so your telling me that the kindle fire, nexus 7, and ipad mini all cost about the same to make and the "ipad" is premium??
get real...
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iPad mini iPad Mini cost $188 to make!
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so your telling me that the kindle fire, nexus 7, and ipad mini all cost about the same to make and the "ipad" is premium??
get real...
Sure thing, buddy. I'm sure Tim Cook gives a **** about your opinion while he's rolling around on a mountain of money.
Apple doesn't make many models. That's my point as well.
Big doesn't indicate success, innovation, employment, or a good thing for consumers. I would posit that we all benefit by more competition, especially from smaller and more aggressive companies.I would posit 10 PC companies each making $2 million dollars (for a total of $20 million) is not as desirable as one PC company making $18 million dollars.
My argument is about business strategies, and I question whether Apple's will be successful, especially in the mini tablet market. Every Android manufacturer doesn't have to be an Apple, and it doesn't have to have the most recent operating system to sell well. People tend to focus on the big player and they fail to recognize the threat posed by many aggressive, smaller ones. There was a day when everyone had IE, Blackberries, and used Yahoo. Apple's uninspiring releases this month, especially the Mini's price point, look bad to me.
No. Apple controls access to your phones absolutely, and it controls iTunes. That is why you get the upgrades. Android, for lots of reasons, goes through all sorts of contortions before you see it. It sucks for consumers, but tablets are free from that
As a longtime Apple user, I am well aware of the tradeoffs we make, but the compromises for the Mini (like the ones for the Touch) are just too much in my opinion.
No, the iPad costs noticeably more to make than the others according to the same firm.
IHS estimates $152 on the Nexus 7 and $133 on the Kindle. The Kindle costs a full 30% less and the Nexus is 19% cheaper. Whether the dollar amounts they're pricing are exactly accurate or not (some of the prices seem suspiciously low across the board in my experience), they're using the same methodologies and same assumptions, so the relative spacing in price would be accurate.
The iPad mini makes Apple more of a profit because of the high market price. They just do a good job of turning $188 materials into a machine worth $329 on the market.
...Which could possibly mean that you could buy an iPad mini, use it for a year, then sell it at less or equal loss than with other tablets. At least that's what's happened with past "iPad killers" and even non-Apple laptops vs MBPs.
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Let's compare profit margins:
iPad Mini:
$330 - $188 = $142
$142/$188 = ~75% profit margin.
Nexus 7:
$200 - $166 = $34
$34/$200 = ~17% profit margin.
Kindle Fire:
$174-$140 = $34
$34/$174 = ~20% profit margin.
Add to the fact that Apple owns the lion's share of the market. Note that the profit margins for Apple become even more exorbitant as you increase in capacity or add cellular.
Conclusion: Apple is making a hell of a lot of money. Sure iSheep will keep buying it, but you can't say that the iPad Mini was priced competitively.
iPad Mini:
$330 - $188 = $142
$142/$188 = ~75% profit margin.
Nexus 7:
$200 - $166 = $34
$34/$200 = ~17% profit margin.
Kindle Fire:
$174-$140 = $34
$34/$174 = ~20% profit margin.
Add to the fact that Apple owns the lion's share of the market. Note that the profit margins for Apple become even more exorbitant as you increase in capacity or add cellular.
Conclusion: Apple is making a hell of a lot of money. Sure iSheep will keep buying it, but you can't say that the iPad Mini was priced competitively.
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Apple has similar profit margins on the Ipad 4, guess apple is gauging everyone there too.
Apple should not participate in this race to the bottom for prices. Apple has always had high profit margins on its products and always will.
It's 141/329 or 42.8% on partial COGS. That's not profit. That's not even gross margin, technically, but we'll roll with it for the sake of comparison.
It's odd that you are calculating the "profit margin" by dividing by parts cost, but only for the iPad mini. It's well established that the mini has healthier margins than competing products. There is no need to overinflate.
IHS says $152, or $47 "fake gross" for 23.6%. That's essentially at cost, since Google's operating expenses are over 20% of their gross receipts and these fake gross numbers exclude a number of actual direct costs (in-box accessories, packaging, shipping and distribution, etc.)
For the Fire HD, IHS says $134, and Amazon says it's still priced at $199. That's $65, or 32.6%. Amazon might be squeezing some net profit out here.
yout making that conclusion from just 1 report????? do some research pls
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,.......since when has resale value meant anything as to the value of the product?
