Has MBA cannibalized iPad Sales and Usage?

[aberrero]

Similarly, the margin on the $999 MacBook Air is fairly tight (by Apple standards, at least), but gets progressively higher and is the highest on the $1,799 model. It seems the "ultimate" models are actually selling pretty well, but I also suspect that so is the $999 model.

Which is why I bought the base 13". They charge you insane amounts for upgrades.

By far the worst is the $200 upgrade from the 64GB 11" to the 128GB 11". You are paying $200 for just 64GB of storage. With high end SSDs costing around $1.7/GB, and to Apple $1.5/GB at most, you are paying $200 for something worth $90 max.

Actually, what is even worse is the CPU upgrades. $100 to go from 1.4 to 1.6? If you look at intels bulk pricing, this is just insane. A 2.93Ghz desktop Core i3 sells for $113. The laptop 2.4Ghz i5 sells for $225, and I bet apple pays significantly less than that (probably under $100). AMD meanwhile sells a 3.0Ghz QUAD core processor for $99.99. So Apple charges as much for a 200Mhz clock bump as AMD charges for a full retail boxed quad core.