“As the rumored unveiling date for the iPad Mini steadily approaches – October 23 to be exact – speculation and rumors over Apple’s pricing plan for the product continue to pile up,” Yoni Heisler writes for Network World. “Now the iPad Mini, by virtue of its size alone, will be positioned to compete against smaller tablets like the Google Nexus 7 and the Amazon Kindle Fire. That being the case, Apple’s iPad Mini should be priced rather aggressively. Keep in mind that the Nexus 7 retails for $199 while the base-level Kindle Fire is about $40 cheaper.”
Heisler writes, “Some analysts believe Apple will go all out and disrupt the low-end tablet market with an aggressive pricepoint in the $199 range. Still, others believe that Apple, always keen on maximizing its profits, will price the device in the $250 range… I contend that there really is no pricing confusion to be had with the iPad Mini and the iPod Touch as they are two different products that serve two different purposes. The iPad Mini is a miniaturized tablet meant for mild media consumption and book reading. And as opposed to the iPod Touch, it won’t feature a crisp Retina Display or high-quality camera.”
“Tthere are a whole lot of people who want to get their hands on an Apple iPad but are simply priced out of the market under Apple’s current pricing matrix,” Heisler writes. “Right now, those folks are becoming Amazon and Android-based tablet users. Apple wants to avoid this dynamic at all costs and we imagine the highest Apple would price the iPad Mini is at $250. Unleashing an iPad Mini at $199, though, would really leave the competitors like Amazon and Google scrambling to stay afloat.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yes. Unlike the last time around, Apple would be wise not to allow Android (or Amazon’s bastardized Android platform) get a toe-hold in the market. Apple has the money and this is an excellent example of the why the war chest exists – plus, once you get the vast majority of users on iOS iPads, they’ll naturally want their smartphones to match, so they can integrate all of their devices with iCloud. As those two-year contracts end, Android settlers will move to iPhones to match their iPads.
If Apple does this, expect some gnashing of teeth and rending of garments among certain “analysts” over margins, regardless of how many times or how clearly Apple CFO Oppenheimer and CEO Cook explain their rationale.
Apple announced shockingly low prices with iPad. With that came market domination. They’d be smart to do the same with iPad mini.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Agreed. A starting price point of $199 would completely relegate the 7″ Android tablets to a niche market permanently. Here’s hoping Apple is able/willing to do this.
I’d love to see Jeff Bezos cheery smile turned into a frown. A $199 iPad Mini would do just that, but Apple wouldn’t go to $199 unless it wasn’t selling that well. At $250, it will certainly sell like hotcakes. I’m sure the iPad Mini refurbs will turn up shortly for $199 and that’s good enough.
I’m getting fed up of hearing how Amazon is going to put Apple out of business because Amazon is selling cheaper tablets. Hasn’t anyone heard that businesses can’t make money if all they’re going to do is give things away? If Apple can only break even on media content, then I’m sure Amazon has the same problem. So, this theory that Amazon can sell tablets at cost and make it up with content really doesn’t hold water.
These $199 and $159 pretenders are not iPads, especially the base-level Kindle Fire. Apple is not desperate like its competitors, nor is Apple subsidizing its hardware via search (Google) or media (amazon). The iPad mini will be a premium Apple product with a better and larger display than the Nexus. If it is priced as low as $249, then everyone should be thrilled. But $299 seems more likely unless Apple cuts corners with memory.
$249. And they’ll sell like hotcakes!
I concur.
I don’t…
Not that I want to pay more money for it (I’m not crazy) But, let me be clear (Apple) I don’t want kindle fire like crapolla (or samsung flexi-plastic piece of crap) with an Apple logo on it that runs iOS.
What I want a small iPad (same build quality, just a bit smaller) and am willing to pay for it.
I’d like an option to have no camera please. It’s not needed on a v1.
Yeah, I just dont understand this comment. No camera??? to not have a camera is not only saying “our technology isnt there to handle this” …which it is! or it says “wait to buy v2 when we put it in there” which should make people kind of upset. I can understand if this is a new product and their testing the waters…but iOS has shown it sells…they dont need to wait for a v2 to put a camera in there. what are you smokin?
