“Chrome OS has run on laptops, desktops, convertibles, and all-in-ones, but until today, it hasn’t run on a tablet,” Jacob Kastrenakes writes for The Verge. “That changes with the Acer Chromebook Tab 10, the first tablet to run Chrome OS.”
“Acer’s Chromebook Tab 10 is very much meant to rival the iPad, and that’s particularly notable since it’s being announced just one day before Apple is supposed to announce a new low-cost model,” Kastrenakes writes. “The Tab 10 has a 9.7-inch, 2048 x 1536 display — just like the iPad — with front- and rear-facing cameras, an estimated nine hours of battery life, an OP1 processor, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a USB-C port. There’s also a microSD card slot and a headphone jack. But what’s particularly notable is that the Tab 10 also has stylus support; like Samsung’s Galaxy Note series, the Tab 10 even has a small stylus built right in. It’s a Wacom-branded stylus, and it doesn’t require a battery or any additional charging.”
“The tablet will sell for $329, which is the same price as Apple’s current entry-level iPad. Apple’s expected to release an iPad that costs $259 tomorrow, but if you need a stylus, Apple currently sells that separately for $99 more. It also has to be charged and stored separately,” Kastrenakes writes. “While Acer will sell the Tab 10 to the public, it’s really targeting the device at the education market (again, much like the iPad that Apple is supposed to announce tomorrow).”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The ball’s in your court, Apple.
There comes a pivotal time that you can so aggressively price your products that you can take a market and own it for decades to come.
iPads are too expensive relative to the perceived competition and Apple has obviously done a piss-poor job of marketing the iPad family (read: clearly explaining to the hoi polloi why they want an iPad over an Amazon or other Android tablet).
Sticker price is the biggest reason why iPad sales struggle to return to growth (the next biggest reason is that iPads’ useful lives last so damn long, they’re not rapidly replaced).
We would have purchased iPads for family members this year if they had been updated as they should have been for the holiday season and if the prices were a bit more palatable. Yes, we know what an iPad offers. Yes, we know they’re worth the money Apple’s asking for today; even being last year’s models. But, Apple should really do the math and consider making certain hardware more affordable in exchange for the backend revenue and increased mindshare and market share that will deliver.
For the same reason – mindshare – Apple should make their own Apple displays, even to the point of taking a loss of each and every one, so that other companies’ logos on frankly ugly products that do not match Apple design sensibilities are not in users’ faces all day long. That’s not a difficult concept to grasp; even an inveterate beancounter might be able to get it. — MacDailyNews, January 6, 2017
SEE ALSO:
Apple iPad’s next big act could be conquering U.S. classrooms – March 26, 2018
iOS 11.3: What to expect from Apple’s new system update as it launches tomorrow – March 26, 2018
Apple will not livestream its March 27th education event – March 23, 2018
How Apple blew it and lost the education market to Google – March 23, 2018
Apple to host education event in Chicago on March 27th – March 16, 2018
Apple is losing its grip on American classrooms to cheap Chromebooks – March 2, 2017
Google’s Chromebooks outsold Apple’s Macs in the U.S. for the first time – May 20, 2016
Why iPads are losing to Chromebooks in education, and what Apple needs to do about it – January 13, 2016
Apple loses more ground to Google’s Chromebook in U.S. education market – January 11, 2016
Apple cannot win, they say the current prices are too high. But if they release a lower priced model it will be all over the news
1) “Apple slashes iPad prices due to weak demand”
2) “Downgrading Apple as the new pricing will lead to lower margins”
If Apple took the time to explain what the extra coin gave the user, then many people would see the reasons to invest in the better product. When Apple’s only iPad ad is designed to kneecap the Mac, with a kid that is too ignorant to know what a PERSONAL computer is, that just shows how little Apple understands the industry. Apple has abandoned low and high end personal computers, trying instead to push mainframe &thin client touchscreens as the ultimate solution. If Apple leaders can’t hire the hardware engineers to create an affordable Mac for education and a super powerful Mac Pro desktop workstation, then this company is just swirling the drain behind Sony.
Wasn’t it Steve who said that Apple was not in the business of producing cheap, inexpensive crap, or owning every single market? I keep hearing about cheap versions of existing products, but what grabs my attention is innovation regardless of price. I want my Macs, phones, tablets, watches to be the best there is, no ifs, ands, or buts. I see commercials for Surfaces that attempt to dazzle, but I know that compared to iPad Pro and pencil they are crap. Price? Even the competition is not so cheap if it’s even worth toying with.
They don’t need to own every single market. They should own their own.
I manage Apple devices for my school division. This isn’t just about the cost of the hardware. It is about the cost of the services. Google offers almost all of their services to education, for free. We have to pay for email archiving and the Admin Console, but everything else is there. The first thing I do when setting up a new iPad is install Google’s full suite of apps (Chrome, Drive, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Google Classroom, Earth, Translate, etc.). All of it is so simple to manage and ad-free (even their data collection abilities are limited because of the students being underage and the associated privacy laws). Apple’s services are good, but for too long they were tied to owning an Apple device. Google’s were not. It would be hard to convince people to switch. It seems as though Apple sat back and watched this happen and now they are in panic mode. I am certainly not saying Google offers better products but they saw a hole that needed filling in education and they have worked really hard to fill that hole. Apple has a hard fight ahead of them in this market.
Good commentary boys and MDN take. That’s all.
Yep start mining that consumer data when they are young….
This ChromeOS tablet starts at $329. Doubt Apple goes below that.
Seems the price for education is actually $299. A bit more if you want to match the pencil/stylus provided with the Acer tablet.
Oh lord who want to use an acer thing, back
To 70s lol….
Market plan …..???