It seems a lot of people have been asking this type of question and think apple has made a big mistake with the "high" iPad mini price and updating the iPad after only 6 months. But when thinking this out, it seems apple is just setting itself up for next year. Here are my opinions on why they did what they did.
Why $329? Simple, they want to save the $199 price point for the lower end, much like iPhones, iPods, and iPads, apple keeps around the older generation at a lower price. Next year when the new iPad mini comes out, this current version will be reduced to $199. And there is no incentive on them to release at that price point right now. Sure the nexus 7 and kindle are very good tablets for $199, they are not necessarily setting sales charts on fire, at $329 they are close enough to be competitive.
Why update the iPad after only 6 months? I'll be honest, I kinda freaked the second I saw the iPad 4th generation slide, that I immediately went to gazelle and got my $550 price secured before it dropped (it was down under $500 last time I checked). It did get me a little peeved, but after calming down it seems what apple is going to do is move the iPad launch window to the summer, probably WWDC, so they can have the new iPads ready for back to school. At this point apple had two choices, wait until June or release now with the iPad mini. They probably didn't want to have an extended life cycle with the old dock connector they are trying to move away from, and probably want to get back to the cycle of debuting their new processor with iPad like they have in the past, and this sets them up nicely for that.
So while some of the moves were a little perplexing right now, I believe next June at WWDC they will refresh the iPad line up and have end up like this:
iPad mini (2012) - $199
iPad mini (2013) - $299
iPad 4th generation - $399
iPad 5th generation - $499
An iPad at every price point.
Why $329? Simple, they want to save the $199 price point for the lower end, much like iPhones, iPods, and iPads, apple keeps around the older generation at a lower price. Next year when the new iPad mini comes out, this current version will be reduced to $199. And there is no incentive on them to release at that price point right now. Sure the nexus 7 and kindle are very good tablets for $199, they are not necessarily setting sales charts on fire, at $329 they are close enough to be competitive.
Why update the iPad after only 6 months? I'll be honest, I kinda freaked the second I saw the iPad 4th generation slide, that I immediately went to gazelle and got my $550 price secured before it dropped (it was down under $500 last time I checked). It did get me a little peeved, but after calming down it seems what apple is going to do is move the iPad launch window to the summer, probably WWDC, so they can have the new iPads ready for back to school. At this point apple had two choices, wait until June or release now with the iPad mini. They probably didn't want to have an extended life cycle with the old dock connector they are trying to move away from, and probably want to get back to the cycle of debuting their new processor with iPad like they have in the past, and this sets them up nicely for that.
So while some of the moves were a little perplexing right now, I believe next June at WWDC they will refresh the iPad line up and have end up like this:
iPad mini (2012) - $199
iPad mini (2013) - $299
iPad 4th generation - $399
iPad 5th generation - $499
An iPad at every price point.
