Edgelord79
Gold Member
No
digoutyoursoul
Member
diffusionx
Gold Member
Apple already sells hundreds of millions of handhelds a year, I don't understand the question.
Comandr
Member
This "joke" that apple haters seem to latch on to isn't even remotely true. For $799 the iPhone 17 is shockingly good for its value. Read the reviews.
You can get a brand new Mac Mini for $499 from the education store. I double dog dare you to find me a more powerful computer for that price. I'll wait.
I don't think Apple has a single modern product that isn't USB-C these days? What proprietary charging are you talking about? Or was it MagSafe, that was SO good, that the Qi2 wireless standard is literally built around it, and now even Android phones are getting APPLE's magsafe charging and they're treating it like the second coming of Christ?
And Apple Care? It's a great value. $13 a month vs Samsung's $18. Or $280 for 2 years vs. Samsung's $350. Also Apple offers a group plan that will cover up to 3 devices for $20. It would be... $54 a month to do that with Samsung. So what's your point with this exactly? Is being uneducated supposed to be funny? All I'm hearing is "Apple is so expensive, you get nothing, Apple Tax blah blah"
You might perceive that "Apple devices are unreasonably expensive" but that money holds its value far longer than any other manufacturer. For a forum with such a massive hardon for physical media and its value to trade or re-buy or whatever - it's shocking how so many ignore the resale value of apple devices. Gazelle, best buy, basically anyone will give more money for a previous generation iPhone trade in than any other manufacturer. Try it yourself.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra sold for $1300 when it came out. The iPhone 16 Pro Max for $1200. You can trade both of them into Gazelle in perfect condition for $432 and $640 respectively. Samsung lost 65% or $847 of its value in one year versus iPhone only losing 46% or $560 in value. I'm not done with you yet. If we go back even further, a Galaxy 23 Ultra will get you $311, versus an iPhone 15 Pro Max $491. A year older iPhone will still command a higher sale value than a newer Samsung. So not only is the like-for-like Samsung MORE expensive by $100, its insurance is more expensive, and it lost way more value in a single year, and even more as the devices get older.
Modern, like-for-like Apple products are less expensive, and hold their value longer compared to the competition, and I have the receipts to prove it. Where's your quippy joke for that?
The cornerstone of intelligent comedy is a nugget of truth. For instance, if I said... The only thing Trump needs to do to complete his Halloween pumpkin costume is black triangles over his eyes. - That's funny, because he's fucking orange. There's truth behind the joke.
~~~***~~~
On topic... Apple doesn't have a vested interest in selling a dedicated handheld. What would it run? Linux? MacOS is out of the question - the game support is worse than Linux right now. iOS? That would also be terrible, but it would be the only thing that makes sense for them if they were going to subsidize this device in ANY way by giving consumers a way to engage with games on the App Store. That also wouldn't work because most """"GAMERS"""" aren't going to want to have to re-buy their games on a different platform. The reason why this works at all for manufacturers like Lenovo, GPD, ROG, etc, is because the devices ship with windows. You just log into whatever platform you ALREADY have games on. Apple has the uphill battle of not only selling you a device to play games, but having to try to convince you to buy games that are exclusively on their thing. Many Steam games don't have a MacOS version, or if they have to run through a translation layer, it kills performance.
Short of a ludicrous scenario where Valve works out a deal with Apple to manufacture future Steam Decks to run Linux and everyone get some sort of subsidy, I can't see a reason for Apple to release a device like this, let alone for anything less than $799. You're basically asking for a full mac computer with a screen attached, and they have no guaranteed income after purchase. It will have to be expensive to cover the costs. And at $799, it would still be lower price than most of the competition in that sector.
All that said, I just don't see a future where Apple would ever make a handheld gaming device unless you could sideload ARM windows into it. And that's another can of worms entirely. Any way you cut it, in today's landscape, this would be a sub-par product, and Apple's design team would be profusely aware of that. $799 is the absolute lowest reasonable cost. Put a screen on the mac mini and call it a day. Ignore the avalanche of problems associated with that.
IFireflyl
Gold Member
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Comandr
Member
I appreciate how intelligent analysis must appear confusing to you.
rodrigolfp
Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
$399
IFireflyl
Gold Member
There was nothing resembling intelligence in your long-winded rant.
It was an obvious joke. Let a joke be a joke. There's a reason people don't invite you to their parties, and this is it.
Trogdor1123
Member
Probably pretty cheap actually. The base Mac mini is incredibly capable and dirt cheap. The Apple TV is the same.
Either of those could easily be converted.
Either of those could easily be converted.
Schmick
Member
Damn that's a nice looking controller. I have the V1 but I really like the shape of the V3.
The price though... a bit steep for the V3 Pro which from what I can tell is the controller that can support the iPad.
Comandr
Member
You come into this thread, post a super long "joke" that you know is going to rile people up, and don't even offer anything to OP's actually serious question. When I call you out for your "joke" with actual facts and numbers, you insult me personally, and then continue to insult me personally and you're apparently one of those guys that tries to defend your behavior by saying its just a joke. It makes a person wonder how many things you've done to upset people and then insult them by telling them it was just a joke. You still have yet to contribute anything meaningful to this topic.There was nothing resembling intelligence in your long-winded rant.
