Have not seen a poll like this yet, so...
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Explain what you think about the price.
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iPad mini Price of iPad mini poll, three weeks later
- Thread starter PracticalMac
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Interesting speculation.
And maybe when "iPad mini with Retina" comes out, the iPad mini will be on sale for $299.
IMO,
Last year a $329, even $399, would be a good price for the mini.
Over the year <9" tablet market saw a deluge of Android tablets, from $70 to $300, and of course Amazon's Fire, a lower end segment not addressed by iPad.
Granted, the Fire is an extremely restricted store front for Amazon, it and the Google Nexus 7 have set a new expectations for the price of that segment.
Androids gains in small tablet market.
![PJ_12_09_17_tabletNews-report_02.png]()
Even though $200 tablets are not expected to be the best, buyers are not expecting it to be top of line. Yes, people are sacrificing performance for price.
Long after the party is over (and new Fire HD on market), Apple introduces its own "low cost but low performance small tablet", however it uses basically 18 month old design in a smaller package, AND sells its parent design for $70 more!
18 month old technology for significantly more then new technology same sized tablets is disjointed. True the iOS has many advantages but that is not what most tablet buyers see.
Buyers see much cheaper tablet with more resolution and higher PPI in the competition.
OTOH, had Apple offered cheaper upgrades, say $100 for Cellular and $80 for memory upgrades to a $329 base price, it would look more attractive (seen plenty of 64gb WiFi in stock, none of the 16gb).
Last year a $329, even $399, would be a good price for the mini.
Over the year <9" tablet market saw a deluge of Android tablets, from $70 to $300, and of course Amazon's Fire, a lower end segment not addressed by iPad.
Granted, the Fire is an extremely restricted store front for Amazon, it and the Google Nexus 7 have set a new expectations for the price of that segment.
Androids gains in small tablet market.
Even though $200 tablets are not expected to be the best, buyers are not expecting it to be top of line. Yes, people are sacrificing performance for price.
Long after the party is over (and new Fire HD on market), Apple introduces its own "low cost but low performance small tablet", however it uses basically 18 month old design in a smaller package, AND sells its parent design for $70 more!
18 month old technology for significantly more then new technology same sized tablets is disjointed. True the iOS has many advantages but that is not what most tablet buyers see.
Buyers see much cheaper tablet with more resolution and higher PPI in the competition.
OTOH, had Apple offered cheaper upgrades, say $100 for Cellular and $80 for memory upgrades to a $329 base price, it would look more attractive (seen plenty of 64gb WiFi in stock, none of the 16gb).
heh heh but yet the sales number does not support your thesis. Nexus 7 sold about 2.3M in the first 3 months when it first came out. And Ipad mini+Ipad 4 sold 3M in the first weekend. What does this sales number tell us? I think you are seeing first hand how the form factor difference and superior ecosystem allow Apple to charge more for their device.
Consumer sees the better spec, lower price but yet vote with their money and buy Ipad mini in drove. Looking at unit volume is one way to look at popularity of a product. Looking at profit generated is another way to measure popularity. Google and Amazon are sacrificing profit to generate unit volume. And even then they cannot out sell Ipad.. What does it say about how competitive Android tablet are right now??? Look at it this way, if Google wiling to give Nexus 7 for free, they can have the entire tablet market. But does Google win anything in that situation?
If you really want to compare spec, make sure you account for the form factor difference (4:3 and 16:9 are different), size difference (after all Ipad mini is a 7.9inches tablet vs a 7 inches Nexus 7 with similar way and similar size. The package make a difference here as well), and quality of apps difference. It is Apple sales pitch during launch but consumer vote with their money.. What are you going to say about that? dumb customers who don't know better or smart customers knowing exactly what they want and willing to pay up?
I agree with you analysis. However I own both an iPad and a Nexus 7 and currently I would not buy an iPad mainly because of price and the lack of USB data transfer. I could imagine that with time the Nexus 7 becomes a viable competitor to the iPad mini. As a newcomer the Nexus of course does not outsell the iPad mini with it's established brand recognition and ecosystem but in a year or two Apple could see it's growth rates reduced severely by Android tablets if they don't also compete on price.
