Little Apple Rant

Here in NZ we’re a little off the beaten track. It has it’s advantages and disadvantages. One of the down sides is that Apple gear is usually quite a bit pricier. Over the last 2 years the prices have continually been creeping up. At first this was due to the exchange rate turning against us but then someone seems to have thought it an opportune time to get some buffering on those profits.

Now that Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) came out Rebecca and I decided to invest in the whole Apple product range we use. Meaning that we needed new versions for the OS, iWorks and iLife. We have 3 Macs so the family package (5 licenses) is the way to go.

This package costs NZ $479 in the Apple store. In the US it costs US $229. Google tells me that that equates to about NZD $330. Ok….so what’s the $109 difference ($41 is sales tax)??? That is definitely a bit much for postage. So this is pure additional profit! For what? Living in NZ??? Is this the living-happily-in-NZ-tax??? I honestly feel conned by Apple. And I certainly wasn’t going to stand for it. So here’s the trick on how to save lots of dough….

Go to Amazon US and get search for Mac OS X there. You will find the family pack advertised for $199 (!!) or even less. Get it shipped to someone you know in the US and then get them to ship it out to NZ. Voila, you just saved $100+.

Apple is a cool company and I love their products and will keep on buying them but if they think they can fund cheap US sales by conning the rest of the world then their outa luck. I think this should even get investigated by the commerce commission. Wonder who I write to there…

Tags: Apple, iLife, iWork, Mac OS X, Personal, rant