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iPad Mini Display Judged 'Very Capable', But Falls Short of iPad and Android Competitors

nuckinfutz

nuckinfutz

macrumors 603
Jul 3, 2002
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jsw said:
Crushing is in the eye of the beholder, it seems.

The Fire HD and Nexus 7 are comparably sized and cost significantly less, and they are not knockoffs - the opposite is true. The iPad Mini is on the market because of those devices (or, really, because of the original Fire).
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No. That's trumped up BS. Apple was planning the mini long ago before the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 came. People underestimate the amount of time it takes a product to go from design to manufacturing. Something like the mini is going to take over a year.


dagamer34 said:
3 million is the iPad Mini + iPad 4th gen.
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Yes and despite costing significantly less the mini sold out in most areas and now we know that 3 million were sold over three days. iPad 4th gen is still in stock in many stores. Mini isn't so it's logical to conclude that a majority sold were mini
 
shenan1982

shenan1982

macrumors 68040
Nov 23, 2011
3,641
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The funny thing is everyone is saying "I would have bought it, but I can't give up my retina display" ... well if they would have gone retina, people would have given up the retina display on the full size, and then that would become a stale product. They made the right decision in going with a more entry level price, with features matching accordingly. Nobody should compare this to an Android tablet, just as we don't compare cheap plastic PCs to MacBook Air\Pro. It's not Apples (hehe) to Apples (gigity), so stop making those comparisons.
 
jsw

jsw

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Mar 16, 2004
22,910
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Andover, MA
nuckinfutz said:
No. That's trumped up BS. Apple was planning the mini long ago before the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 came. People underestimate the amount of time it takes a product to go from design to manufacturing. Something like the mini is going to take over a year.
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It's been over a year since the Fire was announced.

So, either Apple saw the same signs Amazon did but took an entire year more to bring a device to market, or they're reacting to sales of the Kindle Fire.

I'm sure they thought of smaller devices, and larger devices, and devices that smell like chocolate, but the point of the matter is that this tablet - which Jobs declared to be a bad idea originally - came out a year after 7" sales took off.
 
A

ALMF

macrumors regular
Jun 20, 2012
147
1
MacinDoc said:
Could have been even more if they had been more aggressive with pricing. After all the rumors, quite a demand had been built up for the Mini by the time it was released, so I suspect that sales will drop off quite a bit after the initial surge.

had they had good amounts of Minis in stock at the stores and retailers then sales would have been far greater. They did not come out with a good enough amount of these.
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W

WhoDaKat

macrumors 6502
May 20, 2006
379
665
jsw said:
It's funny how sales figures imply excellent products when it comes to Apple, and yet never did when it came to, say, Windows PCs, or now with Android devices.

Either sales figures are an important indicator of quality or they're not. They can't only matter when Apple is winning.
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No one is drawing a correlation between quality and lots of units sold. The amount of units sold is just being referred to as an indicator that the product will be successful. No one ever said Windows wasn't successful.
 
Dr McKay

Dr McKay

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nuckinfutz said:
No. That's trumped up BS. Apple was planning the mini long ago before the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 came. People underestimate the amount of time it takes a product to go from design to manufacturing. Something like the mini is going to take over a year.
Click to expand...

Do you have any proof for that? Until this was leaked Steve Jobs was declaring that a 7 inch Tablet would not work, that it had to be at least 9.7 inches. Steve slammed the 7 inch, as for "long before the Fire" are you suggesting that Apple had a 7 inch model planned right after the original iPad?
 
Want300

Want300

macrumors 65816
Oct 12, 2011
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nuckinfutz said:
No. That's trumped up BS. Apple was planning the mini long ago before the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 came.
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Realistically though... those tablets are only on the market because of the original iPad.... So I agree with you... enough with this crap...

Those 7" tablets are on the market because they needed a better way to compete with Apple and the iPad... So they made a smaller, cheaper one to have a larger advantage.

It makes me laugh, apparently only Apple copied other companies by making a smaller, less expensive tablet... Not Amazon, Google, or Samsung... Nope, apparently all three of them (and any other companies with smaller tablets) didn't copy each other either.

To be honest, I have no idea which 7" tablet came first, wasnt it an HTC or something?? Anybody know?
 
nuckinfutz

nuckinfutz

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Jul 3, 2002
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iChrist said:
.

Why ANYONE would buy a mini iPad is beyond me. Unless you are girl with small purse, why buy tiny, fuzzy, washed out screen??

Defeats the purpose of iPad.

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Because it's really portable.


jsw said:
It's been over a year since the Fire was announced.

So, either Apple saw the same signs Amazon did but took an entire year more to bring a device to market, or they're reacting to sales of the Kindle Fire.

I'm sure they thought of smaller devices, and larger devices, and devices that smell like chocolate, but the point of the matter is that this tablet - which Jobs declared to be a bad idea originally - came out a year after 7" sales took off.
Click to expand...

Classic misdirection by Jobs. Still cannot believe people took that bait. Had they learned nothing from the man that panned flash based MPS players until the shuffle came or proclaimed video on an iPod to be inessential until the next year with a video iPod.

