Matthew Knott

All we've heard recently is the former directors of banks being criticised for the blatant greed they showed in creating toxic, risky debt. Todays Apple product line refreshes make me wonder if Apple has also caught the greedy bug. Before I get going, let me explain that I'm only talking about the pricing structure in the UK, but the hardware concerns are universal.

Let me explain, Yesterday, I could have bought an iMac for £782, today, the cheapest iMac you can get is £949! A whopping £167 increase! You'd think for this amount you'd be getting some enhanced hardware, upgraded processor or graphics? In actual fact, you go from a stand alone graphics card or as apple refer to it, discreet graphics, to an integrated Nvidia 9400m! That's right, your £949 state of the art desktop computer has the same graphics chipset as the company's bottom of the range Macbook, or event the new Mac Mini.

To the more astute apple user, the new specification will leave them wondering what on earth apple is thinking. Essentially, the power is going down while the price is going up. My iMac is a year old 20" 2.4Ghz Core 2 duo model with a Radeon HD2600. I paid £860 for it brand new (Reduced from £900 using epp scheme). Okay, there is a 260 Mhz processor improvement, wow, but aside from that, the 2600 HD is a much better chip that the 9400m, plus it has its own dedicated memory. This means I could get a machine now that's no better than what I already have, a year on, for more than £50 extra.

Having such strong sales, in the face of an economic downturn and dwindling PC sales, Apple's latest move smacks of a huge dose of arrogance, where usually there is just an air of smug superiority, but do they have any excuses?  I don't really buy into Apple equalising the price to bring it inline with the strong dollar, getting rid of the entry level price, but keeping the entry level spec is simply madness, and I really hope this impacts on Apple's business in UK and Europe.

The real victims are the authorised resellers. One local apple only reseller has only recently opened, and is experiencing a slow start with poor initial sales. This move is bound to impact their business and may even be a nail in their coffin, time will tell.