Apple’s Grand Monitor Stand

Apple announced quite a few new devices at the annual World Wide Developer’s Conference this past week. We have some new iPads, and a brand new Mac Pro. But what’s catching most people’s attention is not electronics, but rather the ludicrously expensive stand for their new professional 5K monitor.

The stand retails for $999 US dollars. For that price, you get yourself a machined piece of brushed aluminum with some powerful magnets on the back to hold the screen in place, and, that’s it. A part that most monitor companies include free with the product, that retails for more than some of Apple’s own laptops. And of course the stand only works with the Apple monitor, and the monitor doesn’t have a conventional VESA mount, so it needs the stand.

Now, I’ve worked with enterprise grade hardware before. Big IT vendors will sell you a $10 cable for $1,000, charge you another $1,000 to install it, and another $10,000 for a license to activate the port it’s plugged into. It gets even more ludicrous for some of the broadcast gear I deal with. But this takes the cake. For Apple, this takes the cake. Even in an audience packed with the company’s most loyal fanboys, there was a collective groan.

A lot of what Apple has been doing in recent years seems to mimic the company’s crazy schemes form the 1990s. Prior to Steve Jobs’ return, their product line was a huge mess. It was causing them to become increasingly uncompetitive in the business and creative professional market. Their stuff was overpriced, underpowered, and underdelivered on their core philosophy. Which is why Jobs chose to drastically streamline and simplify the company’s catalogue.

This stand is anything but simple and streamlined, considering it doesn’t even ship with the monitor its supposed to be paired with.

Apple under Tim Cook though have convinced themselves that they’re a boutique brand like Supreme, who’s fans will buy any overpriced trash they throw at them. And they’re right. Despite the widespread mocking of this product around the internet, it seems there’s plenty of people out there who will happy fork over a grand for a stand.