However,mobile handset (in America anyway) have been so dominated by wireless carriers that their OS have been slow to evolve and evolved somewhat disjointedly from manufacturers. Tablets just didn’t catch on with full-blown computer OS, and Apple hit a home-run (again) with the notion of a tablet (or slate) with essentially a mobile OS. Of course, this means for 3G use, we have the wireless carriers in the picture again, but for the Wifi version it seems $500 is a fair price, though international demand has driven the price of iPads in China and the Middle East upwards of $1000 apiece.

Cheap Android tablets are the best contrast, and for under $300 (I’d expect that to drop to $200 by Christmas) you can get a decent Android tablet pc that does many of the things an iPad can do with obvious flaws (poor touch screens, disjointed app market with less consistency, and who knows for service) and some nice improvements (flash player, use multiple apps at once, don’t have to use the iStore).

What’s interesting about the tablet market is that these devices do not really need wireless service, and so the price-protection that iPhone and Blackberry phones (and even brand-name Android phones) get in the mobile handset market will not exist to the same degree in the tablet market. I would expect to see both high-end (Galaxy Tab) and low-end (“aPad”) Android tablets flood the market next year and it will be interesting to see how both Apple and Google itself react to the onslaught of devices that operate with no intention of joining or catering to their carefully manicured proprietary markets.

With that said, there is nothing wrong with a healthy margin. It’s not “Apple haters” that “whine” about the price, it’s the self-entitled socialists who cry. They want something for nothing.

The market dictates price, as it should. If people will pay $800 for an iPad, then that’s the price. If sales volume drops, Apple will drop the price to match (as they have for past products).

I learned a very long time ago to let the early adopters find the bugs and unacceptable limitations, and pay for additional revisions and development.

Is Apple gouging? No. They are letting free market forces set the price. It will drop in due course for many reasons. The “haters” can go to Venezuela or China for their cheap People’s iPad.

My price point for this incarnation is about 40% below the current price. So, y’all enjoy yourselves. Don’t drop it and don’t let it get beyond arm’s length.

To assume that nobody has a use for an iPad because YOU don’t is pretty shortsighted. You don’t want one, fine. Saying everyone who does is stupid – that’s stupid.

Lots of people out there. Many of them aren’t like you.

It really doesn’t matter how you slice it, you are overpaying for a piece of shit, does it really matter how much you overpay if you are stupid enough to buy one in the first place? I wouldn’t take one for free to be honest.

These rules are not arbitrary or capricious. They are related to the Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) definition of a sale. The expenses that are directly attributable to bringing an item to the point of a sale are considered part of the cost of goods. Any costs that cannot be directly attributed to an item (e.g., research and development, prototyping, or advertising) or occur after the point of sale (i.e., shipping to the customer) are not part of the cost of goods, but are accounted as operating expenses.

It appears to me that most of the articles that have been produced by iSuppli about Apple’s products seem to be aimed at damaging Apple’s reputation.

A CD you need to think the same costs, the costs of operating the business and employing artists, and staff, etc. Maybe you were refering to the manufacturing of a blank cd versus a record label cd with content on it. Than that makes sense.