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iPad mini must be godlike in it's ability. How else could it make something that came first look like a knock off of something that came later. Time folding is a truly amazing feature I didn't realise Apple had incorporated into the mini.

amazing, next they'll tell us apple thought up the pull down notification. It was in the lab already of course becuase apple never copies ;)
 
[Re: iPad Mini is "inadequate"]

3 million sales in the opening weekend says otherwise

It's true. Apple could release a shoebox full of feces and really the only thing truly measuring "adequacy" is sales.

Apple's goal is to make money, if they can do that with releasing a sub-standard product, technically it's done its job.

Of course, if you're trying to determine if it's a good product or not, you'd be a damn fool to think sales is the only good indicator of quality. How many iPad Mini users just want to continue using the iOS interface and Apps they've already gotten used to / purchased, but wanted a different form-factor? How many would much rather be running iOS on superior hardware of equivalent size like Apple's competition here?

I pay huge premiums to own a mac when I'd be much happier with PC hardware--just so I can use the OS. That does not mean Mac Hardware is better or even "Okay", just that it's "good enough" to keep me buying so I can use my existing software/OS X know-how.
 
I'm Mr 16:9, but nobody has done it justice.

The picture tells the story… without names along the bottom, which device would you buy?

kindle_fire_hd_nexus_7_ipad_mini.jpg


The one on the right, hands-down. All the rest is spec-mumbo-jumbo, totally unrelated to the real world. And the review says as much, if you read far enough.
 
heh heh, a couple points. The low end market share that Apple lose to Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7 has no profit in it. Both Amazon and Google loss money on their respective tablet not break even (BOM cost + manufacture profit + warranty cost + reseller profit + broken component in manufacture process + rework cost + design cost + transportation cost pretty much guarantee both company will loss money on the current sales price). I am not sure why Apple should give away their tablet at a loss to fight for those market share.

Didn't you hear today that Apple sold 3M unit of Ipad mini+Ipad 4 in the first weekend? And most importantly they are supply constrainted. So whatever projection they have before the weekend, they more than meet that projection.. The local store misjudge the line .. big deal... so long as they can sell the stock, they are all good. didn't I see a UK reserve thread in the IPad section?

Yes but on the front page of this site is report on how Apple IS loosing market share? So that proves my point does it not?

https://www.macrumors.com/2012/11/05/ipads-share-of-tablet-shipments-falls-to-50-in-3q-2012/

Your argument is seriously flawed. Android is not a device, it is an operating system.

So which single device by what manufacture sells more tablets then the iPad?!?...Tumbleweed...thought so...getting tired of people trying to compare the iPad with dozens of tablets made by dozens of different manufactures put together. Try comparing it to one tablet made by one manufacture...doing so will tell you the iPad out sells them all.

Please.... Android is not a device, you REALLY are picking at straws aren't you? That's a desperate comment to make, I'll clarify and simply state every OEM/ hardware manufacturer that makes an Android based tablet. And yet again the blatant report stating Apple is loosing market share on the front of this website tells you you are plainly wrong!

Wow, I don't even know where to begin. If you know how to run Apple, why aren't you? You realize that market share is not their primary goal, right? Sure, maybe their unit ratio compared to the competition is declining, but are their profits? Amazon is losing money on every device they sell. Apple would *never* play that game. At the end of the day, the survivor is the healthiest one, not the one with the largest numbers.

Market share IS their primary goal, regardless what you think, and Amazon is a lot smarter then Apple as it knows it is going to make a killing with the profits from it's exclusive services, it's a flawed argument to state otherwise, that's Amazons entire business plan so I could again throw it back at you, are in charge of Amazon? Are you running the company?

And considering Apple lost rather a lot of it's shares, and it is loosing market share, then it is loosing money. So they are not going to be so healthy.

http://9to5mac.com/2012/11/02/what-happened-to-aapl-stock-price/

And also analysts were not happy as Apple announced lower earnings then predicted, so no they are not as 'healthy' as you think compared to a couple of months ago.
 
