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Apple iPads selling for Crazy Eddie prices on Black Friday

Apple (AAPL) is set to have a bang-up holiday selling season, assuming it can make enough iPad tablets to meet demand. Best Buy (BBY), Target (TGT) and Wal-Mart (WMT) are using big promotional deals on Apple’s tablets to get shoppers into stores starting Thanksgiving evening. Target and Wal-Mart are selling the just-released iPad Air for $479, which is $20 less than Apple ‘ s (AAPL)list price. But on Black Friday, Target is giving out $100 Target gift cards when you buy any regular-sized iPad, dropping the effective price for the iPad Air to $379. Meanwhile, Best Buy will offer the iPad Air for $449, a $50 discount over the list price. Of course, the catch is “while supplies last.” Retailers also are offering crazy deals on Apple’s first-generation iPad Mini. On Black Friday, Target is giving $75 gift cards when you buy an iPad Mini, dropping the effective price to $224 for the entry-level model. And Wal-Mart is offering a $100 gift card with the purchase of an iPad Mini at the regular price of $299 on Thursday evening, knocking the price down to $199.

U.S. smartphone buyers moving upscale, while others go cheap

Smartphone prices are falling in every region of the world except North America, as U.S. consumers buy ever more sophisticated handsets. Market research firm IDC forecast Tuesday that smartphone prices worldwide will fall at a compound annual rate of 7.3% over the next five years. But in North America, it sees average selling prices for smartphones increasing 2.1%. It’s the only region where prices are expected to rise, IDC says. Smartphone prices in the U.S. and Canada are already the most expensive in the world, with an average selling price of $531 this year. But IDC sees that creeping up to $567 by 2017 as consumers upgrade to phones with bigger displays and 4G LTE wireless capabilities. Premium phones from Apple (AAPL), Samsung and others are seen driving this trend. “We’re a market that’s moving away from entry-level smartphones and toward higher-end smartphones,” IDC analyst Ramon Llamas told IBD. “We’re moving more toward LTE, and LTE smartphones usually command a higher price tag than 3G phones. On top of that, you’re seeing phones getting bigger and bigger (displays).”

Get ready for Apple’s iPad Maxi tablet

Apple reportedly is preparing to make a large-screen iPad, adding a third-size tablet to its lineup. Contract manufacturer Quanta Computer has landed orders for Apple’s large-size iPad for mass production in the second half of 2014, Taiwan-based tech newspaper DigiTimes reported Monday . The larger-screen tablet is rumored to have a 12.9-inch display. That compares with a 9.7-inch display for the regular iPad and 7.9-inch display for the iPad Mini. Order volumes are expected to be limited for the large-screen iPad because it is seen as a niche product for the education and enterprise markets, DigiTimes said. The big-screen tablet is unlikely to be called the iPad Maxi, given the razzing that Apple (AAPL) took over the iPad name. When Apple’s tablet was announced in January 2010 , some journalists complained that iPad sounded like a…