Cue flaming of Apple.....

Congratulations, trolls will always win.

I believe this a product before its time. I feel its searching for a market, instead of inventing one. Right now its a fail, in a couple years we will all own something like this where we get our digital media fix. Right now though, a product between a laptop and smartphone isn't needed, and if it was wanted, the ipad certainly leaves much to be desired. No 16:9 support, no flash, and wallet burning prices. I'm all for this, but they need to get it right number one, and there has to be a market for it.

What I'm honestly surprised by is that they're not charging more. That's the real news here.

I'll stick with the Archos 9, Viliv S10, Viliv S7, Viliv E70X, or Archos 7 IT if I wanted a UMPC, ultra mobile PC. What I am really interested in is the pocketable market, like the Viliv S5, Viliv N5, Cowon W2, or UMID BZ.

Every single product I listed is a real PC, can multi-task, and many have true dedicated keyboards.

So why should someone buy an iPad again?

I think the iPads should be $100 cheaper, and instead of going up by $100 for each tier-up, it should go up by 50, with 3g being added adding another $50-75.

The base model should then be 400, and the top model should be 550-600.

how is this news, if apple would have charged less then yes, that would have been news.Overpriced apple hardware is nothing new.
On a different note, it is good to know. One can make an informed decision about not buying one.

Manufacturing cost is only part of the total cost.

A product ahead of it's time? This tech is already old as crap as far as computer lives go (see: HP Compaq TC1100). The only difference is the price, which has of course down as the technology aged. I'd rather have something new than rehashed garbage that tools will gobble up because of the brand name.

That's strange. I wonder why it costs so much to produce. I mean you can get laptops/netbooks with the same amount of firepower for cheaper. Either Apple just has really high costing production methods, or the profit margin for the laptops/netbooks is much much smaller.

Either way, I'm surprised they didn't charge more. But still, I don't find myself needing or even really wanting the device...

R&D didnt cost a thing, hmm lets make the iphone bigger, beautiful, blah blah blah

That's no surprise. Basic OPM (Operations and Production Management) says that wholesale, out the factory door cost generally needs to be about half of retail cost for any mass produced item.

I'm a PC user, not an Apple fanboy, but what does Apple overcharge on again? I've heard that and looked at Apple - HP - Dell pricing and never saw the kind of difference that people make out there to be.

I build my own systems, and I can tell you from just finnishing my latest SLi gaming rig build that a decent aluminum case with hot swappable drive bays on the quality level of Apples Mac Pro cases would run you some serious money. My Xilo case was a couple hundred dollar and I don't think it even looks as good as a Mac Pro setup.

But the Anti-Apple gang always wants to mention that you could pick up a HP or Dell with simular spec for a lot less. Only if you really go there and try to build one on their site it is very close to the same price and is a way inferior product.

The Apple machine will be a custom aluminum case with hot swap bays, easy to access memory tray, clean wiring, a bunch of attention to detail and the very clean design. The HP or Dell that they mention will be a standard model with a cheap $29 dollar riveted steel case, standard drive bays that will probably cover up the memory slots when combined with the zip tied wire bundle that lays across the motherboard. They should be comparing them to stuff like the BlackHawk system or something simular.

Back on subject - If the iPad cost under $300 but is selling for $499, that would put the Nexus One costing equal to or less for Google to make and costing $530. Then again Google has always been known to overcharge for things.

Actually you could just say has always been known to overcharge for their and be equally correct.

Sorry the last line muct have had characters that the board couldn't display.

It should have read Actually you could just say insert company has always been known to overcharge for their insert product and be equally correct.

Surprisingly, they would still sell these things and expect to gain profit from it despite of its shortcomings. Well of course, the fanatics won't miss this chance to acquire an over-sized and overpriced iPod Touch and brag about it.

Is that not good? I mean, it would cost quite a bit more after factoring in manufacturing costs, delivery, research and anything else related. Plus the "apple tax".
Still, I am assuming that that is the cost of the parts in the base model.

Agreed. What about R&D.

Note: I doubt Apple had to do much R&D considering it's just a bigger iTouch/iPhone. Then again, Apple's OSX is based on BSD where most of the handwork is done by other people... and Apple wouldn't need much R&D budget anyways...

Seems to me thatApple went from an R&D innovative company ie PowerPC, Newton, etc to a marketing machine ie restrictive mp3 players, overpriced pc's
"Build it shiny and they will come" is this the slogan at Apple?

I think most tech savvy people would still stick to Windows. I like Apple as it provide the badly needed competition for rest of the markets. M$ is not able to market tablet PC successfully to the general public maybe Apple could with its ipad. The price of $US499 is ok compare to M$ $US200 for their Windows XP Tablet OEM license.

I really hope they do, imagine the Apple's folk moving around the street with ipad and generate another $US10 billion in revenue, that would force M$ to innovate at that area as well. And, no excuse this time!!!