What about FaceTime? The mini has to have a camera.
I find that hard to except when the iPod touch starts at 299, iPod has a A5 chip and since the iPad would go lower than that I can’t see why it would be cheaper I would guess they would put the A6 in the new iPad why go back right? The iPhone five alone cost like $207 for Apple to manufacture or something like that I know that’s not exactly right but I cannot see the iPad being any cheaper for them to make and sends it wouldn’t be subsidized by a cell phone company how the heck can they put it out there for 199.
Also assuming this is a retina display like all other current devices
The Nexus7 at $199 results in $0 of profit. Apple doesn’t need to do that, and it’s not their style. An iPad mini starting at $249 will dominate the 7-8″ tablet market.
$199 will blow those Android pretenders off the face of the Earth.
Think of Android as those Alien face huggers and the iPad mini as a scaled down badass Sigourney Weaver looking to kick some Alien ass.
Game over, bitches.
There is a possibility that BLN could reach down into that cavernous intellect and write something that doesn’t have any mention of the lower half of his body.
Keep this in mind: People though the original iPad would cost $1000. It was $499.
The iPad mini will cost no more than $199 for the base model.
Yes, the iPad was priced at $499 and was a huge surprise to the industry, yet within months, there were people yelling that it was too expensive for just a plain slab when you could buy a Windows netbook for $350. Now there are idiots yelling that a $199 tablet is the absolute sweet spot for a tablet and anything more is just a rip-off. That’s how it is. Cheapskates are never satisfied. They must have cheap junk.
Only because the iPad was totally not the traditional desktop/laptop computer in tablet form, like people were expecting. As such, components were cheaper in many ways (no USB or other connectivity other than wifi and cable; thinner = less material costs; etc)
What if Apple has a built in remote control inferred in the iPad mini? Put a Thunderbolt input from your cable box on a iOS6 based Mac mini and you have the world’s best HDTV system. No deals to work out either. Would the iPad mini not be the greatest game control / remote on the planet with a little SIRI in it to? Media suppliers can offer apps to their media content.
At $199, I would buy 3 units. At $249, I would buy three units. At $299, I would buy maybe 1 if it’s 8GB and then 2 iPods with 32GB.
At $199, I’ll buy 3, too. At $249, it might drop to 2. At $299, I’ll buy one and the rest of the family can keep up on their iPhones. 😛
And Apple’s profit and long term customer ratio with my family changes very little between those 3 options, and is probably better at $299. So why drop down to $199? Marketshare. 😉
If the iPod touch is $ 299 at 32 GB, what makes some of you think a machine with a lot more screen space will start at $ 199.
Lay off the sauce for a while and set aside an extra hundred or two for the devices you really want.
Agreed! Apple just priced the new touch starting at $299. That’s enough reason to not believe they will go $199, even if it’s a good move.
How can we be sure that it won’t be available with 16GB (or even 8GB) on the low end? And the screen may not be Retina, which would also bring Apple’s cost down.
Wouldn’t it be a glorious move if they could offer this WITH cellular abilities and hence subsidies it for 149.00, 249.00, 349.00 (16, 32, 64 gb flash memory of course) with a contract… THAT would kill off any competitors’ advantage (not that there is any currently other than pricing). Bloodbath indeed
“Apple wants to”
Yes, this guy knows what Apple wants to do…
Suckaaaars.
😛
iPad Mini 8 GB: $199.
iPad Mini 16 GB: $249.
iPad Mini 32 GB: $299.
Game over.
Would love to see this because yes, game over, but Apple always seems to add $100 every doubling of storage.
I’m not sure there will be an 8GB model but I suspect there will be a 16 GB model for $249. I have a feeling that they might price the 32 and 64 GB models identical to the iPod Touch – at $299 and $399.
I doubt that they will price it below the iPod Touch. That will be quite the publicity nightmare for them. However, they just might price the 16GB model at $199.
– HCE
Apple will get to that price eventually, but there’s no point in rushing to it. Early adopters will buy it at nearly any price, and a larger margin in the beginning offsets the initial costs of designing & manufacturing a new type of product.
