“Apple, by and large, likes to float above price wars. When people tell Macbook users that they could get a great Windows laptop for half the price, they just sort of stare at them,” Dave Thier writes for Forbes.
“But Apple is trying to extend its tablet dominance into budget territory with the iPad Mini, and price, suddenly, becomes the vital factor,” Thier writes. “The Nexus 7 retails for $199, and the Kindle Fire as low as $159 — $199 for the HD version. Apple wants to be cheaper, but not that cheap. The iPad mini is arriving at $329. So as we get into a tablet buying kind of mood, the question becomes – is the iPad mini $130 better than its competition?”
MacDailyNews Take: It’s worth more than $130, which makes iPad mini a great deal.
Thier writes, “The iPad mini does have LTE support at a higher price point, which the Nexus and Kindle lack. The app store remains a serious advantage – techies may bemoan the walled garden, but others take comfort in a degree of protection from malware. And the sheer quantity of apps specialized for the iPad can’t be beat.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As always, Apple is correct to let the also-rans deal with the market’s bottom-dwellers. Cheapskates do not make great customers. In fact, skinflints make awful customers; they certainly don’t purchase content and apps like Apple product users do.
Let the undiscerning riffraff wallow in crap as usual.
Related article:
Apple debuts 7.9-inch iPad mini; unveils new 4th gen. iPad with 9.7-inch Retina display – October 23, 2012
If Apple sells all they can produce, then the price was either right or too low. If supply exceeds demand, the price is too high. It is that simple. It does not make any difference how many Google, etc. sells or the price they sell at.
Just wait till Black friday when its 10% off
The issue with the iPad mini is how you view it–if you see it as a way to measurably increase the pool of iPad buyers while fitting in with the existing pricing ladder, then it makes sense. The idea is someone looking at a $199 iPod touch might say, hey for $100 more I can get the new touch…but for $30 more I can get an iPad…but for $70 more I can get a full sized iPad….but for another $100 I can get the new iPad 4.
Makes sense, but is just about the laziest, fat, overly conservative marketing department driven decision that could have been made. Not indefensible, just very very lazy, boring, unaggressive and risk averse–the Obama first debate version of what to do.
At $329 the mini slots into the other iproducts but is mainly there to get people in that can then be shunted to the $399 or $499 models.
But the mini doesn’t really do anything to android–in fact, it leaves apple offering a smaller screen than amazon for more money.
At $249 the mini would have ruled the Christmas season and the main question would be how much supply would limit sales through December. It also would have made sure that 7 inch android pads remained a fragmented minority.
At $199 the android tablet market would have no longer existed.
So apple delivered a nice product when it could have unloaded an atom bomb.
Tim Cook is starting to look like the Bernie kosar of CEOs–someone just good enough to make you wish you has someone excellent.
As MacDailyNews stated: “Let the undiscerning riffraff wallow in crap as usual.”
And as SB wrote above: “The niggardly do not deserve Apple products.”
I think they had to price it above the iPod touch to prevent cannibalization. The base iPod Touch costs 299. Compared to the Touch, it’s a huge improvement for an extra $30. Less memory, but better display. It would have been hard to price it below the Touch. I was considering Touches for my kids this Christmas. Now I’ll seriously consider the mini.
Exactly my thought – much better deal than iPod touch and they will sell all they can make of these.. Wall Street does’t know shit…
I say, let’s ask the question again after the 5 millionth is sold, say in mid-December (just guessing here) 😀
I agree Apple shouldn’t go after the bottom dwellers, and I don’t know the pricing / cost models, but it sure would have been nice to see the iPad mini at $299.
Apple will sell out current production in 48 minutes. Price is fine.
Tired of hearing about so many disappointed analysts. The analysts forget their place some times – you read the news, not make the news. Writing that you think it should be priced at less than 300 does not make that the best choice for Apple who have to position this with other products. When have you been right about anything anyway?
Hate defending them, but no–analysts do not merely read the news and write it up. That’s the reporter’s job. An analyst’s job is not regurgitate details, it’s to provide analysis of them and write up the results.
Doesn’t matter that half the time they don’t know jack and are wrong. Their track record is no better or worse than economists and weather forecasters, and at least the weather has nearly infinite variables.
“But Apple is trying to extend its tablet dominance into budget territory with the iPad Mini”
Who said Apple was trying to move into budget territory?
According to what I heard from the keynote, it sounded like they made it smaller so that it could be used in applications that the current iPad might be too big or cumbersome for.
Just wait until people pick it up and compare it to the Kindle, Nook, etc. No question they’ll pay more.
Plus, remember places like Walmart and Target don’t even carry Kindles any more because they’re pissed at the competition from Amazon.
It’s better to pay a little more for something that will do the job than to pay less for something that is essentially worthless!
The price point is right on, and the others are missing the Camera – 5MP back and 720- front.
Now that’s just one point, look at it this way of some are so inclined to stick to the 30.00$ point.
Would prefer Aluminum and Glass compared to Plastic and its worh the 30.00$.
Even thinner then the others and lighter!!!
😉
I think Apple knows how to price their products. When the first iPod came out I thought that very few people would buy one because who would pay $299 to $499 for an MP3 player? I thought Steve Jobs was overreaching. Many users will really like the new iPad size. One guy wrote ” my wife won’t carry an iPad but the mini will fit in her purse”. Portability is a valued feature.
I think the article is on target. And, apparently, so do AAPL sellers. We’ll see what happens.
They will eventually lower the price (or price per GB), but they’ll sell more than they can keep up with for this holiday season. I actually think it’s a great size.
$30 more than I expected, but no, not too expensive. Psychologically speaking, $299 would have been a better price point.
$30 is nothing.
Geez.
It’s a less expensive iPad… That’s all certain people need to hear… Parents will buy got their kids, because the Kids want an iPad… But the bottom line is…it’s an iPad for $329… Not, and I quote my kid, “a fake iPad or old people’s book reader”…. Young people are not constrained by budget, specs, configurability etc … They want the tablet everyone knows is best… Dad… I want an iPad.
If they had priced it with the nexus they wouldn’t be able to keep up with demand. They were smart to price it at this point. Just above the 299- iPod Touch. People want everything for nothing. if you want to pay under 200 then you should get an android. The only thing that is priced too high are the RAM tiers. Apple makes a killing on those. If anything should come down it should be the cost of the 32 or 64 over the 16.
$250 would have worked. Apple needs to kill android tablets before they get any traction and developers start developing for them. Really stupid to not do this as a loss leader. iPods were/are competitive, so should iPads.
If the product sells at 329 and it will, why would Apple sell for 250.
The ipad mine is $130 dearer then some shit from amazon, why are people even debating this non issue. I will gladly pay the bargain $130 extra for a solid tablet and be done with it. The other non ipad killers are cheaper and you will get what u pay for, as in get shit
“Let the undiscerning riffraff wallow in crap as usual.”
Took the words right out of my mouth.
In 6-12 months I suspect we might see the iPod Touch drop $50.00 and the iPad Mini drop $30.00.
Okay, new products from Apple. Time to start trying to destroy the company again! Whee!, don’t the big mouths love to spew vitriol? When you’re born to hate that’s all you’ve got to live for!
I’m gonna go out on a limb and take a wild guess that Apple understands the market, margins, competition, etc and priced this EXACTLY where it should be. The cheapskates who buy the cheapest tablets will still buy the cheapest ones so pricing at $299 won’t make much of a difference. Maybe Apple doesn’t want these folks as customers since they won’t spend much or any money on apps or iTunes anyway.