It was an obvious joke. Let a joke be a joke. There's a reason people don't invite you to their parties, and this is it.
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IFireflyl
Gold Member
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Radical_3d
Member
599 + the controller that you use with your iPad.
Comandr
Member
Durin
Member
I mean...it literally took them getting forced by the EU to even adopt that standard, otherwise we'd be stuck with the lightning port and dongles if they had their way.
Apple has some good value products, but they absolutely have areas where they rip you off. I ordered Macbooks in an IT job a few years ago for new hires, the spec bumps in numerous areas like RAM are a joke rip-off vs other providers, they solder as many components as they can to upsell you to those overpriced spec bumps, and they occasionally do just ridiculous stunts like the $1k monitor stand.
Comandr
Member
I'll give you a lot of these points. With that said, Apple's first primary USB-C device was introduced way back in 2018 on the ipad pro. It was an inevitable change from there. Did the EU stink accelerate it? Yes, absolutely.
You could argue that because of the nature of apple's unified ram itself, you can't simply drop in a couple sticks of whatever. It would cause massive issues. Some of these systems have over a half a terabyte of memory bandwidth. Can their prices be egregious for what you get on paper? Yes. But the only thing faster than these machines are like.. data center machines and parts, and you're going to be paying well into the $30,000 range for those, and if your company is big enough to pay for that, it literally doesn't matter anymore. In that light, a $2000 computer that will last for the better part of a decade is actually a really good investment for an enterprise. And then that company can turn around and sell those computers to some refurbishing company years later and get part of their investment back. The 5 year old M1 macbook air originally retailed for $999. It's still regularly on sale for $600 new or $350-400 refurbished. For a laptop to hold 40-60% of its value after 5 years is incredible.
TRYYYINNNGG to stay on topic; that value retention and longevity would absolutely true of a potential apple handheld device. High quality components built to last are going to have much longer legs than their competition. Let's face it, many people tend to hold onto their macs for a looong time. Why? They're still working well. I love my Legion Go, but I really don't see myself still using it 3-5 years from now. I don't even know if it'll work.
The GPD Win4 I bought two years ago, that I loved at the time - barely works at all now. If you plug it in, it shuts down. You can only use it between charges, and then windows will randomly blue screen pretty often. Of course, the manufacturer in china doesn't give a fuck and I'm SOL.
My OG steam deck's bluetooth decided to completely die. Fortunately it's not that big of a deal, but it's still a component that would be nice if it still worked. I could send it into valve for a repair, but they would probably nail me for a logic board replacement and still have to go through the hassle of mailing it in and waiting- shit, I might as well just buy a new refurbished one for the price they would charge me.
That's not to say that Apple's devices are immune to failure, but because they design and manufacture most of their components themselves, you know they're all tailor made to work with eachother. No off the shelf parts, no weird conflicting drivers. There's something to be said about having a unified hardware and software; and as a side benefit, if something did go wrong, you could just drive to a local apple store and have it resolved there. Apple would also no doubt offer apple care for the device.
I fuckin' WISH Valve or literally anyone would offer some sort of damage protection for these handhelds, but there just isn't any. Drop your steam deck in the pool, like valve is always showing it being used near in their promo materials? Well you're fucked now. These devices are getting bigger and heavier year after year, and one good drop is all its gonna take to break that $500-1000 device and there's literally no protection for it, and it sucks.
CliffBronger
Member
Expensive real expensive ..
After all they did price a meta quest equivalent headset at 3500k
After all they did price a meta quest equivalent headset at 3500k
Burger King
Member
They already have a Handheld gaming console
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Gameplay Gods Bless
Member
Apples price sensitive products like the iPad mini and the Mac mini ($599) would point to a $599 system that is very modest in specs but capable enough.
Bert Big Balls
Gold Member
$1199
Durin
Member
They definitely do a good job holding their value, and I still think the strongest position for Apple is because they control their ecosystem so much, they were more easily able to push things forward to arm. Then they designed their own very good chips that excel at battery life for the performance you get over many other options on the market.
I just wish repairability was better, because once you get outside the 4 year apple care window, it can be more of a pain to keep that older device going if it does fail. Even though I think Valve has gone through teething issues with their manufacturing process on the Steam Decks (it is at least getting better), I do love they partnered with iFixit for fairly easy repair and documentation on a number of parts. Apple makes it more of a chore to go through other repair shops evidenced by Louis Rossman & others' complaints, and I don't think the increasingly marginal gains on thinness justify them being more annoying to repair. When you're within the Apple Care window, I do think they do a better job than say Asurion and many others for basic repair services if you're a non-techy person.
Comandr
Member
Having readily available, affordable parts is crucial. Do I want to replace my steam deck logic board? No. Would it be good to have the option? Yeah. But where's the line, right? I'm guessing they don't sell the board because the chip is soldered to it and they don't want to make it super easy for people to just buy tons of boards and make their own temu steem dex using parts and drivers that are readily available by the manufacturer themselves. It's a messy situation with no clear right answer.