Word of advice, don't go into business. So you think that shipping the device to you for free costs Apple nothing? Or replacing a device under warranty costs nothing? Or manufacture, design and Genius service costs nothing? Or marketing, shipping costs nothing? And Apple sells it to BestBuy or Wal-Mart at full price?
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Funny how you put your thumb on the scale for Apple's "profit margin".
You should be dividing by $329.
In any case, comparing a company that is hardware-sales-driven to content companies is an unrealistic comparison. You expect Apple to live off content sales when it's simply not structured to do so.
And yet those handful of models are the best-sellers in their segment. Dell, Lenovo, HP and others offer dozens, if not scores, of different models and they all sell (on a per-model basis, not aggregate) worse than the Apple option.
So even though Apple sells "under-spec'd and over-priced" product, that product is more popular than everyone else's product, at least some of which one would expect to be at least "fairly-spec'd and fairly priced".
A certain segment of the marketplace buy based on the specs of the product and they view specs as the primary determiner of a product's value. So to them, Apple products are indeed overpriced, under-spec'd and a poor value.
Another segment of the marketplace do not buy on specs, but on the experience of using the product (and yes, it's important that the specs are sufficient to support the experience, but even though an A6X is twice as fast as an A5X, both play a movie at 30fps or a song at xBPM).
And yet Apple has success, innovation, employment and is making product that is at least enjoyed by consumers (and in many cases, is probably good for them).
And I agree competition is beneficial and Apple has improved their products thanks to it. So I would rather not see Apple become as monolithic and monopolistic as Microsoft did with Windows.
Fair enough. I guess we'll have a pretty good idea this time next year whether the strategy was successful or not.
No. Apple controls access to your phones absolutely, and it controls iTunes. That is why you get the upgrades. Android, for lots of reasons, goes through all sorts of contortions before you see it. It sucks for consumers, but tablets are free from that
Apple controls more than the phones - they effectively control the carriers, as well. AT&T and Verizon and Sprint all have to support new iOS features that require cell data/network support. Yes, they can be sneaky/backhanded about it (AT&T with FaceTime, for example), but they cannot say "No. We refuse to support that iOS feature", much less "No, we refuse to allow that version of iOS to work with phones on our network".
Google wanted to exercise the same control as Apple does because Google correctly realized that the carriers are in it for themselves, not the consumer, and they were therefore the greatest barriers to entry and advancement.
Unfortunately, Google "sold out" to the carriers to get them to adopt Android in a major way. And therefore the carriers are the ones who dictate what Android OS is on the phones they sell and whether or not newer versions of the OS are available for those phones.
And yes, IMO it very much does suck for users that Google made that trade-off rather than stuck to their gut and followed Apple's model in dealing with the carriers.
key point is that there is a demand for a smaller tablet. Apple have been in denial about that for a while. Damned if you do damned if you dont. Were apple meant to sit back and watch others dominate the 7inch market? money to be made there. Poeple who think ipad is too big & heavy for carrying about were never going to buy one but they might buy a mini.
Apparently these people haven't seen that the 16GB iPhone 5 is about $207 in raw part costs but Apple charges $649 for it? The bill of materials bares almost no relation to the final product price when you talk about products with widely varying R&D costs and business models.
Thanks for the advice. Here is some for you. Please read the rest of the thread to find my answers to your questions.
I'll shed some real tears for Apple and its bottom line when I don't feel like an isheep getting fleeced this season. Maybe next year, when the Apple Mini magically appears with a Retina display, up-to-date processor, and 1GB of RAM at the same price point. We know Apple's game. They stagger the specs, and now only the iPhone 5 is actually their best effort on the leading edge of technological development. Everything else is a compromise.
Why do you have to feel anything about what a company offers? If it doesn't meet your expectations then you don't buy it. I'm not losing sleep over the countless products that don't appeal to me that I don't buy.
Good question. Why do I care? I often ask myself the same thing. I already have the N7, I'm not planning to buy the Mini, and so it shouldn't matter to me one way or another.
I think what it comes down to (for me at least) is that making a purchase of a computer or tablet matters. It will be one of my larger expenditures. It will easily be with me more hours of the day than most anything else I own. And, what I do with it, from the operating system to the apps I use, will shape my life. It is an investment in an experience.
