Apple says new iPad response is "off the charts," preorders sold out - Page 9

Bullshit. They're all the best-selling laptops in their price range. The Macbook Air is the best selling ultraportable out there. So yes, they 'sell well'. Just because Apple doesn't target anything under $999, so has basically given that market away, that doesn't take away from the sales of their current machines. Rarely purchased? I know this is anecdotal, but I see Macbooks all the time in every kind of setting, and they're selling better and better each quarter. Sure they're no iPads/iPhones in terms of popularity, but then again nothing is. So tell me, how much profit is being made on these dirt cheap laptops you're referring to? Are they made by the same companies who want to leave the PC industry? I've never seen a sub-$500 laptop that wasn't a piece of shit, nor does one exist.

I think boiling down any of the isms and considering them fundamentally right or or wrong is a poor way to look at it. We don't run the police as a private company. Or the military. Do you think we should go to a private police force and military? The police I hire might not agree with the police force my neighbor hired.

"And yeah, who quotes THEMSELVES in their signature? Sociopaths?"-cameronj
Not unless they changed the definition of sociopath recently.

I would call it a subcategory of the notebook category but even excluding it there are plenty of sub-$500 notebooks in the US and they are likely cheaper in many other countries. But then you need to consider the iPad's ARP being in the $6xx range and that the iPad goes as high as $829. That last value is important because the ARP for non-Mac PCs are apparently in the $7xx range.

The car would be an insult if the person could not even afford a full tank of gas as the totally broke younger brother scenario however the shares are always new, not used and discarded, so that would be a nice gift as long as it was appropriate for the relationship and the circumstance.

I am very happy with my $350 Acer 522 netbook with the AMD APU. Yes it isn't very popular but I like it. I had to upgrade the ram FROM 1 GIG TO 4 GIG and was lucky to be able to get a free copy of Win 7 Pro as Win 7 starter is pathetic. I also put in a spare 750gig hard drive I had lying around which was fortunate, as I have 400 gigs of music. I enjoy blurays on the device when required and i also hook up my Roland Quad Capture. Having said that I will be getting an ipad3 because I can read it outside which I can't do on my netbook. Also the ipad3 is a bit more casual and fun!

Then lets say I include a suitcase full of money, an unlimited use gas card and insurance paid for life. Happy?!

Sorry you're in the wrong argument. We were talking about the claim that the average laptop costs less than the cheapest "new" iPad. Which is true. I don't know who you were replying to but none of the things you said had anything to do with the debate at hand.

You see the one fact that NOBODY in this forum wants to admit is that some people just don't like Apple. Yep I said it. Some folks out there just don't like Apple. They think people like you and me are arrogant blah blah (it's late). They think we pay way over the odds just for the Apple badge. No matter how good the iPad is some folks will buy something else. My own brother would never buy an Apple product. He uses a PC. Doesn't see why anyone would pay £1500 for a laptop. He'd happily buy a Samsung Tablet over an iPad. That's why the other tablets will sell once they get their act together. If you read the reviews the iPhone is the best smartphone on the market but it doesn't stop lots of people buying the Galaxy S instead even though it's no cheaper.

Hey, I have one, I don't think there is anything to lol about. Their actually pretty neat machines, I have the Samsung variant and it's my understanding Samsung is introducing a new model next month. They weren't very successful in the consumer market but Google is making a little headway selling them to schools and company's. The idea behind them is pretty sound but I think it will be a while till the industry goes in this direction. Mark my words though in the near future when wireless technology becomes faster I have no doubt that every computer will be just dumb terminals connected to the internet.

Google is pretty close already, I can do pretty much everything online with my Chromebook that I can do with an offline notebook. Microsoft's 360 software is pretty fantastic for your office needs, online programs like Cloud 9 IDE are amazing for software development. In fact except for high end gaming I can't think of one application that can't be replaced with a web app and that includes Photoshop. You can check out ChromeOS without the need of a Chromebook by putting it on a usb stick and live booting it on a PC. I always carry around a copy of it on my key chain, since Chrome is my main browser that i use all I have to do is boot into ChromeOS and I'm back where I left it, including having all of my online apps at the ready.

If your interested go here to get the usb img -> chromeos.hexxeh.net

Personally I would not accept it. The only person who would appreciate such a gift would be a gold digging bimbo girlfriend.

Nobody thinks apple is doomed. But lots of fruits think other people are delusional, simply because they choose to buy a gadget different from what you prefer.

The entire fruit culture is quite bizarre. And quite entertaining.

