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Apple Make $200 Per iPad


February 01st, 2010 at 23:45
Posted by Marc
Filed under: Technology | Tags: , , , ,
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The home screen for the iPad.

Right. So before you think anything’s up, let me emphasize a point – just because a device sells for $499, doesn’t mean they earn $499. In fact, cut development costs, I’d have been surprised if Apple earned $80, not $200. Devices are usually expensive and as such do not generate massive income, however a lot of devices make up for this with other products included – this can range from software to monitors etc. that the other companies pay them to include.

But no, it’s vastly different to some other strategies – some companies barely scrape $5 per product sold and make up for it with bundled software promotion. Not Apple, as they’ve managed to cut costs down to the point where it earns them a shade more than what you’d expect. The entry-level $499 model generates $208 in profit, meanwhile top-range $829 model  doubles that, raking in $446 per individual unit sold.

From GigaOM:

Marshall estimates that the cost of making the 16GB Wi-Fi model of the iPad runs around $270.50, plus $20 for warranty costs for a total of $290.50. Most of that cost accounts for the 9.7-inch touchscreen display, which Marshall guesses costs around $100. Apple sees considerable savings on its own in-house A4 chips, which run around $15 per unit. With a cost of $290.50 and a selling price of $499, Apple stands to see a profit margin of 42.9 percent with each sale.
On other models that margin ranges from 48 to 55.1 percent, giving the iPad line as a whole an overall profit-generating power of about 50 percent, a number which assumes that the Wi-Fi models will sell considerably more than the 3G-capable devices, a reasonable assumption.

And, likely; they’re gonna love the income rate of these things.

[GigaOM]

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NYT Starts Charging: Ready for Tablets?


January 18th, 2010 at 21:53
Posted by Marc
Filed under: Business | Tags: , , , , ,
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I don’t know. But there’s huge speculation on the blogosphere that the New York Times’ choice to begin to charge for its content, with pretty reasonable word that it’s going to charge its online readers. It’s either a decision that could move the newspaper industry to the web.

NYMag claims that “the decision to go paid is monumental for the Times, and culminates a yearlong debate that grew contentious, people close to the talks say. In favor of a paid model were Keller and managing editor Jill Abramson. Nisenholtz and former deputy managing editor Jon Landman, who was until recently in charge of nytimes.com, advocated for a free site.”

Even so, it shows a decline for the end of the newspaper industry. As a recent decision by the Evening Standard in London to consolidate prices and hand the paper away for free, we could soon see the ‘free web’ decline heavily into a state of payment and subscriptions with underdog news websites that don’t get the same attention nor money as the charged ones.

It’s likely that an announcement will be made within a few weeks. The newspaper will likely implement a system in which you can either read a few articles before being asked to pay up, or having basic news stories and being asked to pay for political or sports news.

The New York TImes previously attempted to charge for content with TimesSelect. However, the project was a flop, readers moved away and it ended up being abandoned. If other industry leaders start to follow suit, the ball could really get rolling with this whole charged content.

This could all be in wake of all the recent tablet announcements, like the Sony Dash, Microsoft Courier or apparent ‘iSlate’. We’ll see.

But would the readers stick to the big moguls or move to less popular publications? It’s up to you to decide.

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Revealed: The Microsoft/HP Tablet


January 08th, 2010 at 03:07
Posted by Marc
Filed under: Technology | Tags: , , , , ,
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Steve Ballmer Shows the HP Tablet

Steve Ballmer Shows Off the HP Tablet, CES 2009

Well, it’s not the Courier, unlike we highly anticipated. Shame that, but it’s still a nice concept. Microsoft did have a 2-screen tablet to show, but it ran Windows 7 that hadn’t been modded to suit two screens – so it kinda sucked software-wise.

Anyway, the Microsoft/HP Tablet announced was a cute little thing – and I can tell Steve Ballmer was pleased to announce his little answer at the Apple Tablet. In fact, this little thing is pretty much everything the Apple Tablet is supposed to be. It has multitouch. A thick black gloss border (hell, HP are going mad with Macbook Pro style displays).

Something Microsoft just aren’t learning here is you can’t grab your OS and force it into every form factor. The OS on these things must be suited to them, specialized to them. You can’t just cram an OS designed for mouse-and-keyboard input and expect it to work fine on a touchscreen. And that’s something I’m sure Steve Jobs would mention, as rumors fly around of the tablet’s completely new OS.

Granted, these things are cute. As Steve Ballmer puts it, “they’re more powerful than a phone and almost as powerful as a PC. These things are perfect for reading, browsing the web and taking entertainment, on the go,” he states, “it will likely be available this year.”

So yeah. It’s nice, it’s likely not too expensive, it runs Windows 7 (and hopefully gets a modded version to suit tablets), and it’s going to be available before the ‘Apple Tablet’. Granted, it’s not a courier, but it’s nice whatever it is.

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Microsoft ‘Courier’ Tablet: Tomorrow?


January 06th, 2010 at 19:58
Posted by Marc
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There’s a strong chance that the Microsoft/HP Courier tablet PC will be announced tomorrow. While the preview images are grand, it’s fairly unlikely that this’ll be as nice as the concepts – things rarely are.

It apparently has multi-touch and e-reader capabilities, as expected for Microsoft to tackle the supposed Apple Tablet head-on.

It has not been confirmed if it will be a Courier, however, being another HP/Microsoft tablet, it’s fairly likely.

So lets just wait and see. Will this really be the new change changer? We’ll make a post about this tomorrow.

Thanks Gizmodo.

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