There was no r&d done for the ipad, try this, open a program like maya, create a 3d model of the ipod touch (don't worry about rounding the corners as that adds about 5 extra steps to the building)

then now scale everything except the buttons to match the size of the ipad

you will be surprised to see that it looks the same as the real ipad just with out the rounded corners, the borders get bigger, as you increase the width and height, the button stays the same size.

other than the CPU, everything else is pretty much cookie cutter from the ipod touch, they just forgot to hit ctrl + z when the idiots mistakenly deleted the camera before sending it off to get turned into a physical ipad

apple can easily sell the device for $300 and still make a decent profit. Many lesser known companies often sell products with pretty small profit margins because they don't have a name behind them they can only sell based on price and a hope that it doesn't break in like a week

when you sell a item cheaper, you get more people buying the product. would you rather have 10 people buy a product from you at $100 profit, or have 1000 people buy the product from you at $10 profit. the problem is that when blinded by greed, many companies cant see the logic in charging less, they see charging less as less profit with out considering that they will get more customer.
Another benefit from charging less is, you will order more supplies each time, which means larger volume discounts which further lowers production cost which will give you the option to further lower the price of the item and get even more customers.

forgot to add, the only products that I can see reasonablly having a large profit margin is specialty product designed for professional use, for example programs like maya or programs like omnisphere or in the case of hardware davinci resolve (used for post production for many hit movies)

these items are expensive because they cost a lot to make but the target market is very small, you may only sell a few thousand units and you have to charge a lot to make up for the cost of developing the product.

but for consumer products, they have no excuse for the price gouging as their target market ranges in the billions, the high prices are just greed and stupidity

I'm in the same boat, I'm a PC user, but Apple is WAY over criticized for making money, after all it's a business, not a charity. I'm glad there's someone other than me who seems most Tom's users as an anti-Apple gang.

apple overcharges but I don't really care, a business is designed to make money and if people are willing to spend a arm and a leg for your product then you would be stupid not to charge a arm and a leg, you just have to be smart about it and not charge too much that it will limit your target market and thus limit overall profits.

remember this is a free market, you have a choice of what to buy and what not to. when it comes to computers, apple charges more, buy apple fans are ok with it and if they like it then thats all that matters

PS all smartphones are overpriced and all companies that sell them will rip you off (and please don't bring up the cheap Chinese knockoffs as they suck)

The target market for most smartphones are people who don't understand the value of anything and are unable to notice when there getting ripped off.

I haven't been all that crazy about any Apple product in years, but you know, I kinda like this one. It does need to be priced a bit less, like at least $100 to 150 less. At that point, we're breathing down into netbook territory, and if I can get at least a "fuller" version of OSX or possibly Win 7 to work on this, I'd completely skip the netbook crap. So it's not quite perfect, but a lot of that's just software and they can correct that. I haven't even owned an ipod in three years, but I gotta hand it to them on this one.

only 270$ eh?

that's more than enough considering that apple is known for really bad customer-service and ignoring rma repairs.
last time they invented a clever trapdoor to avoid repairs if the user was a smoker, the next thing is probably gonna be some lame excuse that if the user breath heavily, it produces moist in the air and thus void the warranty.
270$ is more than enough when you are arrogant and shit on your customers..

Are you serious? You don't build much PC's then. And how long have you been building PC's? Nothing aginst you but, you sir, are miss informed or do not do your homework. And if you are building your own PC, why in the world would you go to Dell or HP to build it? It defeats the purpose. Wow....just wow. *Double Face Palm + Double Face Foot Palm*

A $2500 Windows Based PC vs. $2500 Mac Pro PC - $2500 Windows Based PC will smack the Mac Pro around like Steve Erkel vs. Mike Tyson in a boxing match. Other than the Mac's glossy shiny case, the Mac will loose in every performance aspect and lose not by a smal margin, but a HUGE margin.

I do not need to get into specs and specifics. There has been many posts on Toms and DailyTech in regards to what I am referencing above.

Lastly, if you want to compare, Toms is a PC (for now I'll go with Apple's PC vs Mac naming scheme. Macs are Personal Computers by definition) forum. Of course Macs will get bashed here. Go to an Apple Forum or site, PC's will get bashed there....plain and simple. What did you expect to see love and sympathy for Conservatives in a Liberal Forum - vice versa?

Read my post above.

Can it read Cryshit?

Around 100% markup.. Whats the news? That is pretty much the common practice.

damn a 200$ profit for each unit! that is very high! i am not at all going to pay so much money for I-PAD. .

Will all the potential iPad customers please form an orderly line. Please drop your pants and bend over and Steve Jobs will deal with you in due course.

I didn't say i couldn't build it cheaper, there you go reading the usual PC users responce into it. I said if you compare Dell - HP - Apple prices they are pretty close.

For example:

Apple Mac Pro dual xeon 2.26 processors 6gb ram. 256mb Nvidia graphics.
price $3299

HP Z600 Workstaion Dual Xeon 2.26 processors 6gb ram 256mb Nvidia graphics price $3461

Dell Precision T7500 workstation dual xeon 2.26 processors 6gb ram 512mb Nvidia graphics $3415

Again they are spot on with the pricing for the class of computer they are competing with and their piers. And the two Windows workstations include just Windows 7 64bit and no other software at all with them.

Now to your other arguement, I already said I don't own a Apple because I do build them myself and I know I can build it cheaper. The point is people are saying they are overcharging for their equipment, when in fact they are charging the industry standard rate for their equipment. A fact that can be easily demonstrated by just going to any of the sites and building your own to the same specs. The problem is the PC crowd on these PC TECH sites always bring the i can build it cheaper arguement into the mix when it has no place in a debate of RETAIL pricing.

There is obviously a pretty large market for these workstations to make it worth all the companies offering them. I would go so far as to say that the number of computers that are custom built by the owners is less than 5%. The MAJORITY of computers, especially in business and professional areas, never even have the cases opened by their users... ever. As a matter of fact you would have to be down right stupid to custom build your computers in a business setting. That is why HP, Lenvo and Dell equipment is almost a given at any business.