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The iPod International Currency Index
Snad writes "The BBC is reporting that an Australian bank has adopted the price of Apple's iPod as a means of tracking international currency values. Similar to The Economist's Big Mac index, this 'iPod index' tracks the price of a 2-GB iPod Nano around the globe and uses purchasing power parity to determine relative currency value. A sample quote: '"The index suggests that the US dollar has potential to appreciate against a range of major currencies, with the Australian dollar about 15% overvalued against the greenback," said Craig James, Commonwealth Securities' head economist.' The cheapest place to buy an iPod is Canada — $144 (but Hong Kong and Japan are almost as cheap); the most expensive is Brazil — $327."
1 song = 1 $ = 1 = 1 £
Just because 'Apple is cool', doesn't mean that you can make everything cool by jut mentioning Apple.
I'd like to introduce a new scale, the apple scale, where 0 apple is not hyped, and 10 apple is cnn/fox/interwebs hype.
Such a pity for Zune!
C|N>K
iPod this, iPod that... come on people get with the program.
The iPod sucks compared to other platforms (i.e. Creative Zen Vision W), and its software is very annoying (MAC software that is not intuitive on a PC) and highly restrictive (DRM, can't create folders in Video ipod, iTunes, etc). The only thing it has going for it is its stylish hardware and huge marketing campaign.
Quite frankly, it's time to change the tune! (pun intended)
Adeptus
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
IANAE but there's a crucial difference with other pertinent indices. Bic Macs as are consumed. Oil, by way of another example, is also consumed. Apple's portable music players (ffs) are sold (or given away) and then just used like any other non-consumable, non-disposable commodity. I really can't see how this is anything other than a gimmick.
Brazil has 60% import taxes, plus some more 14% depending on the state, such as Minas Gerais. Due to our economic plan, "Import Substituion" or something in those lines, it doesn't say much about currenry, only currency in relation to imported products, or "Custo Brasil", "Brazil's Cost" as some like to call it.
The index computation does not seem to take into account the taxes (for the local **AA) that some countries are levying on MP3 players.
The iPod is no more restrictive -- just more successful.
Overall, the results suggest that the US dollar has scope to rise against a range of major currencies except for the Hong Kong or Canadian dollars or Japanese yen.
So they conclude that the low price of the iPod in the USA means the $ is undervalued compared to the currencies of countries where the iPod is more expensive. No mention of factors like labour cost and the internal competitiveness of the retail sector. Whoever wrote this seems entirely clueless about economics.
"Hey, my bank gave me a free toaster for opening a new account!"
:)
"Phhh, my bank converted my account to iPodDollars(TM)!"
To me, having my bank doing currency conversions in iPodDollars does not make a happy customer. Of course, my Apple's Trallaxian overlords already are using iPod currency!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I wonder how long it took them to find a product that made the dollar look good?
This does not take price gouging in some countries into effect, so that greedy local Apple dealers and undervalued currency have the same effect.
I prefer a product that's less "cool", like milk or bigmacs.
In the 80s the price of a mars bar was used as a method of measuring relative costs.
The cost of a mars bar reflects raw material costs, energy costs, labour costs, transport costs and local taxation.
It's a good yardstick to measure prices between places and over time.
Sounds like the same principle is being applied with iPods, with the added advantage that the mention of the word ipod guarantees coverage, more so than something as mundane as the price of a mars bar
echo $SIGNATURE
This is not very useful: the market value and intended targets of the iPod change from country to country.
You can safely assume the shiny gadget is a consumer good in the US, most of Europe, Japan, and other similarly rich countries. But in much of the developing world, it is a luxury item that local distributor(s) can afford to overprice (compared to its value in other markets) because they are only going after the 0,1 percent of wealthy people that can afford the item regardless if it costs 250 or 450USD. For this to make any sense, of course, you need to keep in mind that in many developing countries, there is no such thing as a large middle-class.
The Economist's Big Mac index is flawed for another, similar reason: going to Mc Donald's is considered cheap and unfashionable in Paris, France, while it the most hype thing to do in Cairo, Egypt, or Guangzhou, China. So despite the fact that you are talking about the exact same BigMac & fries, you are not considering the same product, because its perceived value changes considerably from place to place. I think I remember reading an Economist article that aknowledged this.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
The Big Mac index is so good because the price of the Big Mac involves a little bit of everything: tradable products (meat, bread, etc), labor, services, rental, etc. It is cheap, and usually not subject to any special taxes. The iPod is an imported luxury good, and thus its price is subject to arbitrary decisions by dealers and governments. No good.
