Well it's their only real competing product at the low-end of the price spectrum, at $250 it's a lot more affordable than the $500 entry level of the air 2. Le

Well it's their only real competing product at the low-end of the price spectrum, at $250 it's a lot more affordable than the $500 entry level of the air 2. Let's not forget, a big part of sales is not gaining a sale. It's gaining a customer. The concept of customer lifetime value is important here. A lot of my friends on iOS look at my girlfriend's Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 and they say 'damn, those are great devices'. And then they buy iOS saying 'I'm used to it'. The ecosystem lock-in has always been very significant for Apple. And getting people into the ecosystem with an affordable device, and hoping they'll stay around and continue to buy a Macbook air, and a new iPad at some point, and start to use iCloud and iTunes etc, is a big driving factor, I'm sure. Also a bit risky. The ipad mini's display is pretty shitty, otherwise it's a really nice device. It may reflect poorly on Apple, although it's also one of those things where a customer eventually says 'I'm really enjoying iOS, but this screen... Time to buy a new iPad'. So it seems like a pretty reasonable decision imo.