Apple says not competing on price
24 Oct 2013
Apple has confirmed it was not competing on price but on reputation, even as consumers would be shelling out more for many of its new devices, making them more expensive than many Android and Windows alternatives.
The company's new iPad models launched yesterday had a price increase of over $50 in some models, while an older baseline model received a $20 price increase for exactly the same product.
Earlier, the iPhone maker's topline iPad 4 with Retina display started at $A539 – $59 cheaper than the new iPad Air, which has a starting price of $598.
As against this, Google's Nexus 10 tablet and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 3 – comparable 10-inch tablets – both started $A399, while Microsoft's latest Surface 2 tablet started at $A529.
Sydney Morning Herald quoted Forrester Research analysts, Tim Sheedy as saying Apple's challenge was that it was finding it hard to bring on new customers.
He said Apple would do well to retain its existing customers as it would find it challenging in getting many new customers on board with these devices.
Meanwhile a day after Apple announced that its new operating system , OS X Mavericks, as well as its office suite iWork -and iLife - would be free from now on , rival Microsoft retorted by terming the announcement as "not a big deal".
In a post on Microsoft's TechNet blog Frank Shaw, corporate vice president of Communications, said both Surface tablets had Office for free.
"… Making Apple's decision to build the price of their less popular and less powerful iWork into their tablets is not a very big deal."
"Apple announced yesterday that they were dropping their fees on their "iWork" suite of apps. Now, since iWork has never gotten much traction, and was already priced like an afterthought, it's hardly that surprising or significant a move. And it doesn't change the fact that it's much harder to get work done on a device that lacks precision input and a desktop for true side-by-side multitasking," Shaw added, pitching the Surface tablets as superior to the iPad as far as productivity was concerned.
The post was silent about Microsoft thought about the OS going free, though, Shaw highlighted the fact that the Surface and Surface 2 "are less expensive than the iPad 2 and iPad Air respectively, and yet offer more storage, both onboard and in the cloud".