Most expensive nano, most expensive PS3 (the 60GB version was R$8000 at launch - thats 3270 fscking dollars!!!!) And this in retail stores, not eBay or similar. Probably most expensive Macbooks as well. You know, we are all filthy rich here, so we don't mind paying such outrageous prices. Sigh.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
The reasoning behind the Big Mac index is that for the most part, McDonalds tries to produce the burgers using the cheapest available inputs. Thus, the Big Mac index is representative of the cost of a bundle of food-related inputs. Much of the time, this means locally produced inputs. A country with low cost beef and wheat will have relatively cheaper Big Macs, whereas countries with expensive beef and wheat (or high input tariffs) will have relatively more expensive Big Macs. In the long run, a country with cheap inputs will tend to export to countries with expensive inputs, thus weakening the currency of the importing nation and strengthening the currency of the exporting nation.
The idea of an iPod index makes no economic sense. The reason that an iPod is expensive in Brazil, India, and Thailand isn't because labor, LCDs, and Flash Memory are expensive in those countries. An iPod costs the same to produce no matter where it is sold. The only main difference is in import duties and sales taxes. Import duties and sales taxes have nothing to do with the long-term direction of a country's currency. This index is a waste of time.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Google SHILL !!
"with the Australian dollar about 15% overvalued against the greenback"
Apple products aren't the right products to use when comparing against Australian and overseas prices. Apple Australia has some history of inflating prices sky high, so much that several times in the past the price difference equaled a return ticket to the USA to purchase said companies products. These days the gap is less but frequent overseas travelers could justify it.
This is dumb. The point of the Economists Big Mac index is that it reflects a range of local costs - labour, retail space, locally produced ingredients. An iPod does not - it is almost certainly not made locally, or from local raw materials, and so it does not make a good measure of local PPP.
It also doesn't take into account how local laws affect prices.
Finnish consumer protection laws are quite demanding, which causes higher prices.
Example: My iBook display stopped working after 18 months of use. I took the display apart and found that the display hinge had eaten into the cable. Because the cause of the problem was an incorrect design of the hinge, Apple had to replace the cable, with no cost to the consumer what so ever.
In the United States, you would propably have voided the warranty just by opening the display case. Here, the manufacturer has to show that problem was caused by incorrect use of the product to avoid paying for the repairs during the "expected lifetime" of the product. ("Expected lifetime" depends on the type of the product. With computers it's somewhere between 2 and 3 years.)
So, Americans get cheaper products, but have to pay for "Extended Apple Care" and such.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
i've always hated the CBA, bunch of retards who charge huge account keeping fees.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Looks like I mistyped the price in dollars. It is actually US$3720. I am relieved.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
You really can't calculate a meaninful exchange rate based on the price of a single product, unless the economies of the two nations are inherently similar. Yes, MKs in Africa figure exchange rates based on the price of Coca-Cola, but that's between countries with more-or-less the same economy, and it's inherently an informal calculation anyhow. You can't meaninfully compare the currencies of the US and Australia that way, much less the US and Brasil.
The problem is that different kinds of goods and services are more or less expensive in different economies. You can get VERY different ideas about the exchange rate, depending on which product you look at. In one country, technology is cheap but labor is expensive. In another, technology is unaffordable but labor is cheap. In another, both technology and labor are expensive but food is cheap. If you compare currencies based on one product, you can get yourself quite seriously confused.
Exchange rates are also driven by trade balances, and just because one US dollar can be exchanged for eight billion Ubledubgongian Frankls does not mean that a product worth one dollar in the US will cost F8 billion in Ubledubgong. It may only cost 250 Frankls. Going the other direction, just because exchanging one US dollar only gets you 50p in England does not necessarily mean that 50p has the same purchasing power as $1 would have in the US. People who don't understand economics tend to assume it works that way, but it doesn't.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
The Big Mac Index is more suitable because it is a local index.
...) and the local reseller cost and worldwide shipping cost.
Because for a Big Mac you look at the local costs and industries.
(packaging, local labour cost, local agriculture (salad, meat...))