It's true. Apple could release a shoebox full of feces and really the only thing truly measuring "adequacy" is sales.

Apple's goal is to make money, if they can do that with releasing a sub-standard product, technically it's done its job.

Of course, if you're trying to determine if it's a good product or not, you'd be a damn fool to think sales is the only good indicator of quality. How many iPad Mini users just want to continue using the iOS interface and Apps they've already gotten used to / purchased, but wanted a different form-factor? How many would much rather be running iOS on superior hardware of equivalent size like Apple's competition here?

I pay huge premiums to own a mac when I'd be much happier with PC hardware--just so I can use the OS. That does not mean Mac Hardware is better or even "Okay", just that it's "good enough" to keep me buying so I can use my existing software/OS X know-how.

You sir are a genius. My thoughts exactly.
 
When comparing cheap, inexpensive products (Windows PCs, Androids) to Apple products, it's EXPECTED that the numbers are in the favor of the cheaper product. There should be more Fords sold every year than Lamborginis.

But if the OPPOSITE happened - more Lamborginis instead of Fords were sold, despite the more expensive price, clearly Lamborgini is the winner. This is the same with Apple products.

For example, there are 2 soda machines. One is stocked with Coca Cola for $1.00 a bottle. The other is stocked with RC Cola for 40 cents a bottle. They are very similar products. You would expect RC Cola to win based on price. If Coca Cola wins (more sold), it's clear that Coca Cola is the better product - people will pay extra for it.

Stupid analogy, the lamborghini one... Mercedes or BMW would be better, it is at least within reach or more people...

Cola analogy is better.

But you know what is the best tablet? The one you prefer! That's it. I have friends that love Android and live by Android and don't like Apple. Do I care, **** no! Apple can manage without helps of morons like us.

Personally, I love my Apple products and don't like Apple as a company and kind of disliked Steve Jobs. Yes, I ****ing said that!
 
Yes but on the front page of this site is report on how Apple IS loosing market share? So that proves my point does it not?

https://www.macrumors.com/2012/11/05/ipads-share-of-tablet-shipments-falls-to-50-in-3q-2012/


.

If you look at the list of new entrants to the tablet market, we know that ASUS (Nexus 7) and Amazon are selling their tablet at break even or a loss. And we don't know if Samsung is making any money on their Tab. So the question is whether Apple want/need to expand market share if it means break even or losing money?

In Apple's case, Ipad 2 and Ipad 3 make anywhere between 23-32% gross margin (the number came out from Samsung trial document. Google and you will find them). Apple Corporate SG&A + development + tax is about 17.5% of sales (27.43B SG&A+R&D+TAX out of 156.5B sales) in fiscal year 2012. So Ipad 2 and Ipad 3 is making 5.5% to 14.5% of sales net of all expense and tax. Ipad mini has even worse gross margin. The base unit look to be at best make very little money. The high end unit (32G, 64G, LTE version) will do much better.

Google and Amazon all has similar cost structure and at all likelihood losing money on each tablet they sell now. They are willing to lose money to gain market share but it is not a substainable strategy. All Apple should do is to wait out the below cost competition and see how long and how much money Google and Amazon is willing to loss to expand their market share. This 4Q sales number is going to be fascinating. It will flush out the size of low end tablet space. My bet is that Nexus 7 and Amazon fire HD sales is being affected by Ipad mini. Surface does not seem to be playing any major role in the holiday sales at this point. So the tablet space is all about IOS vs low cost Android. 50/50 is pretty good in my book if the top 50% maker (Apple) all the money while the bottom 50% of the tablet makers lose money. My guess is that if we look at profitable tablet market, Apple probably has 80-90% of the market share.

