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wowman (82)Price Cut! iPad 2 Goes On Sale, Making Way For iPad 3
Posted by Michael Nace on Tuesday Feb 14, 2012 Under iPad 2, iPad 3Nothing heralds the release of a new product more than a fire sale. With news that the iPad 2′s price is being slashed by $70, the iPad 3 cannot be far behind.
In our travels across the iPhone 5 dimension, you’ll recall that the Summer of 2011 was spent “reading the tea leaves” of every scrap of circumstantial evidence suggesting the impending announcement of the new iPhone. One of the developments that we kept close watch on was when the iPhone 4 and 3GS went on sale; the assumption is that retailers look to clear out old stock in anticipation of the new product.
Today, we’re reading reports that the iPad 2 has begun to go on sale. According to Apple Insider, “Meijer, a regional big-box retailer in the U.S., has slashed the in-store price of the 16GB iPad 2 with Wi-Fi by $70 . . . The chain announced the sale in its weekly ad for the week of February 12 – 18, noting that it runs only while supplies last and does not include rain checks or substitutions. A separate listing on the company’s website lists the $429 price as lasting until Feb. 25 and notes that the iPad 2 deal is only available in stores.”
The fact that Meijer is slating its sale to end on February 25th would lend credence to the rumor that Apple is targeting February 29th — this year’s leap day — for the iPad 3 announcement, though other reports have suggested that the date could in fact be March 29th.
It is worth noting that clearance sales of the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 came months ahead of the actual iPhone 4S release. In an article posted here on the blog on August 18th, we reported that “Target is slashing prices of the AT&T iPhone 3Gs and iPhone 4, with the 3GS priced at just $19.99, 16GB iPhone 4 at $169.99 and 32GB at $249.99. Target has cut prices similarly on Verizon’s iPhone 4 models as well.” Best Buy joined the fray on August 22nd, 2011. While these reports seemed to suggest that the iPhone’s announcement was close at hand, we ended up waiting almost two more months before the official announcement.
Given retailers’ track record of mis-predicting Apple product launches, the price cutting of the iPad 2 has to be taken with a grain of salt. We have always hoped that top retailers have had an inside track on when the new iPhone and iPad are to be released, but it would seem that, with the exception of Apple’s mobile carrier partners, the retail world is kept largely in the dark about Apple’s product releases.
Thus, Meijer might just be rolling the dice on an iPad 2 sale, betting that February 29th will be the big iPad 3 announcement date, followed by a quick product release (which is also being rumored). If their bet turns out to be a good one, they will have cleared out a large portion of their iPad 2 stock, making way for fresh iPad 3s.
The safe bet at this point is that the iPad 3 is going to land sometime between February and March 29th.
February 14th, 2012 at 10:34 am
DISLIKE THE NEW LAYOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE CHANGE IT BACK! Also, your email is not working, tried to email michael.nace419 and it was returned.
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February 14th, 2012 at 10:49 am
Sorry you don’t like the new theme, Brian. But remember: while the theme has changed, the writing and community is exactly the same.
There is a whole search engine ranking performance factor to consider with a website these days — Google actually penalizes websites with old, outmoded layouts that are slow and hard to navigate. To give you an idea, the iPhone 5 News Blog used to rank in the top 5 Google results for the “iPhone 5″ keyword. Now, we are on page 3 of the results. I believe that the theme has had some role to play in Google’s decision to give us less visibility. And less visibility means less ad clicks. And less ad clicks means less revenue. And less revenue means that I don’t have the resources I need to keep the blog going.
So, that’s kind of the rationale here. Granted, if web traffic crashes with the new theme, I’ll be inclined to restore the old one. but in the meantime, I’m going to give this one a try. I hope you can understand, as I am not trying to irritate anyone. Just trying to keep this blog alive, because right now it’s on life support.
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February 14th, 2012 at 12:31 pm
The iphone5newsblog can now be seen on the second search-page of Google; when you search “iphone 5″ now!
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February 14th, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Michael, I completely understand! Even if I didn’t like the layout though, I’d still keep coming back for your writing
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February 14th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Thanks, Bri. I’d really like this new theme to spur a more expansive blog — something more like a magazine that covers a wider range of stuff, in addition to the iPhone 5. Los suggested a couple of weeks back that maybe we could cover more than the iPhone 5, which is why I’ve been trying to offer you guys more news and focus on the iPad 3 and even some competing Android stuff. We’ll see if it works.
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February 14th, 2012 at 9:16 pm
Just wanted to say that the Wife and I have been wanting an iPad for awhile now and here in the north west went to a fred meyers and they had 64gb 3g At&t models on sale for $704.00.
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February 14th, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Many thanks for your comment, Evanicole. Yeah, I think it’s further proof that retailers are beginning to see the writing on the wall, and that they have to move their iPad 2s out of stock (or at least lower their stock).
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