In 2003, Apple was picking up steam, but the iPod was a 2 year old product, and they weren't selling music until late April. There was no iPhone, and no iPad.

At the time, if you wanted to ride the technology wave to riches, it would have seemed a safer bet to buy Palm or RIM.

Proving what my dad is always telling me "The stock market is essentially gambling. If you're going to buy stock do it to own the company not to speculate"

> If you're going to buy stock do it to own the company not to speculate

Why would you want to own (a small part of) the company? The only reason I can think of is to receive dividends, but unless you know the future dividends that is still speculation.

We weren't talking small parts but influence the board/seat on the board parts:)

The first major purchase I ever made was a Macbook Pro in 2009 - I spent ~$3000 that I didn't really have on it.

I would wager that in terms of increased personal learning and productivity in the 3-4 years or 10000+ hours of use since then, I've made far better returns on that purchase than even a purchase of AAPL stock in its heyday.

> I would wager that in terms of increased personal learning and productivity in the 3-4 years or 10000+ hours of use since then, I've made far better returns on that purchase than even a purchase of AAPL stock in its heyday.

Which was a return of ~$216.6k according to the OP. So, you've made a marginal $55,000 a year since 2009 which you would not have made with any cheaper laptop?

Haha, I appreciate the skepticism for my apple praise. :) For what it's worth, I don't care much for the rest of Apple's offerings.

It's only 2013 - I get another six years for my macbook investment to play out. In April 2007, AAPL sold for $90/share, which works out to profit of $36k over the same length of time, four years.

Have I made $9k/year more than I would have had I not bought the macbook? Not likely. But it's helped me to work and learn efficiently and productively, and $9k/year is inexpensive tuition.

Could I have done the same with a different laptop? Maybe. But my point is that it's important to invest (judiciously) in yourself, too. Whatever tools you need to learn and become the best at what you want to do may be different, but don't underestimate the utility of that investment.

Not only this, but the laptop was a guaranteed increase in earnings being that it was the tool you needed to get the job done, were the stock could have plummeted. These comparisons while crazy to think about, are rather pointless.

I'd call $9k a year average tuition cost where I am from (at the time I studied). New Zealand. This figure excludes living costs, includes uni fees only.

of course, you are both comparing the difference to... zero?!

(you should compare the price difference to an equivalent laptop (however defined) if you're talking "marginal")

I'm not comparing the difference to zero. Note my convoluted phrasing which I wrote specifically to forestall your objection:

> you've made a marginal $55,000 a year since 2009 which you would not have made with any cheaper laptop?

Of course I don't think he actually has, and that he would have gained pretty much whatever he has gained with a much-cheaper-than-$3k-laptop.

Thanks, I was wondering if that was going to make an appearance. I'd almost call what the next web is writing here to be plagiarism, but probably just lazy reporting (didn't know it existed and didn't even try to look).

Pretty poor, since I needed that Mac for work.

What would have happened if you had all done that, though? ;-)

I bought my first Mac in 2002 (an iBook) for, I think, 800 Eur. Back then I was really, really poor, and I considered the Mac an investment in education (I wanted to run a Unix OS to learn about it, while still being able to use Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and Cubase).

Sadly, I wouldn't have had the money to buy Apple stock for 800 Eur instead. I should have bought the stock a couple years later, in 2004 or 2005, when I was absolutely sure Apple would be huge; I just never thought about buying stock..

I don't think it makes sense to correct for inflation given that the $7.57/AAPL price was in 2003 dollars and the $216,678 is in 2013 dollars.

We'd all retire rich!