I thought the main reason was obvious: it's only available if you buy from Apple directly, not from, say, Amazon. Apple makes more money when you buy from their store instead of a third party.
Disappointingly the monitors as well. It sucks to have to buy an old monitor for 200% more than something else that year for the colors to look good and not have to fuss with ICC calibration when working dual-monitor on a laptop.
Maybe this is why an Apple monitor costs more than something else? Because people will pay more to get good colors and not have to fuss with ICC calibration.
Second hand color calbration sensor is $100-$150, that's a professional quality one. And with the calibration taking 3 minutes every few weeks (if one is punctual) it seems that you want an Apple monitor because it's an Apple monitor and not because its color reproduction is good.
Is there a specific reason it has to be an Apple monitor? I have an HP IPS monitor with DisplayPort that I use calibrated with my MacBook Pro. What am I missing out on?
Wouldn't the market adjust for this fact? There is less demand for engraved iPods, therefore the price for them would be lower. If I was in the market for a used iPod, I sure wouldn't mind buying an engraved one if it was $50 or $100 cheaper than the non-engraved kind.
If anything, Apple is encouraging a used market, by artificially creating a lower-end used market.
If Apple really wanted to prevent a second-hand market for iPods, they'd do something like permanently lock an iPod to a specific iTunes account.
