Steve Jobs would never have allowed it.
I disagree. Its rumored that steve left Apple 4-5 years worth of products/product ideas. This could be one of them.
Steve Jobs would never have allowed it.
Issaacson related a story speaking to Steve's versatility that went something like this: Steve had a pet peacock in his yard, for some reason it bothered the neighbors, who voiced their concern to him. Steve replied that he'd found that he wasn't that fond of it either.
It's funny that everyone is saying Apple needs to build a 7" iPad to compete in the $199 to $299 market.
I keep thinking about something Jobs once said....
"What we want to do is deliver an increasing level of value to these customers, but there are some customers which we choose not to serve. We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk; our DNA will not let us do that. We've seen great success by focusing on certain segments of the market and not trying to be everything to everybody, and you can expect us to stick with that winning strategy." - Steve Jobs
Remember this is a company that sales $2199 to $2799 base price laptops that they cannot keep in stock due to demand.
Why would they care about the $199 to $299 market?
Hope Apple does what Steve wanted and spend every last penny righting this wrong in court, one by one staring w/ Samsung.
Let Apple release it and see what the market has to $ay. I have a feeling it will be successful and may even lead to the 9.7" iPad being discontinued in favor of a larger iPad, maybe 11-12" so there's a bigger size difference between the two.
So maybe in a couple of years, it could be the choice between a 7.85" iPad and an 11" iPad.
I totally agree with what you said, but man... you totally got ripped off on that $2199 base price laptop.
(I think you mean $999)
tablet computers (no one reads anymore)
Or did he? He didn't like the idea of a 7" iPad, but that didn't mean he didn't allow it to be built later on.
Haha, and now all the Apple fanboys that decided 7 inch tablets were bad because Steve told them to think that have to change their minds too. Hilarious.
I saw a blog posting on ZDNET the other day saying the race to the bottom in the tablet market is a bad idea. Basically saying its very hard to build a good tablet with decent margins for $199. But now consumers are expecting it and are price sensitive to more expensive devices. Of course it's easier for Google and Amazon when they don't care if they make any money off the hardware. Will be interesting to see how MS prices the surface.
But nobody is buying an iPad instead of an iPod Touch, or an iPod Touch instead of an iPad. They have completely different use cases. It's similar to comparing a $129 iPod Nano (8GB) with an iPod Touch (8GB). The prices aren't necessary relative to the cost of manufacturing. You buy an iPod Nano if you want a tiny mp3 player that is of high quality and can clip onto your shirt while running. You buy an iPod Touch if you want a quality mp3 player, but don't necessary need it to be tiny, and don't want to actually buy a smartphone (teens or students). You buy an iPad if you want a big screened device. And with any three of those purchases, you will be buying an extremely high quality product that many believe to be the best experience for that said form factor. So while it may seem a bit odd for an iPod Touch to be $199 (or even $299/$399 in the case of 32GB/64GB) when an 8GB iPad is just $249. But very few will have skipped on the iPod Touch purchase because they could have bought an iPad Mini.
And the screen is remarkably sharp - probably because it has the same pixel count as my 13.3" Latitude. It's "retina" to me.
I can't imagine the 7" iPad being sold without that ruler on the right.
Netflix on iPad runs flawlessly
I wish everyone would just shut the **** up about the upcoming iPhone being the downfall of Apple's cutting edge designs.
Steve Jobs APPROVED this before he died. What are you idiots stupid? It was written in about 50 articles that he left a 4-5 year plan for the company.
You think a man as OBSESSED with details would just be like "**** it I am dying and dont care about the next iPhone and the aspect ratio and if its taller instead of wider"
People's stupidity set aside, lets talk money.
The biggest way Apple can kill the market is price and if they don't take advantage of that, then you can say they have lost their edge.
Right now they have a perfectly usable iPad 2 for $400 new, with the new iPad coming in at $500.
That means that they will probably price the iPad Mini at $300 and the new iPod touch for $200. The Nexus Tab is $249, so its not that much of a stretch to price the iPad mini at $300.
However, if Apple really wanted to stick it to Google/Android they would pursue a price war. They easily could price the iPod nano at $100, the iPod touch at $150, the iPad mini at $200, the older gen iPad at $349 (which many stores are selling it for on sale anyways), and the new iPad for $500.
How could Google or any company compete with an iPod touch that starts at $149, or an iPad mini that starts at $199.
Yes maybe Apple would lose money for a few years but they have stockpiles of cash and can use this opportunity to put a death grip on Android tablets in general.
If a customer walks into Best Buy and sees the new iPad mini for $199/$249 aka the SAME PRICE or CHEAPER for the current flavor of the week Android tablet (Nexus $249) he or she would chose the Apple product due to higher quality casing (aluminum vs plastic) and due to the desirability of owning an Apple product. If however the price starts at $299 there are a large amount of customers that will instantly say screw Apple Ill buy the cheaper Android tablet (bc of lack of knowledge and basically bc of the savings no matter how little they are) and save a little bit of money which I can use to buy a case or other accessory. Ill give Google and Android a chance if they are pricing their tablet 50/100 cheaper.
So if we are splitting hairs on price why doesnt Apple once and for all price the damn iPad mini at $199 effectively ending any chance for Android tablet makers to compete. Apple is ordering massive amounts of tablet parts and screens and can easily pull a deal off like this. The Nexus was a marvel due to its price at $249 (many articles stressed the amount of deals that needed to be made to deliver the tablet at this price). If Apple were to match or beat that magical $249 price tag customers would flock to the perceived higher quality device instead of a cheap plastic tablet.
Yes they would lose money short term (easily make it back on iOS purchases) but after a few years it would be stupid on a customers part to buy a shoddy Android tablet when they can have a high quality aluminum Apple iPad mini for the same price or cheaper.
However, this will probably not happen sadly and they will keep the Touch at 200, price the iPad mini at 300, the older gen iPad at 400, and the new iPad at 500 giving customers an easy to follow pricing scheme. Apple should realize that that extra $50 is the difference b/w crushing Android and allowing it to exist (in the tablet market, as Apple has no way of stopping the growth of Android in the cell phone arena)
What do you guys think??
And it'd also be a better option to give kids, instead of spending +800 dollars on a laptop or computer, they can spend about 200/300 on a tablet, which will full fill pretty much all the basic needs of a child's/teenagers use with tech.
Just see it as adding more sizes to a product that exists, just like we have 13' and 15' inch MacBooks...
The best case against an ipad mini in my mind, is that it would cannibalize sales of the existing ipad.
http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...nt-against-apples-ipad-mini.aspx#.UBxylqP4JcY
The iPad was actually priced and still is priced to match other top end 10" tablets, Apples iPod Touch starts from $200, the Classic starts from $250, the Nano is $129.
So with that in mind, how would they sell an iPad again for $200 anyway? They would need to scrap the Touch and Classic in essence.
How in the world is "it will cannibalize sales of an existing product" still a valid argument against anything Apple is rumored to be doing? Apple constantly releases products that eat into sales of their other products. The iPod Mini/Nano cannibalized iPod sales. The Macbook Air cannibalized sales of Macbook Pros. The iPad cannibalized sales of Macs. The iPad Mini will cannibalize sales of the iPad. Apple doesn't care!
Apple understands one thing: If you don't cannibalize your products, someone else will. (That's why Kodak is bankrupt. That's why RIM is in trouble).