For an iPod you only measure the chinise output (packaging, chinese labout cost, chinise raw materials
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
I don't think they got the point of the Big Mac Index. That one is a good index because all inputs are sourced locally (local labour, local lettuce, local beef...) and the price therefore reflects prices of a wide range of inputs.
I guess the price of the Ipod reflects production costs in Taiwan (or wherever they produce that thing) and how fashion-conscious consumers are.
I wouldn't follow the advice of that bank.
I have recently been to Brazil and yes, iPods are expensive there, but not much more than here in Argentina:i on=subcategoria&cat=11&code=76
http://www.macstation.com.ar/store/index.php?secc
2GB iPod nano Silver: u$s 322 (ARS 999)
Think about it, "Big Mac" index reflects local production costs, etc.
IPOD reflects a FIXED production cost, probably a fairly minimal range of shipping costs, and that's it*.
Basically the opposite of the big mac index, i.e. global fixed production cost, wildly varying sales price vs wildly varying production cost and sales price.
It doesn't reflect the same information, but it does reflect important relational information about each economy and market. It doesn't TELL you anything directly but it gives a relationship between markets which still indicates useful information.
* Taking into account tax rates isn't as big an issue as people make out - it still reflects the 'buying power' of the public, and/or at least their expectation.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
It tells me I should keep an ear out for friends travelling to Canada so I can tell them to bring me back electronics. :P
Nothing is impossible. We just haven't quite worked out how to do it yet.
That is just ridiculous. Firstly they were telling us the inflation was due to the prices of oil and bananas. Bananas? Come on. And now iPods... where do these people get ideas like this..
This site goes to 11.
The index doesn't take into account the fact that any technology item is seen as a luxury and taxed to high heavens in Brazil (ever wondered why Brazil lags behind in every tech-related comparison? If Brazilians can't even have access to computers and tech items, it's no surprise they can't code or compete).
This byzantine tax system creates a practically closed market where official importers can charge whatever they want, and illegal imports profit from the artificially inflated prices.
The US$999 educational iMac costs US$2200 in Brazil, from Apple, or about $1800 from "independent importers" (smugglers). And it's the same all over the market, from the cheapest PC to the most expensive server: tech in Brazil costs 2 to 4 times what it costs, say, in the U.S.
Personal imports are even more expensive: there's 60% duty plus 18 to 25% value-added tax.
Did The Economist take such distortions into account when they calculated currency under/overvaluation? Otherwise it's comparing apples to, umm... chestnuts?
Your country has Sepultura and Soulfly. Two amazing bands.
I think all these schemes, be they iPods or Big Macs, are very overrated. The fact is that companies will price goods differently in different markets for different reasons. There are also different tax regimes, different tariffs, and different attitudes in different markets. In some countries having an iPod might be highly desirable, but in others a Kwa Hang mp3 player might be the bees knees. In others an iPod might be a cultural no-no.
A better PPP value would be basic food items, but even then comparisons are fraught with error.
Why is it that banks act so dumb at times? Don't they know that speculation drives the currency markets? The actual trading of currencies for merchant purposes is less than 1% of the total trade.
So here we have banks, whose main business is speculation, telling us that iPod prices can be used to value currency. I don't suppose banks would indulge in deceit would they? They wouldn't be trying to get the amateurs to lose money by putting stupid ideas in their heads would they?
Confused australians are trying to plug their headphones in to Big Macs. We interviewed Dwayne Bushtucker who said 'I read that they used to use Big Macs for their research but now it was iPods but I figured I'd check if they were compatible. I guess not...'
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
iPods in Brazil aren't expensive because of the "real value of its currency", but because they are heavly taxed. If they were taxed in Brazil as they are in the USA, the price would be almost the same.
So say we all
Yay! (I think...)
I agree with the posters that the Big Mac index is a much better metric for purchasing price parity. But I don't think an Ipod index is worthless. I suspect it correlates well with the competitiveness of the local retail market as well as government regulation and taxation. If you adjusted the price for PPP (i.e. apply the Big Mac index), the resulting metrics could be a measure of local market efficiency (competitiveness and degree of govt. interference).
[Insert pithy quote here]
I read the article and giggled. Neat way to informally measure a currency. Now I see all this debate... (sigh). Take it with a grain of salt. I wish I had so much free time on my hands.