Google (and Amazon to some extent) is destroying the profitability of Android tablet market. do you see any other Android tablet announced for this Christmas season? Google contract out the building of Nexus hardware (Nexus 7 to ASUS and Nexus 10 to Samsung). I wonder who can build the next Nexus for Google next year? Who has money to invest in building a better Android tablet given that they don't have any product in this Christmas season. For Android Tablet, we are going to be down to ASUS and Samsung next year.

http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/viewer?a...sion_number=0001193125-12-444068&xbrl_type=v#

http://www.morningstar.com/earnings/earnings-call-transcript.aspx?t=AAPL&pindex=4

The iPad Mini has the full iPad experience and we priced it aggressively at $329, delivering incredible value to our customers. Its gross margin is significantly below the corporate average. So, in summary, we expect our gross margin to decline by about 400 basis points
 
this sounds like the thread on new imacs, lacking features, higher costs for the design sake.
Not making good sense.
 
Apple should have put the money into a better looking display,
rather than a thinner display.
 
I'm a little bored of seeing these thoughts/reviews.

The mini is excellent and I prefer it to my iPad3. Yes it doesn't have the retina display and yes it's older technology. So what? It browses the web brilliantly and it light as a feather. It's a great device and sticking with the "out dated" 4:3 resolution is an absolute winner - web pages, magazines all look & work better IMO. Would it look better with Retina.. yeh, but it'd be heavier with the bigger battery etc. Do I want that.. nope.

With regards to the GNex7 - I hate mine - it's form factor is terrible and browsing webpages in anything but portrait is a waste of time. Apps are all designed for the Mobile phones and don't offer anything distinctive for the Tablet.

Also, the great thing about this variety - you don't need to bitch about it - don't like it.. buy something else.
 
Good question. And it says a lot about how crazy good that little device is. Its pretty much word of mouth. There might be a a few stores but none of the big ones. That says a lot about how much people love it. When you hold it and play with it for a bit, you think .."$199 for all this ! ? !! " your're going to want it.
$400 for the same old shi......(Crap) from iOS and you will kick yourself.
Get out there, try all the wicked cool tech we have now. Don't be trapped in the Apple bubble.

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Not at all Bro.

Try it for yourself. Check Google for reviews ( I've never seen a bad review)

I have a friend who had a Nexus 7, it was returned for screen issues. He finally bought a iPad Mini and has not any troubles since. His friend bought one also, after finally returning a second unit due to simular screen issues, he just wanted his money back.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407422,00.asp

Yes but on the front page of this site is report on how Apple IS loosing market share? So that proves my point does it not?

Having more market share does not mean much when the iPad is still making the majority of the profits.

Market share IS their primary goal, regardless what you think, and Amazon is a lot smarter then Apple as it knows it is going to make a killing with the profits from it's exclusive services

Making so much profit it had to put ad's on the new Kindle Fire? That tells me its not working so well.
 
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Thanks. :D

Even if people says they want 16:9 for movies, I think a lost of films are closer to the 21:9 aspect ratio.


Anyways, I think this image is pretty convincing:

Image

I have a Nexus 7 tablet and while I like using it, there is a lot of the screen not useable. Even watching Transformers 3 on it, I sometimes feel like zooming in.

Even Microsoft Word works like a 4:3 screen in widescreen mode.

I know eventually Apple, under the direction of Mr. Cook, will make the iPad 16:9 at some point. The iPhone 5.....I don't like it in 16:9 which is why I am still holding on to my 4S. It's 'too tall jones' and the default portrait mode for me isn't really useable as a phone.

That image would be even more convincing if you used the actual mini instead of a mockup... The side bezels are so much smaller, which would make it closer to the Nexus 7 in width but still with the 4:3 screen, plus the extra .9" diagonal.

Not to say that some people don't prefer 16:9 screens on tablets of the 7" variety, it's all about preference I think.

I'm kind of torn on whether or not they will go to a 16:9 screen in the iPad lines eventually... I think a big part of why they did it on the iPhone was to hit the 4" screen mark without making the phone wider. Although maybe it makes more sense to have a uniform aspect ratio across all iOS product lines for developers' sakes.

Can anyone who is better with this stuff tell me how much taller the iPad Mini and iPad would be if they kept the same width, but stretched to 16:9 (or 16:10?) like the iPhone 5?
 
