Why Nobody Can Match the iPad’s Price • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Nobody Can Match the iPad’s Price

#111

Post by Synaesthesia » Mon, Feb 21, 2011, 7:04 PM UTC

lurker19 wrote: post #95

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"[Apple knows it doesn't] need to make money on the sale of the device because the entire point of buying the device is to buy apps for it," The opposite is true. Apple doesn't need to make money on software, because their hardware products have healthy profit margins. The iTunes Store breaks even, and it has done so for years. The same is true for the other software Apple sells. Compared to competing products, Apple…

Do not ignore the fact that Apple's offerings are far less powerful, useful, and debugged than the competing software you listed. Aperture requires a Mac Pro to run properly, which undermines the cost argument.

Aperture runs fine on any Mac. 4gb RAM helps, and an SSD.

Re: Why Nobody Can Match the iPad’s Price

#112

Post by nazgulnarsil » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 6:29 AM UTC

nhangen wrote: post #109

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

features that someone never uses aren't really a selling point.

such as?

you're the one touting the ipad. whatfeatures does it have that I can't do on a rooted nook?

Re: Why Nobody Can Match the iPad’s Price

#113

Post by easp » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 9:13 AM UTC

danilocampos wrote: post #18

gabrielroth wrote: post #7

One factor that the author doesn't mention is Apple's success at lining up deals with component manufacturers. A couple years ago (before anyone had heard of the iPad) they locked in great prices on flash memory and LCD displays. They could do that because they were about to invent a huge market, and they knew it. Anyone trying to get into the tablet business in 2010 had to pay much, much more. Steve Jobs and Johnny…

A hundred upvotes, really. Tim Cook turned Apple from a sloppy, cluttered mess to a perfectly tuned and calibrated machine. He designs business processes like Ive designs hardware enclosures. He's still at it, too, telling investors during the last earnings call that Apple once again snapped up a boatload of supply on an unnamed type of component . I bet he'd be amazing at Starcraft, once he learned the ropes.

I knew Apple was on to something again when, not long after Jobs retook Apple, their inventory on hand started to approach that of Dell. That was Cook's doing.

Re: Why Nobody Can Match the iPad’s Price

#114

Post by edtechdev » Wed, Feb 23, 2011, 1:53 PM UTC

Cadsby wrote: post #35

edtechdev wrote: post #30

This article didn't get the prices right (which is suprising since that was the sole point of the article), and it got the history exactly backward. The main shock people had about the ipad was how expensive it was priced ($500-$750). They weren't 'surprised' at how low it was priced. And to Apple's credit, we now know that even at that price it would sell well, and also we know that this price is actually not so unr…

I disagree. I remember much of the Tech press predicating a $1000 price point and being rather surprised at the existence of a low end model at $499. It was only the cross section of nerds that really dislike Apple that called it expensive and panned it as a crippled piece of junk. (Engadet had to shut down their commenting system for a few days due to all the vitriol) Also, I think you're missing the point on pricin…

No, most people thought the ipad at $500-$750 was overpriced at the time. They thought it would be comparable to the prices of netbooks ($300 range). And I defended the price knowing now what we know (other android tablets are expensive too). But as this first article indicates, the main reason why people AREN'T buying the ipad is because they think it is overpriced still, along with the apps:

http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/12/7/apples-ipad-faces-pricing-c... http://www.bnet.com/blog/new-media/note-to-magazine-industry... http://www.businessinsider.com/john-squires-ipad-is-big-and-... http://darrenbeckett.com/20100129_Does_the_iPad_Cost_Too_Muc... http://tamebay.com/2010/05/is-the-ipad-too-expensive-as-a-to... Search for ipad too expensive or ipad over-priced and you'll see tons of examples. Again though, my argument was that we thought it was overpriced when it was announced a year ago. I think now we can see that it wasn't so bad or unreasonable a price.

And by the way your response below indicates you are against even a hint of criticism of the ipad, even though I'm not criticizing it at all in either of my responses. Don't know why I bother feeding trolls though.