IPad sales top 1 million in 28 days; it took iPhone 74
by admin on May.04, 2010, under iPad future
by
Ryan Kim
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/04/BU051D8PMJ.DTL&type=tech#ixzz0my1coMMS
Apple is up to 1 million iPads sold in just 28 days, more than twice as fast as the original iPhone.
After Friday’s launch of the iPad Wi-Fi + 3G, Apple has pushed past the 1 million milestone. It took the iPhone 74 days to get to that point.
“Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a statement.
Analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray estimated that Apple sold about 300,000 units over the weekend, similar to the 300,000 Apple sold the first day of sales April 3. He said the 3G unit was sold out in 49 of 50 stores he checked, suggesting that long term, 3G units will make up about 40 percent of all sales while Wi-Fi units will make up the remaining 60 percent.
Munster said it appears that his 1.3 million unit forecast for the June quarter is conservative but there is enough uncertainty around international launches and supply constraints to leave his estimate unchanged for now.
Apple said iPad users have downloaded more than 12 million apps and 1.5 million books on the iPad. The App Store has 200,000 apps now, with 5,000 iPad-specific apps.
App-platform probe? Apple may be facing an inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Justice over its decision to bar iPhone developers from using cross-platform tools to build iPhone and iPad apps.
The New York Post is reporting that the two government organizations are locked in negotiations over who will launch the inquiry. A decision, according a person familiar with the discussion, is days away.
An inquiry is just a preliminary step in gathering information that could lead to a formal investigation. Regulators can choose to drop the case if an inquiry does not produce enough evidence for an investigation.
The DOJ and FTC are looking at Apple’s decision last month to alter its developer license agreement to see if it’s anti-competitive. The rule change forbids developers from using a tool like Adobe’s new iPhone Packager to take their existing Flash code and convert it for the iPhone. This could have the effect of diminishing competition by encouraging developers to focus on one platform over others.
Adobe has said the Packager would allow developers to write code once and have their apps appear on multiple operating systems. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs said in a stinging letter last week that tools like Packager result in “substandard” apps and can slow the pace of development on the iPhone platform when developers are dependent on outside tools, rather than Apple’s tools.
This could be an important turning point for Apple, which hasn’t faced much antitrust scrutiny before because of its small market share in computers. But as Apple becomes a major force in mobile (it has 25 percent market share in smart phones and owns the largest mobile app store), it finds itself in a position to exert more power over the market.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/04/BU051D8PMJ.DTL&type=tech#ixzz0my0VTryE
Analysts See iPad Price Drop, with Some Cannibalization
by admin on Feb.19, 2010, under Ipad Pricing
thanks to By Jennifer LeClaire for this article
http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Analysts-Expect-iPad-Price-To-Drop/story.xhtml?story_id=1030008N06D6
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Just weeks before Apple officially rolls out the iPad, financial analysts are making pricing predictions. But could the analysis itself hinder the initial demand for the pricey tablet computer?
The much-anticipated iPad is priced at $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model, and $699 for the 64GB model — all available in March. The 3G models won’t be available until April and will sell for $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB model and $829 for the 64GB model.
Credit Suisse analysts said Apple will stay “nimble” with its pricing strategy and may even discount the devices if customers aren’t buying. Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, sees irony in the reports: The comments could actually cause the result.
The Pricing Graveyard
“We certainly saw people rush out initially and buy the iPhone. When the demand dropped off after the first couple of weeks, Apple dropped the price sharply,” Enderle said. “Of course, the iPhone over time has gone from about $600 to around $200, which is a fairly substantial drop in price.”
Enderle predicts the iPad will go through a similar price drop, but adds that the coverage of Apple’s willingness to stay nimble may actually slow initial sales — especially among consumers who feel burned by buying the first iPhone too quickly.
“The $600 price range has been a graveyard for products, starting with the original iPod, which had to drop its price point very rapidly, all the way to the Sony PS3, which also died at that price point,” Enderle said. “I expect they will drop out of that price area fairly quickly.”
The Cannibalization Question
Will the iPad cannibalize Apple’s other product lines? In a publicized note, Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope indicated cannibalization is not as large a concern as some may believe because there is a clear segmentation of capabilities between the devices.
“Apple wants the iPad to be the best device for a few key-use cases. For instance, the company believes it could eventually be seen as superior to both handheld and notebook devices for browsing the Internet, using the App Store, and consuming mobile media (video, photos and e-books). Nevertheless, in other areas, notebooks, the iPhone, or an iPod may be more appropriate.”
Still, it’s a concern. Consumers who spend $600 for a device like the iPad probably aren’t going to rush out and also buy an iPod touch, Enderle said, so lost sales due to the cross over between products is likely.
“Anything over $500 is much harder for someone to justify. The next price point is $1,000,” Enderle said. “People tend to look at products that are over $500 very similar to products that are $1,000 — and that’s heady territory for a market as frugal as the current one is.”
Apple Will Sell $1 TV Shows With iPad, Suggests Report
by admin on Feb.11, 2010, under iPad latest News
Thanks to Nicholas Kolakowski for this great article
Apple may sell standard-definition TV shows on iTunes for a dollar, according to a new report in the Financial Times, in a move designed to coincide with the imminent launch of the iPad tablet PC. Along with recent suggestions that Apple may be flexible on its price-point for the iPad, the news suggests that Apple is very much feeling out the pricing for all aspects of its new portable-media endeavor. E-book publishers may benefit substantially from the coming competition between the iPad and Amazon.com’s Kindle e-readers, which will compete against e-books sold through Apple’s iBooks online store.