This is getting ridiculous... who gives a crap about the spec difference between the different devices. I wanted a smaller tablet that runs iOS. The Mini does it. None of the rest do, so they are a non issue. I'm getting sick of people calling folks like me sheep, blind, etc.. The display on the iPad is fine for me. If its not for someone else, then don't buy it. But comparing specs on machines that run different operating systems when people are happy with, and have an investment in, one of the operating systems, makes no sense.

The Absolute truth. It's not just the hardware. I have a 1st gen Fire and seriously hate the skinned Android UI and I am a big Amazon fan. No matter the hardware if the user experience sucks.
 
I'm kind of torn on whether or not they will go to a 16:9 screen in the iPad lines eventually... I think a big part of why they did it on the iPhone was to hit the 4" screen mark without making the phone wider. Although maybe it makes more sense to have a uniform aspect ratio across all iOS product lines for developers' sakes.

4:3 is proportionally more appropriate for a larger sized device that is more likely to be used for books, magazines, and standard sized documents. 16:9 only relates to TV/films and video games in terms of proportion, and even then it's only within the last 10 years or so that it's really become much of a standard for that content.
 
I haven't read all the comments, but I LOVE my mini and I also have a retina iPad also. One thing people seem to forget when comparing these tablets is APPS. I bought a Galaxy tab on impulse in Best Buy a few months back. While initially loving it, I returned it after two weeks. These other apps don't have the quality nor the sheer number of apps as the iPad do. I was laying in bed last night with my mini playing a fighter plane shooter and having so much fun. The regular size iPad just doesn't seem right to be playing those kinds of games at its size after you try a mini. I'll welcome the next gen with Retina but for now I couldn't be happier with my mini.
 
The 4:3 7.85" Mini is 4.7" wide (portrait orientation).

The 16:10 7" Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD are 3.7" wide.

The web page is scaled to fit horizontally with no text reflowing or other formatting changes, so it's like pure zooming.

3.7/4.7 = .79, which is the scaling factor between Mini and 7" tablet in this scenario.

To keep it simple, assume a character is 1" wide on the Mini. The Mini obviously has 163 pixels to render this character. That same character will be only .79" wide on the Nexus, which thus has .79*216 or 170 pixels to render it. So the Nexus can't render the glyph with much more fidelity than the Mini in this scenario, which applies to any document that is scaled to fit with no reflowing of text, such that the only difference is the apparent magnification.

In general, instead of having 216/163 or 1.33x the pixel density of the Mini, the 7" tablet really has only 170/163 or 1.04x the pixel density in this scenario. Doing the same thing for landscape mode, the Nexus improves to 204 PPI while the Mini stays 163 PPI. However, looking at it from a different angle, rotating to landscape does perform an implicit zoom, the text will be 1.33x bigger when the Mini is rotated, and readability benefits because the text will be bigger and rendered with more pixels, so it's not like the Mini doesn't improve when you rotate it to landscape.
I think you're confusing ppi with pixels. The ppi numbers are constant on any display; they're innate. The number of pixels used to draw a character can vary, yes.

If you use the same number of pixels to draw characters on both screens, you well have more character on the Nexus 7 at the exact same fidelity as on the Mini (because the 7 has more pixels). If you draw characters of the same size on each, you'll have more characters on the Mini because of its larger screen, but those characters will be shown at higher fidelity (more pixels) on the Nexus 7. At a given true character size, you'll see more on a Mini and see it better on a 7, and if you have decent vision and show characters with the same minimum number of pixels on each, you'll see more on the 7.

All of that said, I do agree that there are numerous browser advantages to the 4:3 ratio, and, having used a Mini, browsing on it is superb.
 
Wait, you mean there's other companies out there making tablets and making Apple compete so they can't just do whatever they want and we have to just take it up the blow hole?
I would think this is a good thing for Apple customers.
 
The consensus seems to be that Apple made too many compromises in making the Mini, while not pricing it competitively enough. May not make as much of an impact on small tablet sales as they were expecting. This is the most rapidly growing segment of the tablet market, and Apple may have to react quickly to avoid being on the outside looking in. Great news for Google and the Nexus, though, as their market share should continue to steadily increase.

