Apple's Tim Cook: 'iPad is not expensive'

Apple's Tim Cook has defended the price of the iPad line as the company faces competition from less costly tablets this Christmas.

The company executive dismissed the notion that its slates are "expensive" products, despite rival devices from Amazon and Google being easier on the wallet.



"A great product doesn't mean an expensive product. It means a fair price," he told Bloomberg. "The iPad mini is all the way down to $329. This isn't an expensive product.

"What we wouldn't do is say, 'We've got to have something for this price, and then let's see what we can do for it'."

Apple's shares dipped when the iPad Mini was unveiled last month, a shift that was attributed to the tablet being undercut by Android-based alternatives such as the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD.

However, Cook was quick to dismiss the significance of sales figures, pointing out that iPad devices appear to account for the vast majority of web traffic from tablets.



He added: "Certainly the data that I'm seeing suggests - and this is all third-party data - that over 90% of the Web-browsing traffic from tablets are from iPad.

"Since these statistics do not correlate with unit sales, it suggests to me that the iPad user experience is so far above the competition.

"The iPad has become a part of their lives, instead of a product that they buy and place in a drawer."

Cook went on to criticise other rivalling tablets such as Microsoft's Surface and the Samsung Galaxy Tab line, claiming that multiple operating system and user interfaces "steer away from simplicity".

Watch Digital Spy's video review of the iPad Mini below: