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7 inch iPad - will apple release a superior 1st gen?

I

irDigital0l

Guest
Original poster
Dec 7, 2010
2,901
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I'm wondering about this because if you look at all the first gens, none of them included stuff like siri, facetime, cameras, retina display, etc.

However now that all iOS devices have these features will Apple put them in the iPad mini too?

or will they go with like no cameras, retina display, etc. for the 1st gen iPad mini.

My personal take is that Apple will go make the "iPad Mini" up to date with the current/upcoming gen devices (iPhone 5, the new iPad, iPod touch 5th gen), etc.

Apple might even be selling these at a loss for sometime, but I really think they want to 'kill off'' the smaller tablet market from Google, Amazon, etc.

Imagine a 7 inch iPad with
-retina display
-facetime
-siri
-etc.

for like $250.

Just my crazy take on all of this. I believe IF Apple does make a 7 inch iPad, they will make it very good. No quad-core A6 processor or 8MP camera, but the specs will defiantly be good enough.

Apple is going at the whole retina display and facetime in its iphone, ipad, and now Mac. Same goes with FaceTime.
 
I hope they don't include a back camera for cost. I also wouldn't mind a non-Retina display. I just want a good, fast tablet that's small and has cellular LTE.
 
Apple will deliver all the features we know now with the most probable exception being Retina. I just see them sticking to first gen display tech and leveraging Retina next year when there will be cooler running GPU that can push those 4x pixels.
 
w00t951 said:
I hope they don't include a back camera for cost. I also wouldn't mind a non-Retina display. I just want a good, fast tablet that's small and has cellular LTE.
Click to expand...

What, to save the ten dollars the camera unit actually costs?
 
irDigital0l said:
Imagine a 7 inch iPad with
-retina display
-facetime
-siri
-etc.

for like $250.
Click to expand...
That is a crazy idea, doesn't make a good business decision.

For every one of of the 10" iPad sales Apple lost to the 7" iPad, they have to sell two 7" iPads to compensate (2x$250=$500), which is even harder. Therefore, the 7" iPad will make Apple less profitable, and why should Apple do it?
 
dchao said:
That is a crazy idea, doesn't make a good business decision.

For every one of of the 10" iPad sales Apple lost to the 7" iPad, they have to sell two 7" iPads to compensate (2x$250=$500), which is even harder. Therefore, the 7" iPad will make Apple less profitable, and why should Apple do it?
Click to expand...

Maybe because they'll sell more than twice as many 7" as 10" iPads?

Guess which model Mercedes, BMW, Lexus sell more of? The smaller one.

It also expands the overall market. Not everyone can afford or can justify $500 for a tablet.
 
I doubt it, if they would put those features in, with Apple's pricing it would probably be at the lowest iPad price range and if it is priced right about there then what's the point.
 
dchao said:
That is a crazy idea, doesn't make a good business decision.

For every one of of the 10" iPad sales Apple lost to the 7" iPad, they have to sell two 7" iPads to compensate (2x$250=$500), which is even harder. Therefore, the 7" iPad will make Apple less profitable, and why should Apple do it?
Click to expand...

So, a good business decision would be to allow tablets like Nexus7 to grab market share away from the iPad? Tim Cook himself has said that they won't want to leave price umbrella for the competition in the tablet space.

Also, can you explain to me how delivering more products to the market, at more affordable price points, will make Apple less profitable. The iPod Mini and iPod Nano were the slimmed down (and more affordable) versions of the iPod (classic), and they ended up selling much better. Do you truly believe there aren't people for whom the extra $100-$200 does make a difference? Because the $400 iPad 2 still sells fairly well.

mcman77 said:
Apple has never gone cheap. Never will. Its no for everyone
Click to expand...

I guess you never heard of iPod Shuffle, or 2nd gen Apple TV, or the free iPhone 3GS on contract. I agree that Apple will not make a new product just for the sake of making it cheap, but maybe they've been planning on making this one all along.
 
