iPad Mini Costs $24 More To Make Than Kindle Fire HD 260
sweetpea86 writes "... but retails for $130 more. Teardowns of the Apple iPad Mini and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD have revealed that the two devices cost almost the same amount to manufacture, despite the retail prices being significantly different. Andrew Rassweiler, senior principal analyst of teardown services for IHS iSuppli, explains that Apple is sticking to the premium brand strategy it has always used for its media tablet and smartphone products, whereas Amazon is banking on content."
Re:Why is this said with any implication of surpri (Score:5, Informative)
The $35 in extra cost turns into $130 at the consumer level. That's actually pretty much right for a manufactured good
Oh, you were so close to being correct, and then missed.
The reason its so close is middlemen. If it costs a farmer 10 cents more to grow an apple, that doesn't mean YOU pay the food store 10 cents more, it means the wholesaler gets 2*10 cents = 20 cents more, the distributor/franchise operator gets 2*20 cents = 40 cents more, the store needs to charge twice invoice on average to keep the lights on, etc, so you pay 2*40 cents = 80 cents more at the store.
Its not quite so bad with market leading electronics, but its bad. I can totally see if a battery costs $4 more, the retail price after layers and layers of middlemen could very well increase $13.
The price at a direct mfgr store goes up because the resellers demand it contractually in order to stock it, Walmart would never carry the kindle if amazon could undercut it every time, so the price, even online, reflects the maximum amount of middleman profiteering via any channel. Mandatory minimum pricing and all that. Yes apple.com probably COULD sell it for only $35 more, but walmart etc would freak out and sue them, so they have to sell it for $130 more.
Re:Why is this said with any implication of surpri (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Few things (Score:5, Informative)
It was ranked at -1 because, most people don't understand how businesses run.
Do you sell the razors or give away the razors and sell the blades.
Do you sell a $500.00 Ink jet Printer with $10.00 cartridges. Or do you sell a $99.00 Ink Jet Printer and sell $30.00 cartridges.
Why is it you get a $10.00 meal at KFC but for the same meal you need to pay $25.00 at say Applebees?
There is more to the price then the cost of parts.
Re:Few things (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunatly, IOS && OSX of today are greatly modified versions of BSD, with a different kernel and apis. Macs were a great unix desktop ten years ago, now they just kind of blow. Linux is the only way to go these days for Unix && desktop.
Strange what you say there, considering that MacOS X is actually POSIX certified, and Linux for obvious reasons isn't. If you want Linux, use Linux. If you want Unix, Linux isn't Unix. Never was. Never will be.
A grain of truth always makes for better fud and rubbish, hmm? Vendors of Unix-like systems such as Linux and FreeBSD do not typically certify their distributions, as the cost of certification and the rapidly changing nature of such distributions make the process too expensive to sustain.[18] [wikipedia.org] So... FreeBSD, commonly considered "real Unix" (directly descends from the Bell Labs code base) is not Posix-certified? What does that tell you about Open Groups pricey rubber stamp? Here is the truth: FreeBSD and Linux conform well to Posix, both take binary compatibility and source compatibility very seriously, and together lead the way in evolution of Unix. While not carrying the rubber stamp. That is life in the real world.