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You thought Apple was ripping you off with the price of iTunes songs in the UK? You should see what Sony is doing!
There was heated furor over Apple charging different prices in the UK than elsewhere which got somewhat resolved recently when Apple standardized its iTunes prices across the EU. The whole deal there was because people in the UK were paying at most € 0.17 per song more than their European counterparts. But, because there was a considerable price difference between EU countries, the EU got involved. Unfortunately, no such action will be taken against Sony, who, as we say in the UK, is really taking the piss with their pricing because the EU has no jurisdiction over pricing differences between non-EU and EU countries. So we're used to paying more for stuff in the UK but when does the price difference become ridiculous? Is paying 50% more for something acceptable? OK, how about 100% more? Hmm, how about more than 100% more for the same thing? Case in point: I was browsing the online Playstation store on my PS3 and I thought I'd download Piyotama. At € 4.69, you can't go wrong, right? Well something told me to read a review before buying it. I found a couple from US web sites but one thing struck me immediately. They all listed the game as being available in the US for $2.99. Why's this strange? Because with an almost 2:1 exchange rate, we're not used to seeing the actual price of an item be higher in the UK than in the US. So Sony is selling Piyotama for $2.99 in the US and approximately $6.91 here in the UK. That's more than double the price! For every one copy here, you could buy two copies of it in the US and still have enough left over to buy a double cheese burger at Burger King (though why you would willingly subject yourself to such abuse is beyond me!)
To cut a long story short, I know it's ridiculous but now I can't bring myself to spending a meager € 4.69 on a game because I feel like I'm getting ripped off. How crazy is that?
Geographical pricing works as evidenced by the fact that I was going to buy the game without another thought. But then I found out how much it costs in the US and my opinion was radically altered.
To be effective, geographical pricing requires us to be in the dark about how much things cost elsewhere. Otherwise, it can very easily lead to feelings of resentment. No one likes to feel like they're getting ripped off.
What will be the long term effect of this resentment on a company's image? How will it affect customer loyalty when a competitor springs up that doesn't employ geographical pricing?
What do you think? Can geographical pricing survive the information age? Or is this walled-garden approach eventually doomed to extinction thanks to the Internet?
...or just a passionate worker?
Seth Godin explains the difference:In a poignant post,
"A workaholic lives on fear. It's fear that drives him to show up all the time. The best defense, apparently, is a good attendance record.
I'm definitely not a hardware hacker. Pulling apart the innards of a Chumby does not excite me. I don't read Make. But BUG by Bug Labs looks like something I'd love to get my hands on.
CNET sums up the BUG perfectly as "The Lego of Gadgets".
You have a base BUG (called -- surprise, surprise -- BUGbase) that is essentially a tiny ARM-based computer. To this, you plug in hardware modules. The modules plug in like Lego bricks. There's no soldering or messing with wires (i.e., all that stuff that hardware hackers love and I don't get!) Available modules include GPS, Digital Camera/Video, a touch-sensitive color LCD screen (what, no multi-touch? Apple you have truly spoiled me!) There's also an accelerometer and motion sensor module. The BUGbase and available modules are currently on sale for early adopters.
The early-adopter BUGbase differs from the version that will ship later in the year in that it does not have WiFi and its UI features a joystick-based navigation scheme as opposed to a panel-based button system.
You program the BUG using Java and the software stack is completely open source.
How cool would it be to have Flash on this thing? Very, very cool. Can you imagine creating your own device and then creating the UI via Flash? And having it interface with the various modules natively (e.g., camera/video support, GPS/motion sensor/accelerometer access via a socket server, etc.) Now that would truly rock!
Via Mashable.
OK, so the cat's out of the bag: there's a new MacBook in town. The MacBook Air
is light, it's got a multi-touch trackpad and a full-size backlit keyboard.
The US price for the base config (1.6GHz) is $1,799. And the 1.8GHz model with 64GB SSD will set you back a whopping $3,098.
In the UK, we're going to have to pay € 1,699 ($2,503.47) for the 1.6GHz config and € 2.868 ($4,227.71) for the 1.8GHz model (thanks, Apple! Well, I guess we should thank our lucky stars that we're not paying double!)
The MacBook Air looks like a beauty and weighs 3lbs. And, according to Apple, it's the thinnest notebook ever.
So, what do you guys think of this baby? The Apple Store has reopened... are you going to splurge? Is it too expensive? Are you happy with the specs?
Leave a comment and share your thoughts!
Update: WTF? It doesn't have a user-replaceable battery? Were they high when they designed this? I mean, I don't care how good it looks or how long the battery is purported to last, I definitely wouldn't buy a laptop where I can't have a spare battery. The way batteries lose their charge these days (no doubt thanks to how hot Macs run), that 5 hours will start to taper off after the first few months. And sending your laptop in to have the battery replaced and not being without it for several days? No way!
I guess Apple expects people to have this as a second laptop or a companion to a desktop. There's no way I'd make it my workhorse. As much as I'd love to, the lack of replaceable battery is a deal-breaker.
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Published on February 19, 2010 in 