I know any press is good press, but come on. You can't just excuse any too-expensive product this way.

Has that not been in Apple's playbook for years? Those in the industry know the $5k monitor is a good deal and they also know they don't need the stand (get the VESA adaptor) since they already probably have a multi-monitor stand. So for their actual target audience no one will bat an eye. But for those of us not interested in an expensive monitor the overpriced stand gives us something to talk about and keeps them in the news cycle.

Does anybody have to "excuse" the sticker price on luxury cars? You can obviously get cheaper (and likely more comfortable) 4-wheeled transportation instruments elsewhere, but that's hardly the point.

there is nothing luxury avout the stand, it's essentially identical to any other stand, which is not the point of the cars in your analogy.

> there is nothing luxury avout the stand, it's essentially identical to any other stand

Some of the features that make it "luxury" in my mind are:

* Build materials / quality

* Small footprint

* Magnetic connector (no screws)

* Ease of adjusting height / rotating (according to Apple)

For a 32-inch, 16 lb monitor that may need to be moved around a lot and shared amongst multiple people, I can see how those qualities might be important enough to justify the price for some.

And if it's really identical to any other stand out there, can you show something comparable at a lower price?

They probably are also not be expecting to sell as many of these stands as other stand manufacturers, so their manufacturing costs could be significantly higher considering it uses a unique design.

A lot of luxury-priced cars also have little particularly luxurious about them. The expression "you pay for the badge" comes to mind, which is precisely what luxury branding is about: the value of a $1k stand is that you paid $1k for it regardless of practical considerations, just because you could.

Excatly. I never heard hate. Only laughts. "apple is doing a stupid apple thing"

It's actually good PR: everybody talk about it, but they also they it's a good quality monitor, just that apple is over pricing an accessory, which is a cheap way of making the luxury brand perceptuon stronger... Huge com win for very little effet.

Call it what you like. But I’m pretty sick of having to have the apple is stupid conversation at work. I get it, but it comes up far too often. It’s severely impacted my professional career due to prejudice from the wintel guys...who I also run circles around within Windows and Unix/Linux. But because apple released yet another expensive shiny I’ve got to take time out of my day to deal with this crap.

Why? Does their opinion of Apple (accurate or not) impact your work in any way?

It was held by everyone in the department including management.

I just ignore it and use ubuntu. It's not difficult.