A lot of people following the Steve Jobs iPad keynote this morning weren’t convinced about the device until he mentioned the price: $499.
All of sudden, people wanted to buy three of them.
The price is the big news here. Everyone was expecting it to cost $700 to $1,000 — Apple makes pricey products, right?
But there’s no “Apple tax” on the iPad. This thing is priced to move, and they’re going to sell boatloads of them. And not just to Apple fans — the iPad will attract scores of Windows switchers.
Go to any Apple store and you’ll see heaving throngs of shoppers checking out Apple’s goods. A lot of them are Windows users shopping for a new home machine to replace an aging Windows box. They’re sick of the headaches and want an alternative.
The iPad is that alternative. It’s not an extra gadget, a luxury for someone who already has an iPhone and a laptop. It’s a replacement for that laptop — a true alternative.
And at $499, it’s also an alternative to the Kindle, cheapo netbooks and even Apple’s own MacBooks.
The iPad+ keyboard dock = cheap MacBook. It’s half the price of Apple’s cheapest MacBook, and a third of the MacBook Air.
Steve Jobs is a ballsy guy. He’s probably the ballsiest CEO in the U.S. right now. Who else would undercut their own laptop line — which are Apple’s most popular and most profitable computers — with a brand new device that costs half the price?
But this is how Jobs rolls. He killed the popular iPod Mini and replaced it with the iPod Nano. He’s undercutting the entire iPod line with the iPod Touch. He’s a forward-looking guy, and the iPad is a forward-looking computer.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