"You can surrender without a prayer, but never really pray without surrender" - NP
This is kind of a silly correlation. Market competition also plays a factor in price. Without having done any formal research, I'm guessing iPod's are cheap in Japan and HongKong because there's an abundance of "alternative goods" (econ 101 anybody?) available in those tech-savvy markets, and the iPod's market share is much more vulnerable. Peace Out.
what about overpricing because of importing taxes and "user's demand".... basically in Mexico an Ipod is around 40% more expensive than in US... but that has no relation between the Mexican Pesos and the Dollar....
There is a precedent for this. Some people said the official inflation rate didn't reflect the true historical trends. So they invented the Mars Bar index.
. html
http://specials.ft.com/nicocolchester/FT3XZDJSEIC
davecb5620@gmail.com
That should fit nicely somewhere in the middle of my useless fucking ideas index!
Argentina not so good either. We are almost as bad as Brasil
i on=producto&code=465
Check it yourself, direct from Apple Argentina:
http://www.macstation.com.ar/store/index.php?secc
999.00 pesos!
999 / 3.11 (current american dollar convertion) = 321.22 dollars!!!!!!!
It's a steal.
This valuation scheme is yet another example of how bankers pretend money is simpler than it really is to protect rich people and screw poor people.
If you've got only enough money to eat and get shelter, that iPod is worth nothing to you. You won't trade any of your 2000 calories of diet for it, even if it cost only the equivalent of a few dozen calories.
If you've got $BILLIONS, you'll pay $200 or $300 for the iPod just as fast. In fact, many billionaires will pay $300 or $500 (maybe more, I don't have $BILLIONS) for an iPod if fewer people have one, to be among the few with the new toy at its highest price. Which also defies the "network effect" of media products, which are generally more valuable the more people have them, for their increased value in communicating among the network.
So the iPod as "neutral" currency would be worth replacing quite a lot of cheese sandwiches to rich people, but none to poor people. If the poor person had to get an iPod from the rich person to exchange for the cheese sandwich, they'd never do enough to get one, and starve.
Money, despite its apparent simplicity, is nonlinear in many ways (ask stockmarket manipulators). The very simplest model of actual economics has to separate the subsistence essentials from the rest. Money spent on food, shelter (including utilities), children's education, medicine/hygiene is much more valuable per "dollar" than money spent on caviar. It's one reason why taxes are so complicated (and why simple sales tax on everything but the essentials is so fair and powerful).
This latest scam, by an Australian bank, is just another way to take more money from the poor, by minimizing their access to buying power. It will work, like most scams, primarily because the poor are less likely to even hear about this new influence on their money, or to understand it if they do. Though many will recognize its effect: another voodoo spell cast by the rich on the poor for more riches, using a fetish object they can recognize but never get for themselves.
--
make install -not war
"Because for a Big Mac you look at the local costs and industries. (packaging, local labour cost, local agriculture (salad, meat...))"
You think that McDonalds uses local material for packaging? Local supplies of meat? Local anything? I'll grant labour (though I could make a humorous argument that they aren't even using local labour...), but the rest is probably imported from cheaper countries...
In many countries around the world, especially second and third world countries, there are extra government import surcharges, wharfage fees and ad-valorum taxes that push the price up artificially. Then there are the scum companies who charge massive prices because they can. Nikon in South Africa is one. A D200 camera with kit lens will cost me R21000 with shipping and worst case import duties. From Nikon South Africa, I can expect to pay R27599 for the same camera. Whether Apple prevents this from happening with iPods here, I don't know.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
Just as a sample, and since I live in the Buffalo-Niagara region of the USA (near the Canadian border) I compared Futureshop's canadian price against's Circuit city's American price for an 80GB iPod Video (in black)
Future Shop = $399.99 CAD
Circuit City = $332.49 USD
When you factor in the Exchange rate, the numbers in US dollars come out to this:
Future Shop = $338.601 USD
Circuit City = $332.49 USD
So even with the exchange, the US one is still cheaper. Add in the VAT and the cost of driving to a Future Shop in gasoline and border crossing fees, and the future shop purchase just doesn't make sense when you can just go down the street to circuit city and pick one up for less. (Unless you want a French Language version, in which case it makes perfect sense, as it's cheaper than having one shipped to you.)
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
If all ipods are made in China as the article suggests and all costs are incurred in the Chinese Currency, then prices charged by Apple should exactly mirror the exchange rate.