Apple is not reactionary and especially when it comes to 2nd rate vendors like Amazon and Google.
 
Nightarchaon

Nightarchaon

macrumors 65816
Sep 1, 2010
1,393
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i love the idea of a pocket sized iPad, i was so looking forward for the iPad mini, but looks like ill have to wait until march-ish when they will no doubt p*ss of the early mini adopters by announcing the mini2 with retina screen and A6X processor.

Sorry apple, you've bitten me several times with 1st gen nonsense now, ill wait for rev2 of a "new" product before giving you my hard earned cash. Someone else can Guinea pig this market.

(Learnt lesson from iPhone 1, iPad 1 and 1st gen time capsule, if its not updated a couple of months after i buy it, then its faulty and in need of a mass recall)
 
Small White Car

Small White Car

macrumors G4
Aug 29, 2006
10,966
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MacinDoc said:
The consensus seems to be that Apple made too many compromises in making the Mini, while not pricing it competitively enough.
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"The consensus" meaning tech writers.

I'm going to wait for the holiday season's quarter report before I come to any conclusions.

This is the same crowd who thought the iPod Mini wouldn't succeed, after all.
 
M

.macbookpro.

macrumors regular
Mar 31, 2012
181
2
london
Overall, I think the Iphone is going to get the iPad 2's pixel number, and the iPad mini and the iPad bigie will both have the same resolution- only 2 resolutions to create apps for, and are interchangeable
 
Dr McKay

Dr McKay

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Aug 11, 2010
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Want300 said:
Realistically though... those tablets are only on the market because of the original iPad.... So I agree with you... enough with this crap...
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Tablets existed for years and years before the iPad. Even without the iPad it was inevitable Android would make the jump to tablet.
 
jsw

jsw

Moderator emeritus
Mar 16, 2004
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nuckinfutz said:
Apple is not reactionary and especially when it comes to 2nd rate vendors like Amazon and Google.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but this is completely a reaction to the Fire. Period. Consensus is heavily weighted towards that opinion; nothing else explains why Apple had to wait an eon in tech time to product a tablet with a lessor screen.
 
nuckinfutz

nuckinfutz

macrumors 603
Jul 3, 2002
5,539
406
Middle Earth
Dr McKay said:
Do you have any proof for that? Until this was leaked Steve Jobs was declaring that a 7 inch Tablet would not work, that it had to be at least 9.7 inches. Steve slammed the 7 inch, as for "long before the Fire" are you suggesting that Apple had a 7 inch model planned right after the original iPad?
Click to expand...

Jobs was the guy the divulged that the iPad was actually designed "before" the iPhone yet the iPhone/iPod Touch was the device that they could deliver first.

Apple has plenty of mockups and all they need to do is green light the products they think have market success so in a way one could see the success of the Kindle, Samsung and Google 7" tablets as the event needed to green light the smaller tablet but i'm betting that it was already in the labs in prototype form.
 
nuckinfutz

nuckinfutz

macrumors 603
Jul 3, 2002
5,539
406
Middle Earth
jsw said:
Sorry, but this is completely a reaction to the Fire. Period. Consensus is heavily weighted towards that opinion; nothing else explains why Apple had to wait an eon in tech time to product a tablet with a lessor screen.
Click to expand...

No it's not

A consensus of moronic opinion is still a moronic opinion.
 
G

gott2go

macrumors newbie
Nov 5, 2012
1
0
Chicago, IL
not exactly

iChrist said:
.

Why ANYONE would buy a mini iPad is beyond me. Unless you are girl with small purse, why buy tiny, fuzzy, washed out screen??

Defeats the purpose of iPad.

:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

um, you folks need to get over yourselves. I bought one this weekend as i needed to replace my 2nd gen ipod. As someone who doesn't have an iphone (gasp), it's a great way to take advantage of the iOS world. When you hold it at a proper distance and you aren't looking at a retina screen directly next to it, it provides a great experience in a nice, extremely light size.
 
Want300

Want300

macrumors 65816
Oct 12, 2011
1,194
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St. Louis, MO
MacinDoc said:
Could have been even more if they had been more aggressive with pricing. After all the rumors, quite a demand had been built up for the Mini by the time it was released, so I suspect that sales will drop off quite a bit after the initial surge.

Now this is not to say that it's not a delightful device to use, but only that Apple missed the mark and may have lost the opportunity to obliterate the competition in the tablet market.
Click to expand...

I agree that a lower entry price would have truly made it a destructive force for the competition... (I think they should have offered an 8 GB option for $50 less, so $279).

They know that people will pay a premium for their device, they still had 50% of the market last quarter, even though their entry price was $400... Don't forget how many of the iPads that have been sold which were 32/64 GB, or had cellular capabilities... meaning plenty of people were more than willing to pay $530+ for an iPad.

Frankly, if their market share didn't drop... I would be shocked, that would just a much a failure on the part of their competition as it would be a success for Apple.

It will definitely be interesting to see the Holiday sales and market share data in January.
 
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