Comments on: Is Apple South Africa Rotten To The CORE?

By: Jacques

Jacques — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:39:25 +0000

I do agree, Apple by far exceeds most of its peer on the technology front…I myself use an Apple iPhone and find very few other mobile devices to compare. It is pity however that support and service in SA is as dismal. I know that the ‘world’ still consider us a 3rd world country. Apple products are however in great demand and used to a great extend by many a SA citizen and yes, I think Apple should do something to up their game as far as service is concerned. The support alone that we give by using their products necessitates it.

And Vodacom as a support seeing as they now have the contract for iPhone in South Africa is little to be mentioned. I recently updated my software to 3.1.2 that required my phone to be jailbroken again for SA use…they did not even know what the hell I was referring to. I think there are many a more savvy iPhone user out there than what is employed by them

By: ebusinessuk

ebusinessuk — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:24:22 +0000

The trouble with CORE is not the price but the tardy after-sales service being offered. That takes the goat.

By: Jayx

Jayx — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:44:15 +0000

Thanks for your input Shaun … import duties should be the same (I’d guess) for both PC and Mac products. I’m not disputing whether we are paying too much for Apple products or not, I am merely weighing up prices across the board for both PC and Mac.

By: Shaun Devine

Shaun Devine — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:35:15 +0000

Has anyone considered freight charges and import duties which could be as high as 35% given that these are imports. Once you add these on to the US price suddenly the local delers are only making a profit of +- R1,000 against the cost given of R27k this leaves a profit margin of 3.8%

By: serge

serge — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:19:37 +0000

Why bother with local suppliers? I am sure that one has people visiting now and then, I just got a freind to bring me back a Macbook pro from NY and saved R 8000.
The local Apple guy have to ver the warranty if there is a problem.

By: Russell

Russell — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:36:58 +0000

Nice, detailed, factual stuff. A far cry from the emotionally-charged antics we’ve gotten used to of late. Again, not to take away from the legitimate concerns of many ZA Apple users at all…

I did a similar thing in my feature in last month’s issue of our webzine MacAction, debunking the Apple Tax myth, and I was using the pricing structure before the most recent reforms and self-build PCs as a comparison. Not certain I can post the link here, it’s one of the free magazines on Mymag.co.za though.

So it looks like you don’t need convincing after all!

Here’s another price comparison to go and make, SA vs US… any model or make of car!

By: Raptore

Raptore — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:06:22 +0000

After seeing the real specs behind the shiny exterior I was truly surprised at what Apple puts into their hardware. This has me looking at Apple computers in a new light.

By: mjw

mjw — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:19:29 +0000

I have found similar problems when trying to source prices for Apacer products. Apacer in The Netherlands gives me its worldwide recommended *retail* pricing but when I compare it to the local store prices they are often charging double (or more). It was especially noticeable about a year ago when the price, internationally, of flash-memory technology dropped noticeably and the manufacturers were passing that on to the distributors and retailers… except here, where the prices still went up for about six months and then started coming down… slightly. More recently the prices locally have been better, but they’re still not good.

By: Jayx

Jayx — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:35:39 +0000

@SaulK I took it as a given that (more or less) all Apple consumers (more specifically Mac users) are extremely passionate about the product.

I am also concerned that we are paying as much as we do for computers, bandwidth, cellular devices and almost every other product – more alarmingly: fuel, food, electricity and other products essential to maintaining a reasonable lifestyle, but that is a topic for a whole new debate.

The Apples vs Oranges debate aside though … can you imagine the revolution if all consumers were as passionate about taking on retailers as the Stopcore crowd is? Pity such a high percentage of our population doesn’t have access to the internet.

By: Jayx

Jayx — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:10:12 +0000

@iDale, yes, it is difficult to not take performance advantages and value-adds into consideration, but you cannot put a value to that without a great deal of thumb-sucking – that’s where opinion comes into play.

The reality is that more people buy low spec PC than high-end ones, but then the Mac is not really an option/consideration … maybe I should throw a Mac mini into the equation and see what we get?