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This is Apple definitely responding to high-end pressure from increasingly successful Surfaces in the same way the iPad mini was a response to pressure from the

by bane 11y ago

This is Apple definitely responding to high-end pressure from increasingly successful Surfaces in the same way the iPad mini was a response to pressure from the low-end by small Android tablets. This is basically Apple saying "let's make a Surface with a bigger screen and do it the Apple way". It's weird seeing Microsoft participate in it. Other than size, there's not much that Android tablets need to respond to, there's already been large high-end Android tablets with great pen input (no angle detection, but they're all Watcom class). What I think was most interesting here was the incessant pitch that this is a productivity device not a media consumption device. For the full experience you're looking at: $800 for the pad $100 for the pencil $170 for the keyboardcase And we're in low-end laptop territory without necessarily cannibalizing their laptop business, but it fires shots across the bow of also increasingly popular Chromebooks which are around this price point. Edit: for people confused, I meant a low-end Apple laptop not a Windows machine, which are much cheaper. This is priced to barely overlap with the bottom-end. The pricing ensures the two segments are partitioned.

soyiuz 11y ago
The price point for Chromebooks is ~200-300. My ASUS Flip was $250.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Your list adds up to $1070. That's no low end laptop. $399-599 is low to mid end laptop nowadays. Most Chromebooks kick in at under $300 now also.
- err4nt 11y ago
  I picked up a Windows8 touchscreen laptop for web testing and it cost me the same as an old android phone: $230 That means a machine like my primary work computer is like 8 low-end laptops. This new iPad is the cost of 2–3 low-end laptops.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> but it fires shots across the bow of also increasingly popular Chromebooks which are around this price point. The price point is more like (a little under) the at-release Surface Pro than popular Chromebooks (its a little cheaper than the Chromebook Pixel, but that's not really the big seller -- the popular models are at the low end.) Both by form factor and price, this seems more to be competing more with the big "pro" tablets that the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (slightly cheaper) and the Surface Pro (3 was slightly more expensive at release, 4 probably will be too, 3 is slightly less expensive right now) than Chromebooks.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  While the Pro 3 was slightly more expensive, if you include the keyboard cover and pen, I'd argue this is much more expensive (included pen & $120 for the cover/keyboard, Vs. $99 + $170). And the Pro 3's pen/drawing experience has received pretty good reviews after some early software jitters.
  - abritinthebay 11y ago
    To be fair you'd have to include the Pro 3's keyboard cover in that too - $120. Also the Surface stylus isn't in the same league. So you'd have to compare to something like the N-Trig stylus which is an extra $50. Cheaper? Yes, though I'd say the Apple ones are better quality (especially looking at the keyboard cover).
    - Someone1234 11y ago
      > Also the Surface stylus isn't in the same league. So you'd have to compare to something like the N-Trig stylus which is an extra $50. The Surface Pro 3's pen is an N-Trig... Yeah, so not $50 more, included right in the box. And it has reviewed excellently by artists. > Yes, though I'd say the Apple ones are better quality (especially looking at the keyboard cover). You have absolutely no basis for claiming that the Apple pen and cover are superior. Literally nobody has reviewed them, you haven't used them, nobody you know has used them, and you didn't even know they existed two hours ago.
oxide 11y ago
1k for a low-end laptop? come on now, that's not even close.
- cbhl 11y ago
  By 'low-end laptop' I assume the OP is referring to the Macbook Air segment, not anything running Windows or Chrome OS.
rev_bird 11y ago
For some context, I'd disagree with the "low-end laptop" characterization, though if you mean "low-end" in terms of, say, Thinkpads and MacBook Pros, then yeah you're right on. My Chromebook cost about 20 percent more than the keyboardcase alone, and I'm writing this comment on an i7 laptop with 8 gigs of RAM and a GeForce video card, which cost less than the pad and case. I get that there's some appeal in entering the Apple ecosystem, but for my needs, I don't think it's a "shot across the bow" of very many actual, full-featured laptops that I'm allowed to actually install stuff on. (edit: Aaaand while I was looking up my laptop's specs, everyone else made the same comment as I. Leaving here in case it helps.)
izzydata 11y ago
$1000 gets you a powerful high end laptop in terms of hardware. You might be sacrificing build quality at that price though, but you can get good specs for that.
- ant6n 11y ago
  ...and on the software side, you don't even have sysadmin access
  - derefr 11y ago
    Or, from the opposed perspective, you're paying Apple to do your sysadmin tasks for you. (Really, you do have sysadmin access, if you care enough. My iPhone has a profile on it put there by my [big, enterprise-y] employer, which gives them the ability to do pretty much whatever they want—including side-loading applications. I'm surprised nobody has used the "corporate-owned device" method to build an App store yet.)
    - igravious 11y ago
      I'm not invested in the Apple ecosystem any more. Is this true? Being trying to find a link to some authoritative info on this but haven't thus far. Do you mean this? http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/it/management.html http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/it/management.html I see no mention of being able to side-load apps.
      - pinaceae 11y ago
        Business use a dev license, then deploy their own apps via side-loading. Standard practice by now. And "own" apps is becoming a very loose definition, 3rd party develops, then signs with corp key.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  ThinkPad X series is about that much. (It used to be $2000 but they've come down in price.) Quality is far higher than a MacBook (doesn't burn my skin, has an acceptable keyboard, has buttons to click).

