iPad not expensive product: Apple boss Tim Cook

Apple's chief executive Tim Cook has insisted that the iPad "isn't an expensive product", as the tech firm prepares to do battle with much cheaper computer tablets in the market.

Cook said the iPad, which starts at £269 for a Wifi-only iPad mini, was a "fair price", despite being undercut by Amazon's Kindle Fire HD and Google's Nexus 7, which both start at £159 .

"A great product doesn't mean an expensive product. It means a fair price," Cook told Bloomberg BusinessWeek

"The iPad mini is all the way down to $329. This isn't an expensive product," he said

Cook's comments are a response to investor disappointment that the iPad mini was not more aggressively priced to address the threat from rivals, the Telegraph reports

According to the report, he claimed that the experience of using Android tablets, such as Samsung's Galaxy Tab range, and Microsoft's new Surface, still does not match the iPad.

"[I have used] both of those - and some others. What I see, for me, is that some of these are confusing, multiple OSs [operating systems] with multiple UIs [user interfaces]. They steer away from simplicity," the paper quoted him, as saying.