But "best", even if prices were the same across the board doesn't mean any one product will fit every need. There are legitimate reasons why someone would want an Android-based device, but these ae typically niche or fringe cases that don't add up to an overwhelming large segment of the market.

But wait, Apple only has a small segment of the PC market. Sure, when you include every machine, but if you look at increasing more expensive machines where quality increasingly becomes a factor Macs rise sharply. If you only look at notebooks which are by nature very limited to manipulation of the HW by users Macs rise sharply.

As for those who hate Apple, that's fine, that segment will always be there and it's great there is other options for them but these people don't negatively after Apple's bottom line.


That's one Christmas gift I can cancel.

Please look at my previous quote in regards to the Acer 522. i am sure you couldnt do the stuff I do with the crapbook er cromebook. The cromebook is a disgrace!

This is a Mac site though. Who the hell buys a laptop that costs less than $500? I feel sorry for such people. I'm glad to say that I do not know a single person who owns such a laptop. I don't hang out with bums.

It's like being on a Rolls Royce forum and along comes these people who say that they are happy with their Lada. Well, good for them. Different people obviously have different standards.

Correct... Apple chose to only be in the $1000+ laptop market... where the dominate in that particular market of $1000+ laptops. And that's where Apple wants to be.

Huge players like HP and Dell are down in the $500 laptop market... and recently they both had second thoughts about even being in that market because the margins are so shittty.

It seems there's more money to be made in the enterprise than selling cheap consumer laptops...

850,000 Android activations a day is a niche market??????

That right there is a 100% false statement. You couldn't be more wrong.

Over half the market in the world's richest economy does.

Well... Apple IS doomed.

Just no time soon. Or do you think Apple will be around in 150 years? Not gonna happen.

I own an Acer 522 and Mac Mini 2011 plus iphone, ipod nano, ipodshuffle and Apple TV. Am very happy with my Acer 522.

Yeah, of course we're all going to die eventually, you, me, and everybody else.

However, somebody is a complete moron if they repeatedly go around proclaiming that Apple is doomed year after year. People have been saying that for many years now, and Apple only gets stronger.

There's this one Canadian analyst, I forget their name, but they keep on saying that Apple is going to fail soon, and their target price for Apple is beyond ridiculous. They've been saying it for years, and they even predicted that the iPhone would be a flop. Personally, I think that that analyst is on the take from RIM, since they're also a Canadian company. Nobody can possibly be that stupid.

Sorry, but the math doesn't work that way. I can have 3 products priced $600, $600 and $168 and the mean price would be $456. Does that mean most of those products were under 500 dollars? No because the very low priced item has skewed the average. A median price of $456, though, would prove what you are saying but an "average" does not because averages can be skewed by outliers quite easily. And by looking at the source data the median price is over $500.

I don't know what an Acer 522 is of course, but if it works for you and you're happy, then all is good.

If you could trade it for a Macbook Air, would you do that?

I wanted a Macbook Air but was way to expensive. If someone would trade of course I would! One thing is for sure I would no way use any google-crap product. That is for sure. Their products suck dog balls, I think I would rather use a Commodore 64 than a Chromebook!

SolipsismX was talking about the tablet market, not every Android phone activated in China and India.

The Commodore 64 was a great machine for it's time. I had one of those back in the day.

People buying Mac laptops today are lucky though, because the prices have never been cheaper. I remember what Mac laptops used to cost. And I agree, I would never buy any Google hardware product either.

What if you have three products priced $300, $300 and $900?

So which is right? Do you really think the larger part of the pyramid is the top half or the bottom?

Show me what source data you're seeing that proves what the median price is?

Edit: just so you know, at Best buy you can walk out with a Dell 15 inch screen, 6 GB of RAM, 500GB laptop for $499.

Look, I'm not saying these are great computers, but for what most people do, they do just fine. And they're (that is, total $499 laptops) definitely selling way more of those than Apple sells laptops at any price. That's what people buy. Most consumers don't have the knowledge and the $500 extra to spend on a Mac laptop that may be better, but in ways that they don't understand or appreciate. So they buy a cheap PC laptop.

90% of the laptop market (the market outside Apple's tiny 10%) spends an average of $456 on a laptop as of January 2012. You'd have to be an idiot to suggest that Apple laptops are more popular than "cheap, sub-$500" laptops. The numbers are clear. If the 90% which doesn't buy Apple spends $456, they're MOSTLY spending less than $499. The ridiculous example above of a market full of high priced laptops offset by a few cheap ones is a truly impressive example of self-delusion.