I want my experience to be the best it possibly can be, and for that to happen, Apple has to be pushing the envelope and turning out exciting and inspiring products. We cannot allow them to be complacent and treat us like the isheep that so many Android users paint us out to be. When they release compromised products like the Mini or the iPad 4, and don't stand above the competition (Nexus 7 and 10), then I start to question whether it is worth it to continue investing in this ecosystem. What is the point of devoting so much money and time into something that isn't going to give me the best experience?
When Apple brings its A-game to a device like the MBP-r line, then I know that even if I don't buy it, that is easily one of the best computers on the market. The MBA needs a few tweaks here and there, but it is still at least competitive with other products, and I know it would be tough for Apple to improve much more on the current design.
The iPod Touch, though, is obsolete out the door. So is the Mini. And, so is the iPad 4. The iPod Touch ought to have a faster processor, the Mini ought to have a better screen / processor / RAM, and the iPad 4 ought to have a body redesign. Apple could have made them top-of-the-line, but didn't. That's too bad, and it means I have to wait another cycle to upgrade my iPad.
I want to see Apple do better. That's why I lose sleep over this stuff.
It's always easy to play armchair CEO with a "this is how I would run things..." approach but a multibillion dollar business is a complex machine. Making a change at one end has countless ramifications at the other. While Apple would love to keep its "fan base" fed with latest and greatest it clearly has to take steps to keep its business growing. If that means tapping into a new market when necessary than so be it.
Clearly the iPad mini and iPad 4 aren't meant for you. Could Apple have released a product that made you happy? Possibly, but it wouldn't have been as light or as competitively priced as far as the Pad mini goes.
For the time being, a higher-res display needs a higher-res chip and a higher-powered battery. That necessarily means added weight and cost. If Apple wants to tap into a demand for smaller tablets then it needs to compete on some level and if size and weight can be their selling point then that's what they'll focus on.
I'll repeat this until I'm blue in the keyboard but using the Nexus and Kindle pricing as the benchmark for 7" tablets is unrealistic. They can set it at $100 but that doesn't then make Apple "overpriced." It is what it is, you either see value in Apple's offering or you don't.
I'm not the CEO. I'm a customer who wants to purchase Apple products. They aren't releasing ones I want, though.
An iPhone 5 / iPod Touch / iPad Mini body would have got me buying the iPad 4. A Retina display on a heavier Mini would have piqued my interest.
I don't design high-end tech items, so I can't say what Apple can and can't do. They seem to have worked miracles with the iPhone 5.
It's realistic. I expect Apple to be more pricey, but not this much for inferior specs. That hasn't been Apple's MO in the past, and I don't think we should accept it going forward.
So this round of updates wasn't intended for you. Does every release have to cater to every person's expectations? Like I said this is a growing market and if they appeal primarily to new customers with this round of releases, so what?
I skipped the iPhone 4S because at the time it just didn't draw me in but I hardly felt cheated or not catered to. And when the 5 came out, my 4 was sufficiently old enough to get me to upgrade. So skip a cycle.
Thanks for the advice. As I said, I plan to skip a couple of cycles this time. As for my expectations, I expect Apple to follow past precedent, update models on a roughly regular schedule (once a year), and stay ahead of the competition. Instead, they are falling behind.
They aren't falling behind; the iPhone 5 is as good or better than anything else on the market, as is the ipad 4 despite you wishing it had a new form factor. The Mini is their entry level device in that segment and has a number of compromises to meet a price point which is the primary driver of sales for that market. Every other 7" tablet also has compromises, whether it is build quality, lack of cameras, etc. consumers are free to choose from among those options.
As has been mentioned here numerous times lately; you can't expect a revolutionary device every year, and in fact it's the later models that have been fully refined that are ultimately the best of the breed.
As I said, this is the only leading edge device out of the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPads.
Really? The iPad is more expensive, heavier, has lower ppi, has an inferior camera, has less RAM, and it is slower (according to the geekbench scores I saw). As a piece of hardware, it is undeniably inferior on paper. Yes, I love the iPad's build quality, and yes the ecosystem is great, and yes the Apple service is unparalleled, but as a piece of hardware it is not the best Apple could do.
Yet, its compromises put it below the level of competitors, but with a higher price. They could have done better, in my opinion.
It doesn't have to be a revolutionary device. It's a big iPod. Instead of giving it an iPod's screen from 2007, update it to 2012. That is what I think they should have done, especially at this price point.