Apple exec Phil Schiller defends $329 entry price of iPad mini

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  • Reply 21 of 241
    andysolandysol Posts: 2,506member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Why does he have to defend it? It's an Apple product. They know how to price them properly. 



    Why do you need to criticize his defense?  He's an Apple executive.  They know how to respond properly.

  • Reply 22 of 241
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    Why does he have to defend it? It's an Apple product. They know how to price them properly. 
    Bad headline. Not sure he thought he was defending it.
  • Reply 23 of 241
    gtbuzzgtbuzz Posts: 129member
    No Apology Necessary Phil. Go for it. Full Speed Ahead. By the way, Stay on top of the software development. What about iWeb. It was so easy to use. You need an "iWeb" type of offering for the consumers and the small businesses.
    TomE
  • Reply 24 of 241

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by macinthe408 View Post



    This is just fine. The same cheapskates whining about the iPad mini's price are the same ones who complain about overpriced BMWs and Porsches, as they spit diatribe out the window of their Ford Pintos.

    The world needs ditch diggers, too.


    And the same ditch digger can hit you over the head and bury your sorry ass in a hole in the ground for making such an insulting and retarded comment.

  • Reply 25 of 241

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gazoobee View Post


    Also, ... did anyone else but me think the screen size comparisons were a bit dubious?  A lot of browsers do full-screen now.  Technically, Chrome on Android still doesn't, but removing the menu bars etc. as part of the "analysis" is still a bit disingenuous viewed that way.  


     


    It felt kind of dirty to me to present it that way. 



    Are you sure that average joe knows how to remove the menu bars?


     


    Edit: I misread your comment, sorry. But what I wanted to say is even choosing a browser that can do full-screen or finding out how to do that feature average joe may not know. I thought Phil had done it right. Although choosing that website with the huge title was intentional.

  • Reply 26 of 241

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gazoobee View Post


    OMG he actually just trundled out that "if people pay it, it isn't too high" bullish*t.  


     


    Very sad.  



     


    Why?


     


    Apple and anyone else can charge what the market can bear. Apple charges what they think their product is worth. It can be $3 or $3000. NO ONE is forced to pay either amount. 


     


    Consumers have the choice to NOT pay and choose something else. If they DO buy the product in respectable numbers, then the asking price is vindicated. 

  • Reply 27 of 241


    Apple is getting too defensive. Just do it and stfu.


     


    It just tastes bad.

     

  • Reply 28 of 241

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Quadra 610 View Post


     


    You're actually comparing the iPad Mini to THAT junk?


     


    They're not even in the same league, User Experience-wise. And User Experience is everything. 


     


    The Nexus7 and Kindle Fire HD are FINISHED. The moment Apple unveiled the Mini, was the beginning of the end for the tablet competition, who are having a helluva time against Apple as it is. 



    Since you have never used a Kindle Fire, what the hell do you know?  The Kindle Fire is actually a very nice tablet device that does exactly what it is advertised to do.  It is far better than the other tablet devices out there, and Amazon continues to sell many of them.  Despite what you believe, it is very easy to use and has a nice user-experience.  Why do you think Amazon continues to develop them and release new versions?  They sell well for Amazon, so good for them.

  • Reply 29 of 241
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,227member


    Setting a high price avoids supply constraints Apple likely faces.

  • Reply 30 of 241
    gazoobee wrote: »
    What an insufferable, stuck-up, series of wild assumptions you are making here.  

    Disagreeing about the price point of a single Apple product automatically makes a person some kind of trailer-trash ditch digger?  
    It would be funny if it wasn't such an outrageously insulting and bigoted thing to say. 
    Wouldn't that be more prejudiced than bigoted?
  • Reply 31 of 241
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    Why does he have to defend it? It's an Apple product. They know how to price them properly. 

    Whenever someone defends something too they're trying to convince themselves and not others.
  • Reply 32 of 241
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member


    It's too early to criticize the price when there is no evidence of people not buying them yet.


     


    I personally am really interested to see how this product does. At this stage they seem to be dominating the tablet market to the same extent they dominated the music player market. And following the same steps too: take over the high end market, get the reputation as the best, and go after the low-end market only once the "best" reputation is established.

  • Reply 33 of 241
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post

    "The iPad is far and away the most successful product in its category," Schiller said. "The most affordable product we've made so far was $399 and people were choosing that over those other devices.

    "And now you can get a device that's even more affordable at $329 in this great new form, and I think a lot of customers are going to be very excited about that."


    Statement or defence? To say he is defending the price assumes he feels he is being accused. Who is accusing? It seems to me the price fell within expected range and that anyone who has seen the thing agrees it is well priced. So... who is accusing?

  • Reply 34 of 241
    focherfocher Posts: 688member
    Sure enough, there is the price for the components plus some margin on top and voilà there is the market price of the product. And the price is reasonable if you look under the hood. This iPad mini is built to perfection so yeah why and where did he have to defend what seems just right?
    That's not at all how consumer goods are priced. It's the cost of goods, which entails a lot of things like R&D, marketing, promotional discounting, indirects (like corporate costs), logistics / transport of goods, etc. And the final pricing is not even based on all of that plus margin. The goal is to optimize price to find the perfect balance of revenue and profit. Underpricing leaves money on the table. Overpricing means lost sales.