Apple's selling every model of the mini they can manufacture which pretty much means the price is acceptable.
Would be smart. That way the consumer is used to the price point. If Retina can be done sub $300 then that's an option and sales would likely be even more brisk.
I love the mini form factor. Apple really nailed it by keeping it 4:3 so really more speed and Retina is all they need for revision 2 IMO to keep it moving along nicely.
sure. Ipad and ipad mini are not going to conquer the world and get all the sales. Marketing is all about segmentation. Apple and other manufacturer will find a segment of population that is profitable to them and play to their strength. A lot of the tablet now are sold with no profit or at a loss. Apple is choose to price their tablet to make money (but not a lot of money. The net margin on the tablet is at best in the mid-teen percentage after tax after all the expense). Google and Amazon choose to sell their tablet at a loss (yes, I think they are losing money on every one of them if they account for all the cost including distribution, warranty, design, transportation etc. etc.). So comparing Apple's market share and Nexus 7 market share are meaningless. You can always buy market share if you are willing to loss money. Market share under that circumstance is not a reflection of the strength of the product. The question on ecosystems is whether a consumer who pay $200 for a tablet is willing to spend $20-30 on apps or are they mainly looking for free apps? If they are just looking for free stuff, it won't help Android ecosystems. The statistic between how much Apple pay to the developers for Apps store sales vs Google play sales is a more interesting comparison on the ecosystem strength.
Well, mine is still in the box for Christmas... however, I do feel like I overpaid by $50 without even opening the box. Even if I love it, and I expect I will, I still think it was $50 too much.
$329 is a great price - especially if you consider that it is equal or better in almost everyday possible except for the Retina display compared to the iPad 3.
It's the full iPad experience in a smaller package with a smaller price (and it is wayyyyy better than the iPad 2).
I see them doing this:
- $499 iPad: 'iPad Pro': newest hardware (A6 chip, retina display) at the highest price
- $399 iPad: standard iPad: last year's model, still great specs
- $329 iPad mini: smaller, standard iPad: very similar to the $399 iPad, except smaller and lower price
I think next year we'll see the current iPad 4 at the $399 price point while the iPad mini will get the same specs at the $329 price point. There will also be a new 'iPad 5' $499 model.
And the year after we'll see a brand new $499 iPad 6, we'll see the iPad 5 at $399 and the iPad mini (based in iPad 5 specs) for $329.
And so on. And so on.
It's the full iPad experience in a smaller package with a smaller price (and it is wayyyyy better than the iPad 2).
I see them doing this:
- $499 iPad: 'iPad Pro': newest hardware (A6 chip, retina display) at the highest price
- $399 iPad: standard iPad: last year's model, still great specs
- $329 iPad mini: smaller, standard iPad: very similar to the $399 iPad, except smaller and lower price
I think next year we'll see the current iPad 4 at the $399 price point while the iPad mini will get the same specs at the $329 price point. There will also be a new 'iPad 5' $499 model.
And the year after we'll see a brand new $499 iPad 6, we'll see the iPad 5 at $399 and the iPad mini (based in iPad 5 specs) for $329.
And so on. And so on.
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Simple.
Pent up demand for a smaller iPad by those who could not use the big one, and others who want to be first, and everyone will see you have a Mini from far away (how can you tell if they have an iPad 2, 3, or 4 from across the room? Can't). Could be reason iPad 4 is backloged as much (5 days instead of 14).
Another factor is these are likely Apple customers to begin with. I doubt many would jump from Android to mini.
Screen issues aside, I don't feel I can use it for extended periods of time like I can with iPad. It's kinda like the bigger a device is, the longer I can use it ergonimically.
Desktop = all day
Laptop = most of the day
iPad = few hours
iPad mini = maybe an hour or so
Phone 10-20mins
Already got a desktop, laptop, iPad and a giant smartphone, so for me it didn't make sense to keep the mini. It would make a great Xmas gift for kids though.
