at the end of the day its what people are willing to pay for that matters. If it was overpriced the market would let them know. And Apple is about profit its not a lossleader like an xbox360 or ps3 where those game systems lose money but the software is where they make their money.
Imagine how much it would cost if it were made in the West instead of using semi-slave labor in China.
My favorite story, about the worth of a product, and related technical services :
Charles Steinmetz was once called out of retirement by General Electric to help it locate a problem in an intricate system of complex machines. Having spent some time tinkering with and testing various parts of the system, he finally placed a chalk-marked ‘X’ on a small component in one machine.
GE’s engineers promptly examined the component, and were amazed to find the defect in the precise location of Steinmetz’s mark.
Some time later, GE received an invoice from the wily engineer – for $10,000. Incredulous, they protested the bill and challenged him to itemize it. Steinmetz did so: “Making one chalk mark: $1,” he wrote. “Knowing where to place it: $9,999.”
GE paid the bill! Charles Steinmetz was a German-US Electrical Engineer who invented Alternate Current (AC) to initiate electrical era in the United States.
A plumber went to a house with a problem somewhere in the pipes. After walking around for an hour, he stopped at a certain point, took out a hammer, and whacked a particular pipe joint one time. The problem was fixed. He then presented a bill for $500 to the owner of the house, who became incensed at the amount and asked the plumber to justify it. The plumber said, “well, it cost you $1 for me to hit the pipe, but $499 to know where to hit it.”
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Try as I could, and I searched high and Low on isuppli’s chart, I could not find a processor! Nope, not one. There should be a listing for an Apple A5 Cortex ARM Processor separate from the cost of the main circuit board. They listed one on their tear down of the iPad 2 (cost $14), but somehow forgot it here! Unless the iPhone 4S is a magical device that doesn’t require one? Steve Jobs did keep saying that it was! Maybe he wasn’t just spinning hyperbole? It really is?
Apple’s competitors can easily copy and reverse engineer this 4s. And they will. iPhone is headed to commodity status same as the iPod which drowned in a sea of Sansa mp3 players and clones on Sansa mp3 players
So why has Verizon been subsidizing iPhone sales?!
The cost of the parts is one thing; the cost of figuring out what can be made (and specifically and precisely how to make it) that will sell for more than the cost of its production is another thing entirely.
Flash back to congressional debates over the development and production of military aircraft, and the issue of development cost was huge. And, in the Washington way, was debated in convoluted terms. Congressmen who advocated for a new development low balled the cost of development by assuming that an enormous number of planes of the proposed model would be built - making the cost of the development project seem relatively incidental on a per-aircraft basis.I worked for Grumman, which had the F-14 in production when the F-17/F-18 development were issues. Ultimately there were three development efforts involved: F-17, F-18, and - although it appears to be the same plane and is designated as if it were the same plane - the F-18E/F model. The latter has of course some interchangeable parts, but it is actually a scaled up version whose development and testing was tantamount to the development of an entirely new model. Its "F-18" designation is a fraud. And after all that, the Navy has less mission capability than the F-14 provided. Granted that the 14E/F is probably more fun to fly, but its short range is a constraint on the whole fleet, which could lose you ships.
Does this count the about $400 million Apple invested in companies to design the custom CPU?
I wonder if these guys ever priced out what the parts to put together a car for the manufacturer is compared to what it would cost to buy he parts yourself and put the car together?
Probably not, no way to knock Apple in that exercise, but I am guessing it would run in to multiples of tens. Maybe hundreds.
Car? A Bluray player? Can of Campbell Cream of Mushroom soup? Toenail clipper? 8-track tape player you're getting for Xmas?