I realize that there are still some portable music players on the market made by companies other than Apple, but no one can dispute that Apple owns this market with its iPod. And for good reason; the iPod is a very high quality product that comes at multiple price points. You can start with an iPod shuffle for only $49, get an iPod nano for $149, get an iPod touch for $229, or if you have a ton of files that you want to always have with you, get the iPod classic with 160GB for $249. The only real competition to the iPod comes from Apple itself; instead of getting a dedicated music player, why not get an iPhone so that you can combine your phone and iPod into a single device?
We are only on the second generation of the iPad, and much like the early days of the iPod, there are lots of other companies just now starting to sell competitors. And these are substantial companies, like HP soon selling the TouchPad, RIM soon selling the PlayBook, Motorola now selling the Xoom, and Samsung recently unveiling new Galaxy Tabs. I hope that these products do well — competition is a good thing — but from all of the reviews I've read, I cannot think of a good reason to recommend any of them over the iPad.
With other companies struggling to match the quality that Apple offers, price becomes a possible way to undercut the iPad. The cheapest iPad 2 costs $499, so a strong competitor would have to cost less than that — substantially less to make it really worth it, such as under $400.
Which leads me to yesterday, when I was shopping at a Sam's and saw this display:
Sam's is selling the first generation iPad, and the entry level 16GB model sells for only $388. Only a year ago, when that device was unveiled, many had predicted that Apple would sell a product like the iPad for $1,000. As much as I am looking forward to upgrading to an iPad 2, the original iPad is still an amazing device, and the thought of getting it with a price tag that starts with the number "3" is simply amazing to me.
Of course, there is nothing unusual about selling a discontinued product at a substantial discount, but I wonder how long it will be before we will see many different tiers of iPads, including some in that same price range. Apple continues to sell the iPhone 3GS at the same time that it sells the iPhone 4, and you can get an 8GB version of the iPhone 3GS for only $49. The iPhone 4 is a much better phone, but from what I hear that $49 3GS still sells quite well, as it should considering how much value you get for that very low price. I wonder whether the iPad 2 will continue to be sold even after Apple releases an iPad 3 (in 2012?) just so that Apple can sell a compelling product for far less than $500. Whenever this happens, I suspect that the iPads will, like iPods, be everwhere.