This has been my thinking also since seeing the specs of iPad mini.

It seems to me that with the iPad mini, Apple tried to do two things that were mutually exclusive of each other: create a premium 7" tablet that was cost competitive with the current 7" tablets on the market.

It is for this reason that I think we will see an iPad mini 2 in the spring next year. The current generation of iPad mini will drop down to $279 which is $50 less than its current selling price.

At $279, the current generation of the iPad mini will be cost competitive with the Google Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire HD. It will allow people who are currently invested in an iPhone to access the Apple iCosystem using a tablet.

We'll see how sales go through this last quarter of the year. If Apple hits its sales expectations for the iPad mini, you can forget everything I wrote and write me off as a kook. However, if they have a lot of iPad mini lying around after the holidy season, well....
 
Apple will rake in a ton of cash on this iPad Mini, even though it is last generation technology.

Apple could have knocked it out of the park by adding the Retina display and the more powerful A6X processor. Why Apple chose NOT to do that, who knows - maybe they didn't have enough supply of screens and/or chips in time for their projected product launch date?

In any case adding the Retina and A6X will make the iPad Mini THE tablet to own. It's the perfect size, very light and well made. Everyone who has reviewed it loves it - except that the display is inferior and it's underpowered.

Check out this Information Week review:

iPad Mini: Hands-On First Impressions
http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/handheld/ipad-mini-hands-on-first-impressions/240044409
 
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.

Well it is possible to sell tons of cheap crap with razor thin margins. But Apple does not do cheap crap with razor thin margins.

----------

In any case adding the Retina and A6X will make the iPad Mini THE tablet to own.
And it will be, Mini (2nd generation). You can't add every feature now. You need a reason for people to buy the next gen product too.
 
amazing, next they'll tell us apple thought up the pull down notification. It was in the lab already of course becuase apple never copies ;)
Well, actually, Apple has had notification systems in the lab since it started developing the Newton. I'm pretty sure that there's enough prior art out there that Google won't be able to successfully sue for infringement over notifications. (mind you, Unwired Planet is suing both Apple and Google over notifications, push, and cloud tech).

Does Apple copy? Of course it does. Does it infringe on patents? Sometimes, although it obviously tries to develop workarounds to avoid this. The way patents have been going, however, it seems as if everyone in the field will be found to be infringing on more and more patents, since just about anything seems to be patentable, no matter how vague or unattainable it is at the time. It's just been my impression that Apple generally adds a new twist to things it copies, making them more intuitive and easier to use, rather than just blatantly cloning things as some competitors have.

Back on topic, though, I still think that Apple may regret giving up its dominance in market share, because its dominance in apps may also be lost. I suspect that many people will buy a Nexus 7 over an iPad Mini based on specs and price, because in an electronics store, salespeople's talking points consist mainly of specs, and consumers' primary concerns are having what's considered the latest and greatest, and, of course, price. And as more people are locked into Google or Amazon's ecosystems, there's less and less reason to go with an iOS device, or any Apple device, period. I'm not saying that this will hurt Apple now, but if you look 2 years down the road, iOS could possibly be a second-tier mobile OS, and its "halo" effect on Mac sales could also be lost.
 
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Apple could have knocked it out of the park by adding the Retina display and the more powerful A6X processor. Why Apple chose NOT to do that, who knows - maybe they didn't have enough supply of screens and/or chips in time for their projected product launch date?

Don't know about the A6X, but as for the screen it's probably due to power consumption.

The iPad3/4's screen, while high quality, is a power hog. The iPad mini's reduced dimensions and weight means less space for battery, so it's safe to assume Apple revert to using iPad 2 screen technology.

For Retina iPad mini, we would probably have to wait for Sharp to get IGZO up and running at a higher capacity.
 
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

This is a strange assertion as the last I checked the dimensions are different between the iPhone (16:9) and the iPad (4:3).
 
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