20% of non-iPad buyers would consider a $399 entry-level iPad 2 - Page 3

Dropping to $399 ($100 off last year's model makes sense and is in line with their previous pricing). What doesn't make sense is a $200 drop because a 7" eReader with some multimedia functions with 8GB storage that has worse HW in every way or lacks the HW completely is being sold by Amazon.


You should accept it. Apple never once had a 95% marketshare with the iPod so expecting that a HW marker can achieve such a goal without an indication of how this would be possible except to suggest that Apple should make less profit is not a good business model.

+1 here. Where were these buyers a week or two ago when the price hit $419 at Meijer. I would bet less than 20% of that 20% would follow through with an actual purchase.

That doesn't work. There's always someone willing to sell something at a loss. And if Apple does that, they could get into antitrust trouble for selling below cost to drive competitors out of the market.

Furthermore, it's a silly idea even without the antitrust issues. It could be argued that Apple should strive to be cost competitive (or even a bit lower) than the Galaxy tab or other 'comparable' tablets. But it would be the height of foolishness for Apple to sell a premium 10" tablet at a price low enough to drive the vastly cheaper and inferior Kindle out of the market.

An iPad 2 wouldn't be a "premium" tablet...the iPad 3 would be.

I'll back off the statement (slightly) I made where I suggested Apple strive for Windows type market share in tablets. But they should strive for iPod type market share. And like with iPod they will need to address the lower end of the market. Maybe not at $299 but it's gong to have to be less than $499.

Please re-read my comment. THE OTHER GUYS make garbage, not Apple.

Even Toshiba's new 10" tablet is coming in above the current iPad 2 cost. $529 for 16GB.

• http://www.anandtech.com/show/5620/t...ping-march-6th

Armies and security-related business/agencies won't let camera-enabled phones inside their premises, whatever the software says. Ask Singapore Navy.

The thing I don't get is, why people get tablets to read. I understand interactive Books, I understand games and apps and movies and Internet. But plain books? I like my paper. Everyone his taste I suppose, but Ihope tablets don't kill paper books.

I see you and a few others consistently claim this as tho it's a fact. Have I missed where someone proved how much Amazon loses on a sale or are you claiming the loss as fact based on some build estimates published a few months ago?

Why do people use tablets to read? Convenience. I travel a lot - sometimes for weeks at a time. I can either carry an armful of books (some of them weighing several pounds) or a single iPad - which also does my email and the Internet. That's a pretty powerful advantage.

Whether they kill off paper books is entirely up to the market. If the number of paper books sold declines to an unprofitable level, then they will die off. If not, they will remain. Simple.


There were numerous estimates of the cost and none of them showed Amazon making a profit. Combine that with the fact that the quarter where they sold several million of them had a huge drop in profits, and the evidence is pretty strong (albeit not quite conclusive).

That's not true. There were competing claims of about a $50 profit from UBM build estimates, to $50 losses from a Piper-Jaffray analyst, to a smallish loss of about $10 based on an iSuppli estimate.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-201...-for-retailer/

The posters here seem to focus more on Piper-Jaffray and less on UBM. I assume it's due to the belief that Apple honestly is pricing the iPad line aggressively and anyone trying to undercut them must be losing money.

Sure. I'm sure there are cases where they devices aren't allowed because the mic is, well by definition a listening device. I don't expect Apple to offer every combination of these various HW configurations because of some rogue desires. There is a 3rd party in Singapore that will remove the camera. If a company wants to buy iPhones and then lock down features from being used they have the tool from Apple to do it and it works beautifully.



Based on its price, the components, and Amazon's financials I feel confident to state that is the case at this time.

Your opinion could absolutely be correct. Any of the others could too since they've all got supposed valid reasons for their suppositions.

I was simply curious if I had missed some trusted industry source, an ArsTechnica or Anandtech-type, that had with solid evidence proving Amazon was losing money on each Kindred Fire sale.

1. Just an observation, but Apple generally prefers price numbers like $n99 or $nn99, the only exception being $49 itself. Which would argue against $349.

2. $399 lowers the "barrier" to iPad world by 25%, which would tip a good number of people who might otherwise buy a Fire, Nook, or a bigger Pad anywhere near the iPad's size, etc.

3. Pre iPad 3 release, Refurbed iPad 1's (16GB) on the store are priced today at $299 and iPad 2's are $419 (16GB) and $499 for 32 (some including 3G), for whatever that says.

4. If Apple were under any competitive pressure in the 10 inch-ish sector, that would be one thing, but they're not. Samsung just admitted publicly they haven't been getting traction or making money with their big tabs. $349 accomplishes nothing practical that $399 won't and $299 nicks margins that Apple has no crying need to nick.

5. A teacher friend of mine in Yonkers, NY (an inner-city low income school system) is under the impression her district is leasing iPads from Apple under quite favorable terms. Anyone else hear anything like this?

6. Are students going to only be able to use their school-owned iPads in the classroom? If these are their textbooks, what about homework and reading?

Some wag or comedian observed that there's a potential issue in sending small children out into the streets to carry home a device that's highly desirable to thieves - for the children, and the responsibility of families (rich or poor) for what happens to an iPad in the home.

That's certainly a major concern. Books today aren't something thieves typically steal unless you're a college student, but at one point it obviously wasn't feasible to give a book to any student. The teacher or clergy had the text and taught from it.

I imagine this tech would first be used in class only. Then perhaps offer some way for students to have their content at home and in class without having to carry a $400+ device with them. Perhaps the first that would issue them as regular books would be private schools that can afford them and where students are more likely to be picked up after school.

PS: I wonder when distributing books to every student starting happening? 19th century?

Good question about the historical aspect. I did a little cursory inquiring, and while this paper doesn't address the question directly, it is a good piece of research into the evolution of the relationship between teachers and textbooks (e.g., essentially untrained teachers in the earliest American schools basically read the textbook aloud to the class as their main lecture on a subject they themselves may have had no other sources or background for). The author at one point notes that many teachers were essentially "advanced students" as dependent on the text as their charges.

And moving to the relationship between textbooks and students, there are some fascinating insights about subject-centeredness vs. student-centeredness, and a switch from "religious" underpinnings in many to what the author the author calls "moral reasoning." So all of these support the first part of your comment - and call up the role of clergy (and religion-run schools in general) especially in early American education.

Some of these trends are obviously still playing out as we enter the age of e-text and now fully interactive iBooks.....

The paper does talk about the number of textbooks printed in different eras and about the "commodotization" of them - which on first read seems to point to the early 20th Century as some kind of inflection point where enough became available to allow students to hold their own copies.

I'm no kid and was given my texts to take home, but didn't pay for any until I hit college. And my sense is that's changed a fair amount!

1) Thanks for all that info.

2) I never had to pay for a textbook until college, either, except for a couple times when I lost the textbook. At my HS graduation I received by diploma.. or so I thought. I opened up the book and there was some vague note saying that my diploma couldn't be issued. Turns out a health teacher from 9th grade stated I hadn't returned my textbook. I think I did return it but I certainly couldn't be sure 4 years later. I paid for the book and that was that.