Are you sure? Don't you know someone who might be happy to receive your used socks? Only worn once, good as new once they wash them.

Well if that was the case you would be correct, but that's my point. An "average" does not say what you claim it does. A median price does. You can not make any claims that "most" laptops are priced under the price of the iPad when you are dealing only with averages (especially as they even say that the averages are skewed by Black Friday deals among other special to lower prices). On the other hand, the median price clearly provides a line under which you can say 50% of all things are priced under this and 50% are priced higher.


Unless you have an account with NPD, I can't.

Ok the 12 million Android tablets sold to date versus the 55 million iPads sold to date.

Still not sure that qualifies as a niche market.

Ha! Pitiful.

OK so let's see here. The average price of a laptop is $456 (yeah sorry I'm not going to exclude those bought on BLack Friday as if they're not real laptops or something).

So in your hypothetical crazy world, 9 buyers of PC laptops pay $501, and one pays $50, and that's how the median laptop price is above $499 while average is $456 huh? Dumbest thing I've ever heard.

You really have to stretch all logic to find me a scenario where 10s of millions of something can be sold with an average price of $456 and yet the median price is over $500. You clearly have no numbers to back it up and basic common sense shows that you're lying, so there's no sense in hitting my head against that wall anymore.

I could have been a lot more clear. I was referring to tablets and people that would buy one over the iPad in the same price category. Case in point, you can buy 10" Android tablets for under $100 on Amazon but those aren't the market Apple is selling in. I think it's unlikely there are people buying $499 to $829 Android tablets unless they fill a niche (or, as you said, hate Apple, but that's a niche, too).

Then just look at Dell. They have 13 laptops/netbooks under 500. Whereas they have 250 over 500. You can't tell me Dell is an overpriced brand.

I really feel sorry for those poor 12 million suckers that have bought Google crapware (most are probably in shops). As I have said before I wish there was an alternative to Apple like Atari or Palm.

Google make ugly, cheap, dysfunctional poor imitations and the Chromebook er crapbook is a disgrace to the laptop market.

I am not sure why a fandroid would be on an apple-site, so why aren't you on a google-crapsoft website reading about specs and how many cores a tegra has?

First, I'm not sure if that 12 million number is true, as who can trust any Android numbers? But even if it is true, it still qualifies as a niche market, and that market is called the bottom of the barrel market. It doesn't even register a blip on Apple's radar screen.

At CES this year we saw at a lot of Ultrabooks. These are trying to come in under $900 but most seem to be $1000 or more. Some look poorly made and others, like from Samsung, looked pretty solid. Do these have a chance to strengthen the non-Mac PC market or will this be yet another failed attempt by PC vendors?

In the absence of a "definitive" android device for developers to develop software for: yes.

Your focus on accurate numbers is very impressive. I can see I'm overmatched here.

So Mr. I Have an NPD account instead uses for evidence the total amount* of systems offered for sale instead of the actual sales numbers already provided on this thread?

Scram buddy, you're embarrassing yourself.

*total amount is actually made up

I take your point. How many of those 12 million android tablets sold were in the same price band as the iPad and therefore genuine competitors. I guess we'll never know. I think Samsung is the only serious competitior to the iPad at the moment, although it will be interesting to see how well the rumoured 10" Kindle Fire does against the entry level iPad.

Apple's pricing of their products are for the more well-off individual, or someone willing to pay more for Apple than for the many MS hardware products. For the most part, then, Apple has a customer base that is not as price-driven or price sensitive as the base for PCs, and therefore more predictable.

But, I think Apple's customer base may also be different from the customer buying PCs. Apple customers are more comfortable with or prefer or desire less choice, allowing and trusting in Apple designers to make the good choices.

See Sheena Iyengar, Prof at Columbia Business School, her presentations at TED and her book The Art of Choosing. See also the works of Barry Schwartz and his book The Paradox of Choice (and TED lectures). See also Kahneman and Tversky works on choice. The former received the Nobel prize in Economics in 2002 for their work (Tversky had died prior so wasn't eligible).

I think it is so much more interesting to look that the above research on choice rather than continue the silliness of name-calling and shouts of fanboyisms and defenses thereof. It might just make the conversation a little more intelligent. According to this research on choice, Apple customers might be more driven by the desire to simplify and limit the anxiety caused by too many choices, and let the experts (in this case Apple designers) make the significant choices for them (us). This leaves the customer the time and resources to make the choices only he/she can make, leaving choices of computer hardware to Apple.

For these customers, Apple will continue to have loyal customers as long as Apple continues to make good choices in the design of their products.