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YEARS ago $499 was a great price, but in that time the entire tech industry has almost completely shifted to tables (and smartphones).
Today $499 is expensive, and $399 is high end for 10".
I don't think you are using the same terminology as most people. High end 10" tablets begin at $499, it's called the iPad. Or really, should say $629 for the 4G version. $349-399 is the normal stuff, with anything below that being a sale or utter crap.
So a $30 increase from high end is "out of whack with reality"?
It's hilarious. I'm still not convinced it won't be $399 for a 16GB. Looks like a $70 decrease to me.
 
buying some options for apple going down some time after this realease. will use the money to get a or n7 or a surface :cool::cool:
 
what mistake is that? Not selling a product at cost?

Same level in OS I think not. My proof your on a Apple forum.

A perfect storm just because the price is lower? Humm how long will that last?

Your proof sucks. Take a look at my sig line, for a better answer as to why I'm here. Also notice how nothing has been updated with in the last year. Doubt I'm the only one.
 
I guessed $400...just on the basis of how screwed up the rest of the line is.
iPod Touch 5G starting at $300?
iPod Nano still $150 for 2009's capacity of 16GB?
IPod Classic with ZERO updates for 3 years still at $250?

Makes perfect sense of Apple to miss the mark with the mini as well.

Though lets be honest, Apple doesn't really need to compete on the low end to be successful. The GP (general public) associates Apple as a "premium" brand and they'll pay extra just to have it.

To tell you the truth I see Apple taking a stumble in the next two years or so. They really haven't had a earth shattering device since the iPhone in 2007...Since then its been nothing but little spec updates every year instead of anything revolutionary.
 
I guessed $400...just on the basis of how screwed up the rest of the line is.
iPod Touch 5G starting at $300?

The 4G iPod Touch at 32GB was $300. Huge upgrade, same price.

To tell you the truth I see Apple taking a stumble in the next two years or so. They really haven't had a earth shattering device since the iPhone in 2007...Since then its been nothing but little spec updates every year instead of anything revolutionary.

I've been hearing this since the iPod first came out; it's still raining money at Apple. Keep saying it I guess, sooner or later you'll be right I suppose, but I'll get my financial advice on what to do with AAPL elsewhere.
 
if this pricing structure is true, then what a bunch of jokers...

$329 for a 2" smaller non-retina screen and 8GB of storage as the entry price for an iPad mini?! **** dat. C'mon Apple, stop being a bunch of d***s already and actually price things more competitively.
 
$329 for a 2" smaller non-retina screen and 8GB of storage as the entry price for an iPad mini?! **** dat. C'mon Apple, stop being a bunch of d***s already and actually price things more competitively.

Why? So you finally can afford one too? It is not their fault that you probably don´t have enough money to buy one. Obviously a lot of other people do have the money.
Maybe it helps if you ask yourself why you think you need an Apple product like the iPad mini.
Maybe you´ll realize you don´t really need another gadget in your life.
Maybe you will save some money to finally buy one in a month or two.
Maybe you´ll go for a cheaper Android or Windows tablet.

But all of that is not Apples problem. There still are more than enough people out there ordering Apple´s stuff even before they ever saw it with their own eyes.
At this point, Apple would be a very stupid company trying to minimize and not maximize the pricing of its products.

This is capitalism. Companies do not exist to better people´s quality of life.
They are mainly there to make profits, whether it benefits somone except the company itself - or whether it does not.
 
Silly argument. Price is relevant to competitors in 2012 not random products in random years past. It's not that $329 isn't affordable it's that it's not a barn burner for the 7" category. To shareholders like me it cedes market share to Android. That makes us nervous.

That said as another poster mentioned the price point isn't Apple-esque so still hope it will start at $299.

Now where is the Walkman?
Bad Business moves lead to wonderful things...

What competitors? Don't be a total fan boy. Apple owns 60% of the tablet market, down from 80% last year.

