The iPad Air costs $499 for the basic 16GB model with WiFi-only, which we guess is pretty much the standard price that Apple has been charging for its iPads over the past few years, but the question is how much does it cost Apple to actually make a single iPad Air? Obviously it does not cost as much as it sells and according to a report released by IHS Suppli, they have estimated (based on a visual teardown of the tablet) that the iPad Air costs anywhere between $274 to $361, depending on which mode you go for.
More interesting is the fact that the iPad Air’s base model actually costs $42 less than the entry-level third-generation iPad from last year! This is in spite of the fact that the iPad Air uses newer components to not only make the tablet lighter, but thinner at the same time. The costs only take into account the costs of the components themselves, and does not factor in additional costs associated with the tablet, such as R&D, marketing, manufacturing, software, patent licenses, and more. What do you guys think? How is it that Apple has managed to get the newer iPad Air to cost less than its predecessor?
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