Let's assume production costs are, say, 1500 Renminbi, then the price in Euro should be 148.79 Euro and in US Dollar $193.13 (exchange rate at time of posting according to www.oanda.com/convert).
Therefore, the ipod index measures the exchange rate and not the value of the currency. This, of course, is totally useless because there is no need to measure the exchange rate which is set by the exchanges.
If there are differences between ipod prices (converted into US$) in different countries then this is mainly because of Apple price policies and to a lesser extent because of transport costs, taxes etc.
The government is just making it harder for brazilians to have access to technology...
Yep, the government in Brazil is a blood-sucker indeed.
But in the specific case of Apple Brazil, the gov't looks very kind compared to that company's greed.
Everything Apple sells in Brazil is horribly-insanely expensive. For the price of their crappiest iMac you can buy 2 extremely good Dell computers:
MA199LZ/A iMac (17"LCD/1.83GHz/512MB/160GB/SuperDrive/ATI Radeon X1600-128MB/AP/BT)
English -- Yeah, the Mac OS is not in Portuguese, what a joke!
R$ 6.499,00 (~3.050,00 USD) <--- HAHAHAHA!!! What a joke!
No, iPod is not a reliable way to measure a country's economy.
And, mod me down brazilian you Apple fanbois: One who pay for Apple hardware is either rotten-rich, desperate or simply idiot.
In fact, if anything, i'm suprised Brazil isn't more expensive. When i had a gf there, every time i went back and forth i noticed camera prices, and the camera prices were actually on the order of 4-5x more expensive tehre than here in the US.
Actually, I think this says more about who gets ripped-off the worst around the world because of the artificial bans against greymarket goods in a world economy.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
These methods for measuring the value of money, or the value of anything, or for comparing values, although interesting and in many ways useful, have a fundamental logical flaw that render them unreliable.
The flaw is that the monetary (numerical) values involved in any transaction are a middle point between what both parties consider more and less valuable in that transaction.
Example: A has a given amount of 'coins'. B has a given amount of 'goods'. If A feels 'goods' is more important for him than 'coins', and if B feels 'coins' is more important for him than 'goods', then an exchange happens. From the point of view of A, A had 'profit'. From the point of view of B, B had 'profit'. If, on the other hand, both A and B feel that 'coins' and 'goods' have the same exact value, no exchange happens, because the act of exchanging is work, and working is cost for both parties.
No measuring method is able to measure valuations. You'll never know by "how much" A valued 'goods' more than 'coins', nor by "how much" B valued 'coins' more than 'goods'. The only thing the measurement shows you is that when the exchange happened, it happened at with this or that proportion. And that's it.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
I have a limited appetite for iPods, and I never go into McDonalds, so a Starbucks Doppio is what I use to compare price levels. For example $1.83 in Seattle, 1.70 Euros in Paris, 2.60 Euros in Frankfurt Airport. Seems like the Euro is way overvalued.
As an aside, the Economist picked the Big Mac because McDonalds makes a big effort to source as much as possible locally, so a McDonalds big Mac should reflect the relative cost of producing that hamburger in that place.
The iPod is manufactured centrally (I think) and shipped in, so it really does not qualify in the same way a Big Mac does. Nor does a Starbucks coffee I guess.
I am sure someone else pointed this out already, but I am too lazy to read all the posts.
I think the main point of the article that the American dollar is overvalued is correct, sites like newegg don't compare favorably to even local in store retailers (with 1 year warranties and 7 day no question asked return policies) in Canada such as Filtechcomputer (even Canadacomputers is better) when I've been to the states I've found products to be about the same dollar for dollar or even a little more expensive.
:( And what with the Yuan be based against in future?
All this in a country with one of the lowest minimum wages and mean incomes in the developed world.
There are a few things cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada 1. Alcohol. 2. Paid sex (Better education might clear that up for you guys).
The U.S. dollar has been bolstered forever on it's ability to price oil but with the Euro coming on so strong that can't last.
So with the U.S. dollar poised to go down the question is will it pull the Canadian dollar down with it
Interesting. I'm actually waiting for the World of Warcraft Index, or WoWEx, myself! In principal, I suppose one can use just about any popular item to track some kind of economic activity or social behavior. The coming years should be fun for economists and sociologists alike!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Having two competing novelty indexes can not stand.