Apple may soon sell television shows through iTunes for a dollar per standard-definition episode, according to the Financial Times, which reported on Feb. 10 that the company had been successful in its talks with unnamed studios. The deal represents another front for Apple’s attempts to corral content-creators under its banner before the launch of the iPad tablet PC at some point within the next two months.
If that pricing is confirmed, it also signifies how a good deal of pricing related to the iPad and its associated content remains flexible even as the device heads ever closer to its release date. Earlier in February, Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope came away from supposed talks with Apple executives to suggest that the company would be “nimble” in its price point for the iPad; if customers decline to flock to the device upon its release, then the cost may drive.
A virtual teardown of an iPad by research firm iSuppli found that the device could generate a sizable profit for Apple, with the mid-range 32GB iPad with a 3G connection costing $287.15 to build and retailing for $729.
But an even larger long-term revenue stream for Apple could come from providing content for the iPad through its iTunes store. Normally, television shows through iTunes cost $2 for standard-definition and $3 for high-definition, but the combination of a lowered price and a larger iPad screen for watching media could drive that segment to higher sales.
Apple has also been busily negotiating with publishers over porting their content onto the device. Earlier in February, Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly talked with executives from The New York Times over dinner about the iPad’s functionality and the opportunities it represented for traditional publishing.
Publishers have already been putting pressure on Amazon.com, Apple’s competitor in the e-reader space, to raise the prices of e-books offered on the online retailer’s Kindle store. Starting with Macmillan, which wanted to raise the price on its popular titles such as “Wolf Hall” to between $12.99 and $14.99 from Amazon’s preferred $9.99, a number of publishers have been attempting to leverage a higher price-point for their products.
“It’s important to note we are not looking to the agency model as a way to make more money on e-books,” David Young, chairman and CEO of Hachette Book Group, wrote in a memo posted on the media blog Mediabistro on Feb. 5. “We’re willing to accept lower return for e-book sales as we control the value of our product—books, and content in general. We’re taking the long view on e-book pricing, and this new model helps protect the long-term viability of the book marketplace.”
Once the iPad is released, the potential for increased competition between it and the Kindle may only accelerate the pace of deals with publishers. According to a Feb. 8 article in The New York Times, publishers have already indicated that Apple would offer them 70 percent of e-books’ consumer price as their revenue share, with Amazon indicating that it would match that deal. Amazon also acknowledged, specifically in the Macmillan case, that it would eventually need to accede to publishers’ requests for higher price-points.
Although negotiations with movie and television studios have been less high-profile, the dollar-per-episode news indicates that negotiations between Apple and those entities are also proceeding apace.
So will television shows on the iPad make it a huge success
Will iPad get a price drop
by admin on Feb.10, 2010, under iPad future
This is what Andrew Heining writes about the ipad costs. http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/0210/iPad-parts-cost-219-iSuppli-posits-strengthening-case-for-price-drop
iPad parts cost $219, iSuppli posits, strengthening case for price-drop
The iPad isn’t yet for sale, but the mid-grade, 3G-equipped iPad is Apple’s most profitable model, researchers found.We’re starting to sound like a broken record, but this analysis makes waiting for a price drop seem like even more of a smart move.
Despite the speculative nature of much of the chatter, Monday’s iPad news, that executives at Apple are open to a price drop should things not go well for the tablet, just got a big vote of validation.
The sleuths at market research and tear-down specialist iSuppli on Wednesday released results of a virtual tear down of the iPad, and the findings suggest Apple has a lot of headroom on the iPad’s price.
The iPad, which will range in retail price from $499 to $829, depending on storage capacity and whether 3G connectivity is included, costs between $229 and $346 to build, iSuppli found. The bulk of an iPad’s cost? That 9.7-inch LCD touchscreen display, which weighs in at $80. The three flash memory chip options (16, 32, or 64 GB) cost Apple just $29, $59, and $118 respectively.
Before you go decrying the “Apple Tax” and tearing your hair out with screams of highway robbery, the usual caveats apply: iSuppli reminds that its estimates “account only for hardware and manufacturing costs and do not include other expenses such as software, royalties and licensing fees.”
Still, a device that costs $287 to make, as the mid-grade, 3G-equipped iPad does, selling for $729? Seems like there’s definitely room for a reduction.
For comparison sake, iSuppli appraised the newest $79 Apple iPod Shuffle at $21 and the $359 Amazon Kindle at $185.
The full virtual tear down report is here.
So the question is do you think the iPad price is going to decrease, and are you going to wait and find out or are you tempted to be one of the first in line?
Hi Everyone, The new ipad rocks and we are going to give you oppurtunities to get one for free
by admin on Jan.04, 2010, under Free iPads
The new iPad tablet offers so many newly improved functions, such as new iPad apps, and one which will be a big one will be the ipads new ibook, With the new iBook app you can download books on to your ipad any time anywhere and this is going to be significantly cheaper that buying the hard copy, the system will work just like the itunes online shop. Believe it or not, there are ways to get an iPad 100% free you just have to test one, as many companys need feed back
they offer their products for testing.
why not sign up and take advantage to get your iPad for free
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