

‘iPad mini’ reportedly set for October launch, $200-$250 price tag - kemper
http://www.bgr.com/2012/05/10/apple-ipad-mini-launch-october/

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JohnTHaller
There's simply no way that Apple will do this. The current iPad sells for $499
and costs Apple about $300 to make. This is inline with Apple's (much higher
than industry average) typical markup on their wares. The $200 Kindle Fire, by
comparison, costs about $202 to make. So, Apple wouldn't be able to produce an
iPad Mini for $200-250 and still be able to make its high Apple markup.
Especially since its screen would likely be higher quality (and more
expensive).

Unless, of course, Apple switches to Amazon's 'razor and blades' model and
starts selling on price. It could do this due to its lock-in on apps, movies
and books (none of which can be used on another company's devices). But I
think that is highly unlikely as they'd be losing revenue overall by cutting
down on sales of the regular iPad. Far more likely is a $350 price point so
Apple can include their markup.

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pan69
Just out of curiosity, is that $300 for just the components or does that cost
include everything else as well such as assembly, research, design, marketing,
etc. etc?

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JohnTHaller
It's an estimate based on components and assembly (assuming assembly in one of
the foxconn factories). No r/d is factored into the cost, it's just the cost
of the thing itself to be made.

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jack-r-abbit
> _likely pose a huge problem for both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, each of
> which offers a low-cost tablet_

That _kind of_ makes the iPad Mini sound like a reaction-ist move from Apple,
which is largely regarded as a leader in this space rather than a follower. If
so... interesting.

~~~
diminish
producing a cheaper ipad or a cheaper iphone may cannibalize the profits from
the current models and kill EPS. this is the reason I do not expect such a
move from Apple.

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cube13
Is it just me, or does this rumor come up every 4 months?

It just doesn't make sense for Apple. The $250 price point really pollutes
their offerings, because it overlaps the pricerange for a brand new iPod
Touch. Given that they're both non-phone iOS devices, the only products that
Apple can cut into is their own sales. Also, Kindle Fire sales have cooled
pretty considerably lately, which is making me suspect that there really isn't
that much of a market for the smaller form factor tablet. That's a shame,
because I really do like my Fire's form factor, and consider the iPad to be a
bit too big and unwieldy.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Would it make sense to just kill the iPod Touch in favor of this new form
factor? I'm not that familiar with the Touch but it always just seemed like a
"non-phone iPhone" to me. And to be honest, the iPad always seemed like a
"large Touch" or a "large non-phone iPhone" to me anyway. So it doesn't seem
that strange for them to realign the products to phase out the Touch and phase
in a smaller iPad. The iPod line has gone in a different direction and the
Touch doesn't really fit with the iPod brand anymore, does it?

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bdr
The key difference is that the Touch fits in your pocket. An iPad mini
wouldnt, so you might as well make it as big as you can comfortably hold in
your hands.

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bitsoda
I could see Apple releasing a 7" "iPad mini", but certainly not a cent lower
than $299. Apple would need to reprice the current iPod touch from $199 to
$149. Also, at that price, I can't see it having a retina display. The 1024 X
768 resolution would look sharper than it did on the iPad 2 just by virtue of
it being two inches smaller. The Kindle Fire is a legitimate threat to Apple
despite their stranglehold on the rest of the tablet market. It's not
farfetched to think the release of a smaller iPad is nigh.

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sudhirj
This might have possibly worked if the mini was stated to have the resolution
of the old iPad. There's simply no reason apple would want or need, or even be
able to further compress what's already a retina quality display. They might
want to shrink the old iPad hardware to a mini form factor and put in an old
resolution screen, but that's idle rumour again.

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easp
Meh. I'll believe it when I see it. Apple already has an iPad Mini, only they
call it an iPod Touch. It is more portable than a 7" tablet, cheaper to make
and by most indications, they sold more of them over the holidays than amazon
sold Kindle Fires.

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iamgilesbowkett
if you're paying attention to Apple rumors that you see anywhere other than
Jon Gruber's daringfireball.com, you're just wasting time. if you do read
Daring Fireball, you know press on Apple is wildly inaccurate. Gruber
sometimes even runs quotes from the same people at the same publications
making similar erroneous predictions over and over and over again, year after
year after year.

bottom line: if an Apple rumor isn't on Daring Fireball, there's no point even
paying attention to it at all.

