“Regardless of the UK’s low £199 carrier pricing or Softbank’s free solution, neither offer can be matched by Apple’s competition,” Reschke writes. “Yet Apple is pushing this subsidized direction forward without any serious players in the market, thus it reveals how important Apple believes tablets are to their future. Subsidizing tablets as the best way to lure consumers probably isn’t that relevant to Apple, but it does accomplish the task of locking out a new entry point for the competition, while leaving iPad in a commanding position.”
Reschke writes, “If you don’t get the big picture yet, let me spell it out for you: Apple is dead serious on dominating the tablet market space… The subsidy model is quickly launching in other regions across the globe, so this begs the obvious question: When is it going to happen in the US?”
Full article here.
Have Verizon do it here, (USA) I’d get 3 more.
iPad becomes a commodity.
GO APPLE…take the stock to $500!
Verizon should just do it with the current iPad and their WiFi hotspot (whatever they call it). Then you wouldn’t need to buy the 3G iPad, and you have a WiFi hotspot that any device you or four of your closest friends want to use anywhere.
The problem is why?
I’ve had my iPad 3g since day one.. While i love it, it’s not the “on the go” device that my iPhone is.. 95% of the time I use the iPad on my home wifi network. Why would i want to lock into a two year $50-$60 a month 3G contract for a device that i use mainly at home?
subscriptions suck.
give people a choice to pay a fair price up front with no strings attached.
Speak for yourself, MikeK! My iPad is glued to my hip!
You probably wouldn’t need 3G+GPS, but for business travelers, and people on the go (sales types), students, etc… having data, GPS anywhere, it makes sense.
It’s about use case, and your use case does not require data everywhere, but I would venture to say 1 in 4/5 use cases do.
I would research what the termination fee is. If the pricing isn’t structured too smartly, it may be worth it to buy with two year plan and then cancel.
YAY another contract!!…. (rolls eyes).
Ultimately, it’s not “carrier subsidized.” It is subsidized by the collective customer-base, including a lot of the people who paid full-price for an “unlocked” device.
@ C1,
“My iPad is glued to my hip.”
And I thought that getting my wife to sow a large pocket on the inside of my jacket was a great idea.
@mike
They did give us a fair price with no strings attached. It’s called the current retail price of the iPad.
I wouldn’t be interested – at all. We already pay subscriptions on our iPhones. We use the iPads much, much less. Committing to a contract for iPad just won’t happen for us.
It seems like this is a carrier decision. Not much reason for ATT to do this now. Where else are they going to go? With multiple carriers in the mix it might make sense. I assume the payment to Apple for an iPad would be the same.
C1, you know, a little acetone can help …
$;8;.8;,8,;7; ucfifxxifixrifxifu:,7 jxr8;8;.8;
@chrissyone
Same here! 😀 I carry mine with me everywhere, and have never found it to be a hassle.
@Chrissyone have you seen the iPad+Velcro video on the iPad site?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
On the other hand, I use my ipad far more than I use my phone.
Funny, I thought apple already dominates the tablet market…..duh.
Since getting my iPad, my poor iPhone hardly gets used at all… Much prefer the iPad for most everything, except the phone calls.
@Rufcifcifxifxfcuuu
Somebody’s cat been using their computer?
Why? There’s no great rush on the iPad. There are plenty in stock. However, Apple employees are very polite. If you call and ask them to hold one for you for pick up in an hour, they will…
Muscle X Edge