Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Phil Schiller Defends iPad Mini Pricing Decision
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
You know how much credibility you give yourself when you resort to using terms like "crapdroid"
Hint: Not a lot.
It's one thing to prefer Apple devices. You don't have to do that at the expense of name calling the competition. It serves little purpose.
Keep pushing that NFC! It's as useful as providing a plug in modem on the iPad.
----------
Apple stuff may be cool, but spelling cool with a "K" is definitely not cool any more.
Is it really last year's hardware? The specs are similar to iPad2, but putting the same processing power and battery life in a smaller case, seems a great achievement. Also, it gives a higher pixel density, so it's an improved display technology over iPad2.
I wouldn't buy one because I'm looking for more creativity features in a tablet before entering the tablet world. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is near from what I'd like to do in a tablet. If Apple do a similar solution with improved drawing software comparing to Samsung's drawing apps, I'm sure it would be a big success. If it could be used as a bluetooth digitizer for the Mac family (with bootcamp drivers), then it would be perfect.
Apple's UK pricing policy is fast approaching the joke levels of the mid 90s.
£1 = $1.60 market exchange rate
£1= $1.22 Apple exchange rate
£1 = $1.60 market exchange rate
£1= $1.22 Apple exchange rate
It's not $100 less expensive. When I bought the 16GB version it cost $290 by the time it got to my door. Google didn't give free shipping, like Apple does.
You want objective facts? Are you crazy? You're dealing with a fandroid.
Honestly, it's the best Android device I've ever owned (I've owned 6). But it still had Android on it, and even the new Android sucks. So it went on Craigslist, like the other 5...
Rationally discussing other tablets here is useless, people will end up paying what they want to pay. I hadn't considered getting a tablet before, but jumped when the 32GB Blackberry Playbook (unintentionally on RIM's part) went on sale for $118. Its specs and abilities completely meet my needs, because of that the iPad Mini is greatly overpriced by comparison. I say that as someone who's been using Apple computers exclusively for the last five years. I think their tablet options are too pricey compared to competitors.
Oh yeah, asking the person who made a decision to defend their actions is wrong, sure thing man...
Of course Apple's competitors have to sell their plastic POS tablets at cost to get people to but them.
What does that have to do with Apple?..... they don't sell junk.
What does that have to do with Apple?..... they don't sell junk.
Global adoption of NFC is somewhere at 8%. I'm wondering why add another wireless chip to a phone when we already have WIFI and Bluetooth. Which adds more cost to a cell phone.
this is in line with the way apple prices all its other products. the iPad Mini has a larger screen and is overall a more functional, "fuller" product, so it costs more, simple as that. why would Apple price it lower other than to compete price-wise with Android tablets (which isn't Apple's game) and ultimately confuse customers comparing it to an iPod Touch?
when considering the $299 iPod Touch, the $329 iPad Mini makes complete sense.
No, you're missing the point. I think people are comfortable with premium pricing in general, I rarely hear anyone call BMW or Audi "overpriced". Expensive maybe, but not overpriced. You're not merely paying for the brand. They are well-crafted cars built in Germany by well-paid people -- Western European labor doesn't come cheap.
Apple's products on the other hand are made in the same Chinese sweatshops where their competitors have their stuff made. They're assembled from the same old components found in everything else -- Intel, Broadcom, Samsung, Seagate, the usual. Nothing premium about that, Apple has nothing to show that warrants premium price tags. That's why people call their products overpriced rather than expensive. Aluminum may cost more than plastic, but on the other hand, Apple is phenomenal at minimizing cost by keeping the model range streamlined, the range of BTO options to a minimum, and using the same parts across practically the entire range -- For example, Dell probably has something like 20 different keyboard modules for their laptops, different designs to match different sizes, styles, colors etc... Apple has this one chiclet keyboard set for everything, they have to make different ones for different languages but that's it.
Speaking of Ford... one guy who was a master of this type of smart streamlining was Henry Ford. Assembly line mass production, one model, one color (rather Apple-like so far) etc. But he was a 'social contract' type of guy. They called it Fordism: Mass production of inexpensive goods coupled with high wages for workers. He blew everyone away with offering $5/hour which was twice what the others paid, so all the best people flocked to Ford (and stayed there). He had a profit-sharing program for workers who stayed more than 6 months. He passed the savings on to the customer and lowered prices whenever he managed to reduce costs. He still ended up filthy rich, but few deserved it more than he did.
Steve Jobs was no Henry Ford, and neither is Tim Cook. Apple uses dirt cheap labor and any cost reductions resulting from obsessive streamlining and corner-cutting are not passed on to the customer, instead it goes into making the fattest profit margins in the industry even fatter, so that the cluster of parasitic human filth known as shareholders will close their greedy pieholes for a second before they start crying for MOAR again. As IKEA has shown, you can become #1 in the world without depending on shareholders. IKEA is privately owned, the parasites can't attach to them and demand that they lay off people in spite of huge profits. Gotta love that.
Edit: Crikey, $5/HOUR in 1918? No. Make that $5/day. That's around $120 today.
Last edited:
Because they want to appeal to everyone. NFC may not be big in the US yet but if someone were looking to buy a phone from Japan, they'll want NFC because it is apart of everyday life for them. Plus they are looking to the future as Google and the carriers are pushing for NFC. Think of it as future-proofing.
I just don't see how any of you think it could've been less than the entry level iPod touch. Where would the market go for iPod touches? Those who truly want some smaller and want to stick with apple will get a mini. Sure it has iPad 2 specs but I'm happy with the price. I have plenty of apps and music invested in apple. I'll be using this primarily for surfing the web. I don't use a desktop/laptop anymore and this will do with a nice size to boot.
They're whining about a $30 difference from $299 to Apple's $329. Piss on them. Anyone who cares about the vastly better quality of the Apple products will willingly pay the $30 difference. Those that don't can buy the Android and then buy it again next year, and the year after ad infinum. In the long run, even in the short run, they'll spend far, far less money if they just buy the Apple product to begin with and they'll get a better experience. One of the wonderful things about Apple products is they are built better so they last longer. After you've used it for several years you can pass it down in the family or sell it. This is the opposite of the cheap junk which doesn't have much resale value and you don't want to inflict it on family or friends.
In the end, the Apple product is not just better it's less expensive too.
In the end, the Apple product is not just better it's less expensive too.
Apple seems to be betting a little too much on the cachet it has with European consumers to charge those prices.
Last edited:
The iPod touch is tiny compared to the iPad mini. How can you be an Apple customer and miss that people are willing to pay a premium for smaller, thinner, lighter? These products aren't made of beef that you pay for according to weight. People wouldn't go "oh, bigger for less money, well that settles it, I will strap an iPad mini to my chest for my morning jog".
I guess I'm not really sold on NFC yet. Pushing it by the manufactures does not necessarily mean anything. They did the same with 3D televisions and equipment but people are just not interested.
It does not seem to offer that much from what we already have. Its an additional cost for retailers to implement, additional cost to the customer. We already have WIFI / barcode (For something like Apples Passbook ) scanners in most places with little or no implementation.
it might grow, it might not. Time will tell.
- Status