Its fascinating. These 'pundits', lets remember (beside the question of whether it was even accurate or significant-- enough pundits and someone will have said anything), we didn't know what the iPad was going to be. The possibility that it would be a powerful, fully-fledged OSX running computer was considered very real (remember the slamming people gave it as just a big iPhone).. if the question had been 'what do you think we will charge for our iPod touch with a bigger screen', not even the most hardcore apple pundit would have said '<$1k'.

Then he lingers on this issue-- talking about how much they have accomplished for the price-- almost making a value proposition for it at $999. After about a minute of $999 up on the screen he announces that '[apple] have met our cost goals'. I think this phrasing is very interesting-- he doesn't say 'we have beaten our goals', 'met our aggressive goals' or 'achieved a low cost'-- nothing to remove from the perception that it could be $999. At the point at which your expectation is highest that he is going to announce that the goal they met was a $999 ipad, and he has built tension, they dramatically drop in the real price.

Even the fact that they managed to manipulate their audience is in turn a suggestive indicator that this is great value, a shock, at this price. This can have a big effect when you consider that the press are not immune from this manipulation-- who then present this device as highly desirable and of great value.