Android and Amazon and others already have a head start in the ~ 7″ tablet market. This head start was given to them by Apple on purpose. You see, 7″ is a lousy screen size when it comes to web sites and most apps, and it’s not even pocket-able. Tablets this small are only really good for consuming books and videos, which is what the iPad mini will be marketed for. Apple built a solid App ecosystem & web platform on the original iPad, left Android with a 7″ rope and time for them to hang themselves, and are now releasing a devise that size to claim the ebook market.
If for the sake of argument (and it being a round number) we pretended that after all manufacturing, marketing, development, support, shipping, etc were factored in, that Apple would make $100 on a $249 iPad mini, knocking $50 off would half their profit. They’d have to sell double the amount to make the same overall. Even if they could make enough of them fast enough, $50 off is not going to have that sort of impact on sales.
By selling more they may be able to make them cheaper, but not massively; and/or they may value taking sales away from their “competitors”, but it’s a huge hit to take. It may be that Apple would be making more at $249, so the numbers would vary slightly, but it’s still a huge jump required in sales to make that saving back. If they’d be making less than $100 , knocking $50 is getting close to breaking even territory, and if there content is based on that approach, the only reason to sell them is to stop other companies and cross promote other Apple products, but its not as if their other products aren’t wildly popular already.
I don’t believe it… Apple is killing anything from Amazon or Google with the existing $399 and $499 full-featured iPads. The “iPad mini” will also be full-featured, just smaller. $299 minimum price tag. Apple NEVER goes for the lowest low-end with a cheap-ass product. Apple ALWAYS justifies a higher price by adding more value.
A new iPad that is equivalent in performance and specs to the current $399 iPad 2, that is about 20% smaller and 40% lighter, is well worth $299. For me, it would be worth $399, as a replacement for the iPad 2.
But one possibility is for a version with carrier-based wireless for data that is subsidized with a two-year contract. Then, the upfront price could be $199 (or even less).
That is exactly what I’m looking for!! Full featured mini tablet.
The day MDN has a say in Apple managment and reasoning os the day to sell
iPad Mini at $199 price point could cause an environmental disaster. Landfills all over the world would be choked with Android toxic products that it would cause the United Nations to declare a year of emergency. Not only that, many Wall Street analysts after eating too much crows would become unwitting victims of their own inflated egos. But there’s a sliver lining in every cloud: it is hoped that Wall Street would be well rid of such parasites anyway.
You won’t see Apple price the device that low for more than just margins, it’s because they would be able to make enough of them to meet demand. It makes little sense to price at $199 and sell 10 million units , when you can sell 10 million units at $299 anyway.
Apple comes out with a low end iPad mini for $199 USD and the screams of Monopoly will be hears the world over.
Yes, it will come with a complimentary Monopoly game.
I predict:
$249
$349
$449
Setting aside the fact that the iPad ‘Mini’ continues to be vacuumware:
Heisler writes, “Some analysts believe Apple will go all out and disrupt the low-end tablet market with an aggressive pricepoint in the $199 range. <–Because they are INSANE.
Apple is in the business of providing QUALITY. Apple has zero interest in buying market share. All Amazon and Google are doing with their meagre OtherPad Mini offerings is buying market share. They LOSE MONEY with every sale.
Q: Is buying market share actual COMPETING in the market place?
A: No. Never was. Never will be. If anything, it is used as a tool to gut would-be competitors.
Q: Does Apple have interest in ALSO buying market share in the ~7" WhateverPad fake 'market'?
A: No. And they never will.
IOW: Expect a suitably priced iPad 'Mini' (if it ever exists) that is better in QUALITY than any OtherPad on the market. And that's they way it should be.
IOW: TechTard journalism is rampant. Nothing new here. A waste of my reading time. A waste of my posting time too. But I'm manic that way.
Apparently I’m also to tired from the day to close my italics tags as well. Apologies. Bleh.
A $199 iPad mini is not going to happen.
Except, maybe, as an educational model.
$229 8gb base
$299 16gb
$399 32gb
Add 129 for cellular
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