But if you insist on using the stupid Walkman analogy - I was a kid back then so remember it well. Yes, the first WM was hella expensive. Then Toshiba, AIWA, Panasonic, Hitachi, & others joined in & the prices of all players in the category dropped rather quickly, even WMs. If Sony had kept the $200 price point in 1983 it would have been smoked.

sonys never where the cheaper and yet price was not the reason the walkman vanished. more a climb up the wrong evolutionary branch. but, therein lies a fundamental difference between both the wms and the ipad of today; content and happy providers.

market share means little if the platform still has the highest content revenue (ballmer quote here). and the day apple goes basement and non-profit like you suggest, that's the day i would be nervous as a shareholder.
 
I guess this news has hit most of the "regular" news channels. I mentioned in a previous post that my ILs were considered this for their son, and have hit me up a few times about availability and price ... so just in the last hour or so my wife spoke to my BIL and he asked (via her), if it was supposed to be available tomorrow!

I think a few people not entrenched in reading industry news hear media event as "product release", but he had "heard" that it was going to be $300 (also asked which model). Told her we'd all know when they speak again :)

Even my _folks_ knew something about a "new iPad" and were curious it was going to be "cheap" and if they should buy one. Hahaha, it's certainly getting plenty of penetration into non-technical circles!
 
Again, where do people keep getting 8 gigs? Not in the article or the roundup.

There was an article last week that said there would 4 sizes of iPad Minis, (8, 16, 32 & 64) and that they would start at $249. Now the rumor is that there are 3 sizes of iPad Minis and someone has decided that they are 8, 16 & 32, instead of the more likely 16, 32 and 64, or the even better 32, 64 & 128. Last week the big arguement was whether an 8 GB iPad would be a huge flop, now we are pretty sure its 3 sizes and yet they are still clinging to an 8 GB size despite the cost difference between 8 GB and 16 GB is less then $5.
 
The base iPod touch is price to high to begin with. Apple should have had a 16gig model at $200 and then the 32gig model at $300. Many people don't need 32gig or have the extra money to pay for such a high mark up. What if Apple decided to get rid of the $199 16gig iPhone 5 and force people to buy the $299 32gig model?

They do that because they get more money from the more expensive 32 GB models and they do not make enough of a profit from the $200 flat iPod touch to improve it at nearly the same rate as the iPhones which they actually get about $700 from each from the carriers with the upgrade discounts.
 
$329 seems at the upper end of acceptable to me. Over here in the UK I reckon that will translate to either £269 or £279 for hopefully a 16GB version. That makes it very tempting to me although it would be a no-brainer at a sub-£250 price.

I'm not spending more than £300 though, that is my upper limit. I suppose the likelihood of me buying at £250 is 100%, and reduces by 2% for every extra £ on the price :)
 
Regardless how much money (revenue or profit) Apple may make from the App store or iTMS, it is a complete misunderstanding of Apple's business model when you say that Apple could sell an iPad for cost and still make money.

Apple's business model is about profiting off their hardware. Apple is a hardware company, they make their money off hardware sales. The way they make their hardware interesting and valuable to consumers different to other hardware manufacturers such as Dell or Gateway or HP or Asus is to create an infrastructure that runs on and makes their hardware "sing". Whereas companies like Dell and the likes, manufacture and sell hardware, they require other companies to produce and sell stuff that makes their hardware even function. Apple is not like those hardware companies, Apple produces and controls the infrastructure that enables their hardware to be the greatness that it is.

They didn't create the iTMS or the App Store to make money, they created these entities to create and add value to the hardware they produce. The fact these entities *may* make Apple some money is irrelevant - Apple is all about hardware, and these entities make their hardware more valuable and that's one reason they can sell their hardware for more than other manufacturers of hardware.

Tell you what, WHEN you can post links to factual proof of ONLY Apple's app store earnings to back your claims up then I'll believe you, until such time I shall have my own opinions and beliefs ok? Because I'm pretty sure Apple hasn't gone to all this trouble with the app store, contracts with developers, etc etc etc just to take a 30% cut from every app and every in app sale just to sell hardware.

As I stated earlier, as NEITHER argument can be backed up with specific proof then it is ALL opinionated.

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$329 seems at the upper end of acceptable to me. Over here in the UK I reckon that will translate to either £269 or £279 for hopefully a 16GB version. That makes it very tempting to me although it would be a no-brainer at a sub-£250 price.