    My gut reaction is that $329 is too high for that segment, but that's based on where the competition has priced their products and the seeming marketability of those products. However, Apple has surely done some pretty detailed analysis in defining the price points to maximize revenue and profit. And I'm also confident that the Apple product isn't going to be a piece of crap with no resale value.
  • Reply 35 of 241
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,292member
    Actually ditch diggers command a high salary because they are running million dollar machines..

    The people complaining about the price are analysts and we all know what their motive is and always has been. It has nothing to do with the quality of an item, only its price and what their feeble minds can comprehend. I have an iPhone 5 and its aluminum case feels fantastic, much better than the plastic 3GS it replaced. I gave up buying cut-rate wood working equipment and bought better products even though the price was more because I got tired of the tools breaking and not providing accurate cuts. You get what you pay for an overall, Apple products are built to last. There, take that analysts....
  • Reply 36 of 241
    ahmlcoahmlco Posts: 432member


    It's obvious that the bean-counters are back in charge at Apple. Back in the day, John Scully, John Louis Gassee, and others continually maintained that consumers would gladly pay a premium to own Apple computers. This despite the fact that Microsoft Windows-based PCs had, in many cases, already surpassed the capabilities of Apple's aging Macintosh lineup. And at far cheaper price points.


     


    Fast forward to today, where Phil Schiller is publicly defending the iPad mini's $329 price point, saying he believes customers are willing to pay for quality that rivals like Amazon and Google don't offer. "And now you can get a device that's even more affordable at $329 in this great new form, and I think a lot of customers are going to be very excited about that."


     


    Is he right? Many analysts -- and consumers -- believe that Apple could have further tromped the competition by hitting a $299 price point. $329, for whatever reason, manages to cross a rather huge line in the sand, perception-wise. The price isn't two-something, it's THREE-something.


     


    And it's three-something when other 7" devices by Google and Amazon are selling for $249 and even $199. 


     


    One major difference between the Apple of today and Apple of yesteryear is that they still have a rather impressive lead in industrial design and build quality. Previously, one beige box with a mouse running Windows looked pretty much the same as a beige box with a mouse running windows System 7. Unable to tell the difference between the two offerings, consumers and businesses all too often went with the cheaper offering.


     


    It's easy to tell the difference in build quality between an exquisitely crafted iPhone and a plastic cased Samsung. Between an iPad mini and an Amazon Fire. But how many will marvel at the fit and finish, then sigh and put it back on the shelf?


     


    The sad part is that Apple could well have eaten the extra $30 in exchange for a larger marketshare. They did not.

  • Reply 37 of 241
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by island hermit View Post


    Apple is getting too defensive. Just do it and stfu.


     


    It just tastes bad.

     



    Yep, Apple does not need to defend any of their prices.


     


    There are people who appreciate Apple's quality, and then there are people who don't. Luckily for those sorts of people,  bottom of the barrel Android devices are available.

  • Reply 38 of 241
    I have said it from the start that iOS is the "hotdog" in the Apple menu - the product for the lowest common denominator in our society - but this level of stupidity in marketing really hits the point home.

    Yes, for a device that is mostly used for reading - stupid people will think that is is a good idea to trade a smaller, less expensive, sharper resolution screen device (nexus 7) for a more expensive, larger, lower resolution screen.

    Yes, stupid people can not wait to rent 3.99 HD movies to see it on a 4:3 1028x768 screen over a 16:9 HD screen.

    Yes, stupid people will believe that the new aspect ratio and high resolution on the iphone 5 is great for websites because it gives you sharper text and less need to scroll down yet will believe something else 2 months later.

    Remember a time when you walked in to our corporate offices and you understood that when you hit the floor with Macintosh in it you were where some of the smartest and most talented people of the company worked.

    Now, it is half baked nonsense held up by marketing stupidity for the 40% of high school students and the population that because everything that they have ever owned someone else made - and everything that has ever inspired them someone else imagined - try so hard to buy some self respect.

    Yes, iOS is the dumbing down of Apple.
  • Reply 39 of 241
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by macinthe408 View Post



    This is just fine. The same cheapskates whining about the iPad mini's price are the same ones who complain about overpriced BMWs and Porsches, as they spit diatribe out the window of their Ford Pintos.

    The world needs ditch diggers, too.


    But what the world doesn't need is more arrogance, ignorance and intolerance. And I am not talking about the ditch diggers.

  • Reply 40 of 241
    boredumbboredumb Posts: 1,418member
    quadra 610 wrote: »
    You're actually comparing the iPad Mini to THAT junk?

    They're not even in the same league, User Experience-wise. And User Experience is everything. 

    You are assuming that the user-experience on the mini will be identical to what it is on the iPad...
    perhaps very generally it may be,
    but the experience on the iPhone and the iPad are markedly different,
    so I'm not sure how you can presume to know what it will be on the mini...
    did you receive a review mini that you've been using for a while?
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