iPad mini Isn't the "newest" iPad Mini the same price it was a few months ago? Why the uproar?

[jkskrap]

I keep reading that it cost $100 more for the touchID, but isn't the $399 the same price as it was before?

A few months ago I was looking to buy the Mini for my daughter and it started at $399. When I realized an upgrade was coming, I figured I would wait. It is still $399 and has a minor upgrade or two.

I understand the Mini 2 dropped $100 - which is tempting - but I was going to buy the latest version for $399 a few months ago, so it was a no-brainer to just buy the newest version for the same price.

 

[Cool Pup]

The uproar is because an upgraded version at least on the same chip or a general spec bump at least on the same playing field as the Air was expected or anticipated. By no means was anybody predicting it would literally be the exact same model with year-old tech being hyped as "new".

It's a tremendous waste of money to spend 100 more dollars on exactly the same specs except gold and Touch ID unless these are vital to you. It has no other "upgrade", not even improved Wifi signals, no improved camera, no new processor — all of the things we could expect are not there at all. I don't recommend anybody to buy in at that price when the next one will at least be on a newer chip (we can hope) at the same price, while a model that's the effectively the same is 100 dollars less right now.

 

[Brian Y]

The point is that you effectively paid $100 for a fingerprint reader. And whilst touchID is convenient, it's not 100 convenient.

Internally it's the same machine - which isn't a bad thing - I always argued that the iPad Mini retina was the best iPad Apple made spec-for-$$ wise.

 

[sviato]

It's today's prices for yesterday's hardware.

 

[ditzy]

You can look at it as you are getting a slightly, very slightly, better iPad today for the same price as you would have got the slightly worse version for a few days ago.
Or you can look at it as your paying $100 more for a product that is only slightly better than the now mid range mini. It doesn't feel $100 better.
I would find it hard to advise someone to buy the mini 3, in fact a friend wanted to buy a mini for her children, I had advised her to wait until the refresh, which she did. Yesterday I advised her to buy the mini 2 as I really don't think that her children need touch ID, and it would save her £80.
I'm actually resentful of this upgrade.

 

[ElectronGuru]

You can look at it as the 3 being not as much better as the 2 (3 is the anomaly) or you can look at it as the 1 (which was widely panned as being equal to the big iPad 2) and 3 are both 'normal' and 2 was the anomaly.

When 2 stocks sell through, the 3 goes back to being the underpowered sibling of the air. Until then, 2 remains the king of value.

 

[1458279]

I keep reading that it cost $100 more for the touchID, but isn't the $399 the same price as it was before?

A few months ago I was looking to buy the Mini for my daughter and it started at $399. When I realized an upgrade was coming, I figured I would wait. It is still $399 and has a minor upgrade or two.

I understand the Mini 2 dropped $100 - which is tempting - but I was going to buy the latest version for $399 a few months ago, so it was a no-brainer to just buy the newest version for the same price.

You're right about it being the same price as the prior model was just last week, however, if you look at the iPad Air... it got cheaper and for the same price as last week, you now get:
- faster A8 chip
- better camera
- touch id
- non-reflective screen
- faster WiFi
- barometer
- thinner
and what ever else I might have missed.

The reality of tech is that they age quickly. The mini was always behind the curve on specs and ahead of the curve on price (compare mini vs nexus 7).

Apple should have simply passed on the mini as they did with the iPT, then wait till they have something to offer that people want.

Except for the mini2 being cheaper, we got nothing we really cared about.

The iPT is an example of Apple dropping something that at least some of us wanted.

Apple's greed is really showing thru and has now effected the product line. In the past, I didn't have a huge problem paying Apple more $$ for their products as they offered what I wanted at the time.

The mini1 was hammered because of no retina while others had MUCH better display and CHEAPER.

It went from being behind to being REALLY behind (except in price )

Any company can fall to greed, Apple was almost out of business before, they don't need to do this to their high-paying-loyal customers.

I hope the mini3 sells so poorly that Apple gets back on the ball.