by bane 11y ago

soyiuz 11y ago

The price point for Chromebooks is ~200-300. My ASUS Flip was $250.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

Your list adds up to $1070. That's no low end laptop. $399-599 is low to mid end laptop nowadays. Most Chromebooks kick in at under $300 now also.

err4nt 11y ago
I picked up a Windows8 touchscreen laptop for web testing and it cost me the same as an old android phone: $230 That means a machine like my primary work computer is like 8 low-end laptops. This new iPad is the cost of 2–3 low-end laptops.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> but it fires shots across the bow of also increasingly popular Chromebooks which are around this price point. The price point is more like (a little under) the at-release Surface Pro than popular Chromebooks (its a little cheaper than the Chromebook Pixel, but that's not really the big seller -- the popular models are at the low end.) Both by form factor and price, this seems more to be competing more with the big "pro" tablets that the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (slightly cheaper) and the Surface Pro (3 was slightly more expensive at release, 4 probably will be too, 3 is slightly less expensive right now) than Chromebooks.

Someone1234 11y ago
While the Pro 3 was slightly more expensive, if you include the keyboard cover and pen, I'd argue this is much more expensive (included pen & $120 for the cover/keyboard, Vs. $99 + $170). And the Pro 3's pen/drawing experience has received pretty good reviews after some early software jitters.
- abritinthebay 11y ago
  To be fair you'd have to include the Pro 3's keyboard cover in that too - $120. Also the Surface stylus isn't in the same league. So you'd have to compare to something like the N-Trig stylus which is an extra $50. Cheaper? Yes, though I'd say the Apple ones are better quality (especially looking at the keyboard cover).
  - Someone1234 11y ago
    > Also the Surface stylus isn't in the same league. So you'd have to compare to something like the N-Trig stylus which is an extra $50. The Surface Pro 3's pen is an N-Trig... Yeah, so not $50 more, included right in the box. And it has reviewed excellently by artists. > Yes, though I'd say the Apple ones are better quality (especially looking at the keyboard cover). You have absolutely no basis for claiming that the Apple pen and cover are superior. Literally nobody has reviewed them, you haven't used them, nobody you know has used them, and you didn't even know they existed two hours ago.

oxide 11y ago

1k for a low-end laptop? come on now, that's not even close.

cbhl 11y ago
By 'low-end laptop' I assume the OP is referring to the Macbook Air segment, not anything running Windows or Chrome OS.

rev_bird 11y ago

For some context, I'd disagree with the "low-end laptop" characterization, though if you mean "low-end" in terms of, say, Thinkpads and MacBook Pros, then yeah you're right on. My Chromebook cost about 20 percent more than the keyboardcase alone, and I'm writing this comment on an i7 laptop with 8 gigs of RAM and a GeForce video card, which cost less than the pad and case. I get that there's some appeal in entering the Apple ecosystem, but for my needs, I don't think it's a "shot across the bow" of very many actual, full-featured laptops that I'm allowed to actually install stuff on. (edit: Aaaand while I was looking up my laptop's specs, everyone else made the same comment as I. Leaving here in case it helps.)

izzydata 11y ago

$1000 gets you a powerful high end laptop in terms of hardware. You might be sacrificing build quality at that price though, but you can get good specs for that.

ant6n 11y ago
...and on the software side, you don't even have sysadmin access
- derefr 11y ago
  Or, from the opposed perspective, you're paying Apple to do your sysadmin tasks for you. (Really, you do have sysadmin access, if you care enough. My iPhone has a profile on it put there by my [big, enterprise-y] employer, which gives them the ability to do pretty much whatever they want—including side-loading applications. I'm surprised nobody has used the "corporate-owned device" method to build an App store yet.)
  - igravious 11y ago
    I'm not invested in the Apple ecosystem any more. Is this true? Being trying to find a link to some authoritative info on this but haven't thus far. Do you mean this? http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/it/management.html http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/it/management.html I see no mention of being able to side-load apps.
    - pinaceae 11y ago
      Business use a dev license, then deploy their own apps via side-loading. Standard practice by now. And "own" apps is becoming a very loose definition, 3rd party develops, then signs with corp key.
MichaelGG 11y ago
ThinkPad X series is about that much. (It used to be $2000 but they've come down in price.) Quality is far higher than a MacBook (doesn't burn my skin, has an acceptable keyboard, has buttons to click).