They should be merged them into the iMac index!
Of course we brazillians have a very expensive iPod. There are maaany reasons why this happens.
1. Taxes: the iPod is an imported good. Most imported goods here have a 60% tax. Yes, that's right 60% of tax just to import it. After that, all states have a tax over trading and services, which range from 13% to 17% over the value of the good. So, on arrival (through legal ways) the iPod already can have 77% just of taxes. Add to that the profits that retailers want and you have doubled the price.
2. Low market: retailers have a hard time selling the iPod around. First because they're very expensive. Then you don't have people actually wanting to pay for each song downloaded. It's just cheaper to buy a cheap MP3-player/pendrive smuggled from somewhere like taiwan and then use your favorite P2P app to download "free" music.
3. No one is selling: for my entire life, I think that I've seen one, maybe two, Apple stores here. Anyway, the ones that are around usually make even Macs too much expensive to buy (I have seen only one running too). Yes, there are some big retail stores that sell it too (mostly only the nano) but it's around 4 to 5 times the price for other players.
4. There's no hype here: yeah, that's right. The only time I've seen the iPod on TV is in some (rare) tech shows and in commercials for stores using it as free gifts. It's just not raised to pop star level like in some other countries.
Actually, I can decide for myself whether I want to buy the "extended care" plan or not. I typically don't. And the products almost never fail prematurely anyway, so on balance, I'd rather skip paying extra for a reliability guarantee that I'm not likely to need.
Don't get me wrong - I'm generally in favor of more-European style consumer product regulation in the US. But it doesn't always work out in your favor.
Sean
It's written 'Mac', not 'MAC'. Writing it as Mac is one of those rediculous typing errors memes that seen to plague teh interweb.
"rediculous". "seen" (sic). "teh"? Oh, the irony of your little diatribe is just killing me.
With any new system, you should start with the basics.
I have an iPod. How many cubic miles of oil can I buy with it?
I didn't back up what I had said because other people already did. Lenovo Thinkpads retail cheaper than Macbooks, and they're not the cheapest. I don't undervalue quality of construction, but Apple laptops don't have the best track record as far as sturdiness is concerned, which is almost the only matter worth considering.
You're not uneducated, you're just an asshole, apparently. Yes, I am relatively uneducated. I refrained from using the word ignorant, because most people don't possess the verbal skills necessary to properly interpret the word ignorant. 'Uneducated' in context was in reference to the topic at hand, not your overall worldly knowledge.
Kudos goes to you for taking a microcosmic conversation and relating it to the personal world. Thank you for criticizing my life path. Thank you for explaining to me I should be ashamed of who I am. I hope your children don't have to bear the brunt of your personality, and turn out better than you.
Cheers.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
iRiver flash portables are godly. They have like 50 different varieties with combinations of flash size, battery life (LiO vs. AAAs), water resistance, radio, whatever. And they almost all come with a armband strap attachment point for the gym.
It's too bad they stopped making the older HD portables (the H10s and later suck).
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Big Macs have a set standard and have been the same for a long time. iPods are constantly being revised.
This is nothing more than a promotional gimmick.
An iPod price survey is not the same as a big mac price survey for various reasons (primarily, ipods are imported not manufactured locally).
If you want to compare cost of living you should go look at the mig mac index, the iPod index is for entertainment purposes only.
Here is a table of the Big Mac Index
Index
It doesn't show the Aussie dollar is overrated - it shows that we are getting jibbed on the price of nanos!
Since this article is surprisingly short and doesn't even show the ratings, here's a link to the original article with the complete list and also some commentary about the measurement method:
http://www.comsec.com.au/public/news.aspx?id=809
Some people here feel that the Big Mac index is better, because it takes into account local labour costs etc. These guys maintain that the iPod index is better, precisely because it doesn't include these effects. I would say both methods are useful, you just have to know what you're measuring.
The thing is, no one really buys iPods from Apple around here.
Here on MercadoLivre (brazilian eBay's subsidiary) you can get one for R$410 (approx. US$186).
Apple stuff here in Brazil is absurdly expensive but it's not only because of import taxes (since they're "only" 60%). You can actually legally import an iPod, paying all the taxes (which are higher when you're importing as a person instead of as a company) and still *pay less* the Apple Brasil price tag. It's stupid.