不顾一切最早买苹果新产品的成本有多高

    看了这两幅图后，也许会有人指出，我得出的平均数模糊了两种截然不同的情况，即iPhone和Apple TV的降价幅度非常大，而iPad和iPod的价格降幅较小。不过就算降价幅度最小的iPod，售价也在不到18个月里下滑了25%。

    这样一看整体情况就很清楚了，要成为苹果新产品的早期用户，你要多花很多钱。

    “产品不完善”成本

    对早期用户来说还有一项重大成本，就是苹果很快就会发布大幅改进的新款。

    从某种程度上讲，购买任何电子产品都会出现这样的情况。今天买的电脑没有几个月以后能买到的好，几年以后的电脑更是先进得多。

    不过，这一点在新产品上表现得格外突出。对2000年之后问世的苹果产品来说，首次重大更新后不光伴随着降价，新版产品的性能也远超老款。

    说起来可能难以置信，不过第一代iPhone真没有App Store、群发短信和高速上网功能，甚至不能复制粘贴文本。用户只能选择AT&T这一家电信运营商，而当时其以服务质量不稳定著称。苹果公司前高层让-路易•加西在最近出版的新书《成为乔布斯》中回忆道：“iPhone刚问世时有很多缺陷。”直到一年后3G版iPhone发售时，“才算得上真正的成品”。

    因此有人可能会担心Apple Watch同样出现缺陷。作为苹果的最新产品，Apple Watch的GPS功能和数据连接完全依靠iPhone，单独佩戴时只比普通手表略有型而已。不难想象，未来的新款Apple Watch应该可以独立工作，成为一款真正的革命性产品，而不只是一件（极为先进的）饰品。

    对于纠结要不要下手的消费者来说，问题现在很清楚了：一是你愿意花多长时间等Apple Watch变成“真正的成品”。二是，你现在愿意掏多少钱买？（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    审校：夏林

    One might look at the graphic and argue that the average obscures two dramatically different stories: The iPhone and Apple TV experienced very large price cuts, while the iPad and iPod saw more modest reductions. But even the smallest price drop, the iPod’s, was 25% in less than 18 months.

    So there’s a clear lesson in the big picture: Early adopters have paid a significant premium to be among the first to own a new line of Apple devices.

    The Product-Isn’t-Good-Yet Tax

    Then there’s another big cost to early adopters: purchasing something that’s about to get a lot better very soon.

    To a certain extent, this phenomenon is built into every electronics purchase. The computer you buy today won’t be quite as good as the computer you could buy a few months, let alone years, from now.

    But it’s especially true when it comes to brand new product categories. It isn’t just that the price of Apple’s post-2000 innovations fell when the first serious revisions hit the market. It’s that the new and less expensiveversions were much better than the originals.

    It’s hard to believe now, but the original iPhone didn’t ship with an app store, group messaging, high-speed internet, or even the ability to copy and paste text. It was also exclusive to one carrier, AT&T, which at the time was notorious for spotty service. “The iPhone was crippled when it first came out,” recalls Jean-Louis Gassée, a former Apple executive interviewed in the recently released biography, Becoming Steve Jobs. It was only a year later, when the iPhone 3G was released, “that the iPhone was truly finished.”

    One could argue the Apple Watch is similarly crippled. Cupertino’s latest widget completely depends on the iPhone for a GPS and data connection, turning the watch into a slightly souped-up timepiece when worn on its own. It’s not hard to imagine that a future Apple Watch model that could exist indepently, making it a truly revolutionary device instead of an (extremely advanced) accessory.

    The question for prospective early adopters, then, is how long are they willing to wait until the Apple Watch is also “truly finished.” And how much are they willing to pay right now?