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

[nuckinfutz]

Originally Posted by jsw

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).

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.

Originally Posted by dagamer34

3 million is the iPad Mini + iPad 4th gen.

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

[Want300]

Originally Posted by dagamer34

3 million is the iPad Mini + iPad 4th gen.

Those 3 Million iPads still do not include the people waiting for the LTE iPads...

[shenan1982]

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.

[chukronos]

Originally Posted by nuckinfutz

3 million sales in the opening weekend says otherwise

That is all iPads. Mini, iPad2, iPad3, iPad4.

[iChrist]

.

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.

[jsw]

Originally Posted by nuckinfutz

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.

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.

[ALMF]

[QUOTE=MacinDoc;16233464]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.

[QUOTE]

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.

[WhoDaKat]

Originally Posted by jsw

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.

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]

Originally Posted by nuckinfutz

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.

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]

Originally Posted by nuckinfutz

No. That's trumped up BS. Apple was planning the mini long ago before the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 came.

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]

Originally Posted by iChrist

.

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.

Because it's really portable.

Originally Posted by jsw

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.

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]

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)

[BRLawyer]

Originally Posted by MacFather

1024x768 is out of date.

A pathetic choice of screen for a soon-to-be-flopped product. What else should one expect?

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by MacinDoc

The consensus seems to be that Apple made too many compromises in making the Mini, while not pricing it competitively enough.

"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.

[.macbookpro.]

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]

Originally Posted by Want300

Realistically though... those tablets are only on the market because of the original iPad.... So I agree with you... enough with this crap...

Tablets existed for years and years before the iPad. Even without the iPad it was inevitable Android would make the jump to tablet.

[jsw]

Originally Posted by nuckinfutz

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

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]

Originally Posted by Dr McKay

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?

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.

[chrisrosemusic1]

Far too expensive for what tech is inside them IMO. I would like a 7" tablet but this isn't the one. Nor are any of the other offerings right now. Will see what next year brings!

[nuckinfutz]

Originally Posted by jsw

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.

No it's not

A consensus of moronic opinion is still a moronic opinion.

[gott2go]

Originally Posted by iChrist

.

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.

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.

[jsw]

Originally Posted by nuckinfutz

No it's not

A consensus of moronic opinion is still a moronic opinion.

Your defense of your position is impressive.

[Want300]

Originally Posted by MacinDoc

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.

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.

[Mr Fusion]

Fantastic. When I pay a premium for Apple I think, "very capable."

[MMOTotal]

It sold millions anyway. We have been spoiled by the retina