I'm not spending more than £300 though, that is my upper limit. I suppose the likelihood of me buying at £250 is 100%, and reduces by 2% for every extra £ on the price :)

That depends, if Apple ditch the iPad 2 then I think our gonna be s*** out of luck and I suspect maybe £320 and up. It's Apple, people will buy.
 
Why would the battery life b worse than iPad 3? Didn't apple tweak the iPad 2 with a lower voltage chipset a few months back that now gets much longer battery life? Why wouldn't this b in the iPad mini?

It's half the size. Which means less than half the battery size (because many other items are fixed size). On the other hand, the screen is half the size, so it needs half the power - but there are things were power requirements are unchanged. All in all, less battery time if all else is equal.

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If it is retina, of course $329 is quite a good price. But we have not seen from any rumors that stays it will be retina, more likely the 1024*768 same as ipad 2, which is inferior resolution wise compare to Nexus 7.

Nexus 7 has a Pentile display, which artificially increases their claim for number of pixels. RGB displays like iDevices and every single LCD display or laptop on the market have three subpixels per pixel, while Pentile display has only two.
 
Nexus 7 has a Pentile display, which artificially increases their claim for number of pixels. RGB displays like iDevices and every single LCD display or laptop on the market have three subpixels per pixel, while Pentile display has only two.

The Galaxy Nexus is Pentile, but the Nexus 7 is not. The Nexus 7 screen has a RGB sub pixel configuration, IPS display.
 
To tell you the truth I see Apple taking a stumble in the next two years or so. They really haven't had a earth shattering device since the iPhone in 2007...Since then its been nothing but little spec updates every year instead of anything revolutionary.

I wonder at times yet they continue to do great, they make a lot of moves I disagree with, no optical drives? Horrible move because that is a deal killer if I was in the market for a Apple laptop (want blu-ray) yet people seem to have two grab laying around for a laptop and they sell. I do understand that there will be some years all they really can do are simple updates, yet being Apple they will try and make it sound like the most amazing thing possible.

Curious where things will go.
 
iPad Mini = "Me Too" crowd pleaser to boost the bottom line; it's boring, nothing new here, a step backwards even. A sign of things to come perhaps. At $329, we should have a retina display.


Surface RT = major launch Fail; try again in 2-3 years when you get it right.

iMac and 13.3" Macbook Pro, much more interesting launches, but way way overdue.
 
This "mini" won't have Retina. The reason is Apple is all about "not" fragmentating their Resolutions. A retina 7.8" would create another resolution that developers would have to deal with. At least an Ipad 2 resolution would maintain their moto.

I wonder how an Ipad2 resolution would look at 7.8" would it be retina like?
 
This "mini" won't have Retina. The reason is Apple is all about "not" fragmentating their Resolutions. A retina 7.8" would create another resolution that developers would have to deal with. At least an Ipad 2 resolution would maintain their moto.

I wonder how an Ipad2 resolution would look at 7.8" would it be retina like?

Not even close.

164.1 PPI vs the Ipad 3`s 263 PPI. The iPad 2`s PPI is 131.96

Its going to look like crap versus the competitions >200 PPI screens. It will be a dumb move by Apple if they do indeed give it a 1024x768 screen.
 
Not even close.

164.1 PPI vs the Ipad 3`s 263 PPI. The iPad 2`s PPI is 131.96

Its going to look like crap versus the competitions >200 PPI screens. It will be a dumb move by Apple if they do indeed give it a 1024x768 screen.

Exactly. I didn't mean to imply that it would have retina, I think it will be iPad 2 resolution. That basically means the display will be inferior to the competition. The Kindle HD has a 1440 x 900 screen. Nexus 7 has 1280x800 and a quad core processor at $199. If Apple puts an A5 in it, it will be inferior all the way around, and will charge a premium price to boot.

Putting out that kind of garbage will hurt its reputation. Apple was never about specs as such, but their products are usually top notch at the time of their launch. What I'm hearing so far describes a nice 7" tablet from late 2011, not late 2012.
 
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