I don't think the price is too high. Apple have always market their product as the "Experience". So you expect to pay a premium for that "Experience".
What they don't tell you is that you are expected to pay between $100-$200 premium for the privilage to buy from their large selection of apps in the app store not for their OS nor for their hardware.
To some the premium could be view as a status thing. Like buying a BMW vs a Honda. They both serve the same purpose for the majority of the people.
Let's face it, the tablet market is still in it's infancy. A lot of people don't know what they are going to use the tablet for nor what these things are worth. Since the IPAD product is the most expensive, it must be the best. The majority of the consumer market just use it for internet, email, video chat, ebook, watching movies and displaying photos. For these requirments, most tablets in the market can do these things.
I agree. It seems as if people have forgotten Apple is a premium brand and their business is hardware. They don't go to market without getting a healthy margin on hardware.
Or to put it this way...Apple has itunes, app stores, icloud, and all that to sell hardware at healthy margins. Amazon has tablets sold break even to help them with their primary business, ecommerce and online goods. Google sells cheap tablets at no margin to promote its latest OS to devs, and set the bar with its partners. Googles primary business is search and ads.
So whatever the Kindle or Nexus 7 is priced at is irrelevant. Apple has to get their margin in.
And it is a premium experience with apps made for tablets, LTE options, quality mats. And perhaps even more important, there are quality apps made by amazon and google. With one ipad mini, you get most of what the other platforms have to offer. Amazon Prime movies, Kindle, google apps, etc. There's always rumors about MS offering up Office soon. Google maps is on the way.
The same can't be said about that Kindle. Or that Nexus 7. Neither can run any of apple's offerings. You might say you don't need them but there's millions of iOS users using exclusive Apple services like facetime, imessage, iOS gamecenter, itunes, etc. I'd rather have that option than not.