Jason
Well-known member
Fact is, ALL of these tablets are such a good deal (value) that spending a little more to GET more is not going to stop folks from buying either the mini nor the regular ipads. Also, remember that Google and Amazon are not making a dime on sales of those tablets - you and I are buying them for the cost of production (by the millions!). As we see with windows computers, this is not a sustainable business model.
Amazon has built its business on the very model you claim is not sustainable. Google enjoys a razor-thin profit with N7 sales, whereas Amazon is actually losing money on every Kindle Fire sold. Both companies are betting that these devices will become lucrative sales portals from the content being consumed on them (which justifies selling them at/below cost). Only time will tell if that proves right.
Apple enjoys higher margins. It's what they do. You're not paying for the experience, or getting more for the price (unless someone really feels iOS is that great). They could cut the price of the iPad Mini by 20% and still make a nice profit. I suspect what they don't want to do is price it so low where it starts to cannibalize sales of the larger iPad.
Anyway, pretty underwhelming announcement. Apple is starting to play follow the leader. Nonetheless, they'll still sale a lot of these devices. It'll be interesting to see how things play out over the holiday season.