Price is ok, people will never say something is cheap, it's a cardinal sin to do so. but it could be more competitively priced, maybe another $50 or so.
Desktop = all day
Laptop = most of the day
iPad = few hours
iPad mini = maybe an hour or so
Phone 10-20mins
Already got a desktop, laptop, iPad and a giant smartphone, so for me it didn't make sense to keep the mini. It would make a great Xmas gift for kids though.
Price is ok, people will never say something is cheap, it's a cardinal sin to do so.
but it could be more competitively priced, maybe another $50 or so.
At $329 they left some business on the table.
If they dropped to $299 there would be no market share for all the others unless they lowered their prices to $249.
And then the Race to the bottom would begin.
And considering a lot are opting for more memory, and LTE.
Add tax, Apple care+ or a few accessories like a case and prices quickly double.
If they dropped to $299 there would be no market share for all the others unless they lowered their prices to $249.
And then the Race to the bottom would begin.
And considering a lot are opting for more memory, and LTE.
Add tax, Apple care+ or a few accessories like a case and prices quickly double.
You keep saying this, but it is just not true.
It is priced exactly how Apple prices all of its hardware, based on the current costs to make it. There are no "extra" dollars hiding anywhere in it for a future cost increase. It's got a broadly similar margin to virtually every other Apple hardware product on the market. If it were priced for the future cost of retina displays, it would have some padding in there. And there isn't anything to point to for that.
When the retina-capable parts become available in volume, the resulting iPad mini will be priced at whatever that scales to in Apple's overall business strategy. Whether or not that ends up being $329, no one can say until sampling begins on the new hardware. Unless and until they can manufacture a retina mini at the same cost as the current product, it won't be released at $329. If their parts cost goes up $70, the retail price is going to go up $70-130. How much the costs go up depends entirely on what they end up using and when they place the parts orders.
One read of the poll & several posts here confirms the power, control & influence Apple has over a great number of their user base. Having already given reasons for the price, Apple devotees accepted the spin as their gospel.
Years of charging high prices have clouded customers view of reality. If it's made by Apple they are programmed to expect premium pricing. Only Apple could sell a tablet with a much lower ppi value than it's competition and still price it in the stratosphere.
Finally Apple leverages the fact that they have a captive market. If you want the product, you pay the tarrif. Apple is nothing if not clever.
Years of charging high prices have clouded customers view of reality. If it's made by Apple they are programmed to expect premium pricing. Only Apple could sell a tablet with a much lower ppi value than it's competition and still price it in the stratosphere.
Finally Apple leverages the fact that they have a captive market. If you want the product, you pay the tarrif. Apple is nothing if not clever.
How is that clouding reality? That is the reality. Apple has never, and likely will never, participate in the razor-thin margin club.
There's no connection between the two points. The iPad mini costs more to make than the products you're referring to, and it's being sold by a company with a pretty stable pricing model. There's no magical misdirection there. It is what it is.
I keep seeing these silly pie charts all the time but can someone tell me where is this data actually coming from? Especially when Amazon never reveals sales figures for the Kindle Fire? How do we know it has 21% market share? And 21% market share of what? How do we even know what the total market is? Again, who on the android side is revealing sales figures for their tablet? Even Asus with the Nexus 7 didn't give out hard figures. All they said is they were selling about a million a month. Microsoft has never released sales figures for the Surface RT.
And if Apple's market share is declining so much how come all of these statistics for web usage show iPad dominating? Are people not doing any web browsing on these other tablets?
Well which is it? Apple doesn't participate in the razor-thin margin club or it's barely eeking out a profit on the Mini. Can't have both.
Price is fine.
We moved to Switzerland this year and paid nearly 400 for the 16gb model. Totally happy with the device at that price as well.
We moved to Switzerland this year and paid nearly 400 for the 16gb model. Totally happy with the device at that price as well.