 

[mad3inch1na]

I keep reading that it cost $100 more for the touchID, but isn't the $399 the same price as it was before?

A few months ago I was looking to buy the Mini for my daughter and it started at $399. When I realized an upgrade was coming, I figured I would wait. It is still $399 and has a minor upgrade or two.

I understand the Mini 2 dropped $100 - which is tempting - but I was going to buy the latest version for $399 a few months ago, so it was a no-brainer to just buy the newest version for the same price.

It is the exact same iPad, but it now comes with TouchID. A few weeks ago, the old iPad mini was not worth 400$, and you can get one for 250$ refurbished now. TouchID is just not worth the extra money, plain and simple. Unless the TouchID is an absolute necessity, it isn't worth it. Especially considering you can get essentially the same machine for 150$ less.

 

[Cool Pup]

Apple has to know know that they dropped the ball with the Mini 3, that's why they spent less than a minute of bringing it up.

I'm assuming something deterred their plans so they went very basic with the model to recoup the costs of what they did last year by making the Mini basically the same as the Air but in a smaller form factor. It's completely possible their new thin standards might have not been ready for a refresh of the magnitude of the Air 2. If this is true, I suspect we'll be hearing rumors and leaks by spring.

Or perhaps they found out the majority of Mini owners are more casual users that don't need amazing graphics, and they're saving money by not editing the specs to modern standards. That's why they keep the 16GB models around, so they can shave off just a little bit of the costs long term.

 

[IrishVixen]

Last night, I went to the Apple store with my 16GB Mini 1 in hand as a trade in, and left with a Mini 2 that had exactly the same storage. Had the Mini 3 been an actual upgrade, I would have bought it instead, but Touch ID alone is just nowhere near enough to justify spending an extra $100.

What was interesting was the reaction of the Apple Store employee who sold me the Mini 2. She was both ticked off and absolutely bewildered at the Mini 3 specs. As she put it, it was easy to upsell someone on the Mini 2 over the original, but it was going to be pretty damn difficult to explain to someone why they should buy the Mini 3 instead of the 2, because it simply wasn't a big enough change. She said flat out that she didn't understand Apple's thinking on this one, and that neither did her coworkers (it apparently was the main topic of conversation all day). And she's not upgrading from the 2 to the 3 herself.

Best Store experience I've ever had. She was an Apple fan, not a fanatic or apologist, and she was honestly upset that the company she loved had made such a boneheaded move. It's not just the potential customers who see this as a step backwards.

 

[1458279]

I just looked at some of the other 7" / 8" tablets and it seems like if the Mini2 goes on sale like the Air1 did last year, it could be a pretty good buy.

I don't need to have the latest/greatest thing, but I would like it to be usable for a good while.

What I do with my PC purchases is wait till the spec take a jump, then buy the 1 step back and use it for as long as I can stand it.

I went some 5 years with the same desktop, 4 years with the current one and it has all the specs I need and more.

I'm sure Apple and others are aware of this kind of "skip the upgrade" system. This is one of the problems with the drop in tablet sales...

Tablets don't have a contract, you almost always buy it outright. You have to have more of a reason to upgrade... Apple hasn't given us a reason to upgrade, in fact, they've just given us a reason NOT to upgrade.

Looking from Apples view: They might be well aware that most that wanted a tablet, already have one... so they have to have a HUGE reason for an upgrade from someone that already has one (most of the market)... So they might be waiting for more ammo...

There's a number of things lacking in Apple tablets, native multitasking, high end cameras F/R (you need a high end front for selfies, gesture control, product scans,...), WiFi, etc...

Apples probably waiting for all these things to hit at once instead of bit-by-bit... Once this all hit, they'll have the "killer tablet"

Can't say what Apple's plan is, but I really hope they don't drop the mini size factor, it's excellent for a lot of on-the-go businesses / people.

Not all businesses happens in the office and these are NOT just consumption devices.

 

[haruhiko]

Simple. Just look at the price of the mini 2.

Mini 3 - mini 2 = Touch ID button = $100

As simple as that. Don't talk about few days ago.