Apple does not sell their products at a loss, they don't have to. If they release a smaller iPad it will eat the smaller android tablet sales just like the iPad does to larger android tablets.
 
Bernard SG said:
For what it is, the New iPad is super-affordable.
Click to expand...

It still costs $500...and that's for 16GB.

Do you honestly expect EVERYONE be excited for the iPad 3's 4G LTE, better camera, siri, etc..?

Just think of someone that wants to give a family member or a friend an iPad. They could get 2 iPad minis the way they look at it.
 
It's not the best interest of Apple to compete with Samsung and HTC on prices. If they get into a price war with them, they will loose profit margin. Strategy-wise, it's better to use the lawyers to slow down Samsung and HTC copying them.

Also, as long as there are people willing to folk out $500+ for a new iPad, why should they introduce a 7" iPad? They have iPad2 priced at $400 already, they can keep cutting the price on the oldiPad2 to try and expand the market, again, there is no need for a 7" iPad.
 
Last edited:
Honestly? probably not. It probably won't include retina and I bet it won't have more than 8GB or 16GB capacity in order to bring the price down. Camera probably won't be included either (though really a camera on a smaller tablet makes more sense than on a larger one)Essentially it'll be a grabber model to bring people into the iPad fold but I don't see it being an equal to the larger brother.

1st gen products with Apple are generally very bleak feature-wise but I really think this is to minimize cost on a 1st gen product that may not take off as well as to leave open upgrade options in the future. Apple loves to baby-step their products which is a great method to maximize profits as well as life span of a device line. A good example of this would be the nano, for instance look at the main features as the line went on:
- 1st gen: was a music player with a battery life of only 14 hours

- 2nd gen: aluminum body, upgraded battery life, improved screen and capacity

- 3rd generation: introduced new form factor, new interface, video support, larger screen and coverflow.

- 4th generation went to the 2nd gen styling, larger screen, capacity bump (16GB) accelerometer and another inteface update

- 5th generation introduced camera,built-in pedometer, radio, new finish, microphone and microphone

- 6th generation... well who the hell knows what they were thinking at this point, I feel like it was a change just to be a change.

This year I'm pretty sure they could have upgrading the CPU on the iPad but they have chosen to keep that around as a big feature for next year instead of piling all the features they can in one generation. Though the 2nd generation was a pretty big improvement over the 1st gen.
 
dchao said:
It's not the best interest of Apple to compete with Samsung and HTC on prices. If they get into a price war with them, they will loose profit margin. Strategy-wise, it's better to use the lawyers to slow down Samsung and HTC copying them.

Also, as long as there are people willing to folk out $500+ for a new iPad, why should they introduce a 7" iPad? They have iPad2 priced at $400 already, they can keep cutting the price on the oldiPad2 to try and expand the market, again, there is no need for a 7" iPad.
Click to expand...

Hmm good ideas.

So when they release the iPad 4th gen. They could be still selling the ipad 2 for like $300?

iPad 2 (Wi-Fi) 16GB - $299
iPad 3 (Wi-Fi) 16GB - $399
iPad 4 (Wi-Fi) 16GB - $499

That would defiantly be interesting....
 
dchao said:
Also, as long as there are people willing to folk out $500+ for a new iPad, why should they introduce a 7" iPad? They have iPad2 priced at $400 already, they can keep cutting the price on the oldiPad2 to try and expand the market, again, there is no need for a 7" iPad.
Click to expand...

There is a gap below the iPad ( surely you've read this). Filling that gap heads off Google eventually selling a Nexus 10 to all those Nexus 7 owners that decide they want something bigger, and it provides an option to people who don't want to spend $500.
 
irDigital0l said:
Hmm good ideas.

So when they release the iPad 4th gen. They could be still selling the ipad 2 for like $300?
Click to expand...

Yep, they can do anything they like.

Including: **FREE** with a two year data contract (similar to iPhone 3G)

New matrix
-------------
iPad 2 (Wi-Fi) 8GB - FREE
iPad 3 (Wi-Fi) 16GB - $399
iPad 4 (Wi-Fi) 16GB - $499
 
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