Not necessarily. Since Apple don't break down the sales by type of iPad, there's no way to know the impact of updating the mini.
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iPad mini The Future of the iPad mini
- Thread starter Yebubbleman
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Not necessarily. Since Apple don't break down the sales by type of iPad, there's no way to know the impact of updating the mini.
It DID - it kept sales from tanking even further! ;-)
Seriously, though, there are some people for whom there was a choice between a mini and an Air, but I don't think that the immediate assumption should be "if they didn't buy the mini, they would buy the air" - I think it's more along the lines of "if they didn't buy the mini, they would have bought a Samsung or Kindle".
"Important" is a matter of perspective (to whom, by what criteria, etc.). "Popular" is another one that's tricky - It's quantifiable by Sales numbers for sure, but that doesn't always tell the full story.
Also, I would be really surprised if there wasn't some sort of good uptick in Mini sales after the recent update. Apple probably learned from it's mistake with the iPad 3 - at very least learned not to be surprised when sales are down after releasing an update that was barely an update. I would even bet the Air 2 sales were pretty dismal, bolstered only by the Pro and the Mini 4 (because those not interested in the Pro or the Mini are waiting for the Air 3).
I'd be interested in the consumer replacement cycle of a Mini vs. a Full (as an industry). Do people "upgrade" the mini units more often (because they're cheaper) (vs. full sized tablets)?
Yeah, that would be some interesting information.
But my point from the post was that it's a matter of perspective... I tend to think the Air is more important than the Mini line, but that's pretty much my opinion. And without Apple releasing that information it will be hard to support anyone claims.
IMO... The iPad Pro prevented sales from going down to the toilet. Reason being... It's a new line while the iPad Mini was just a refresh. And users of the iPad Mini 2 or 3 might not be rushing to upgrade to the Mini 4. Shoppers going into stores will be more intrigued by the Pro compared to the Mini.
Maybe. Just from a personal perspective (which means nothing, really...), Out of all the people I know (personally and professionally), I'm the only one that bought the iPad Pro (there are a couple 'interested' but not buying) whereas I know four people (besides myself) who jumped on the Mini 4 (I also know three people who bought a Mini 2 during the Christmas season). I've noticed a trend amongst people I know to prefer the smaller tablet. I also noticed those with older iPads tend to still have the first iPad they bought, but the people that are buying tend to be the year-to-two-year up graders. Of those who have bought in the last 6 months, more than half have more than 1 tablet (generally a 'carrying around' tablet and a 'leave at home' tablet). For those that own two, the 'carry around' tablet is a little less than half iPad, while the others are Samsung and Kindle Fire, but the "at home" tablet is iPad.
While this has no barring on larger market forces, it's an interesting dynamic.
First off, see above. What I predict happening most recently wouldn't entail removing anything from the price point currently held by their "lowest cost" iPad. They can remove one or both entries of the iPad mini line and still find something to put in that price point. Hell, they sold the iPad 2 for three years. There's nothing to stop them from doing something similar with the original iPad Air after a while.
Secondly, the mini-tablet market is dead. Name me one notable contender in this market (and the corresponding product) who HASN'T ditched this in favor of placing much more marketing/engineering emphasis on (a) phablets, and (b) 9.7" or larger sized full tablets. Even Amazon seems much less caring of that market in favor of larger tablets.
Thirdly, given the A8 in the iPad mini 4 when you have the A9 being dropped in the iPhones doesn't make it any less "a year behind" than the A7 was in the iPad mini 3. As was rumored before, Apple was due to release one more iPad mini this past October and now they have done so.
I agree with you. However, how many other people do you think agree with us? I'd hazard a guess that very few people getting a 6/s Plus are also getting an iPad mini.
Again, this functionality is more COMMONLY being replaced by phablets. I'm not saying it's what's optimal for us, nor am I saying that I don't experience the same phenomenon myself. I'm suggesting that the market at large likely doesn't agree with us.
First off, your info there is about two years out of date. Secondly, if you follow recent numbers, the iPad minis as a whole were most popular this past year, but that in terms of single-model sales, the iPad Air 2 was the best selling single model. And again, that goes back to pricing. If Apple priced an iPad Air at the cost of their lowest iPad mini, that would become the best selling iPad.
Right. The mini certainly won't be able to compete with many of the other things that people will soon want and see in 9.7" iPads, such as the smart connector for a keyboard that doesn't feel too cramped to use and even higher resolution displays. Let's not forget how long it took them to get the iPad mini to Retina to begin with, let alone for them to get their iPad mini displays to the same calibur of performance as their iPad Air counterparts.
Again, the iPad mini was a great idea for Apple when that market had a lot of activity. Now that market is on its death bed. I love the absolute hell out of my iPad mini 4 and I wouldn't trade it for any other device of its kind in the world. But I'd be a fool to think that the iPad mini has any real serious staying power.
I just don't agree. People are saying the market for tablet si dying and I just don't see that. The market may not be as ecstatic as it once one, but that doesn't equal dying - in fact, you might call it normalizing. The height of the tablet market was unsustainable - that's obvious, but the market can decline but not crash.
It's funny you say Amazon invests in larger tablets - that's pretty funny when Amazon just put out the $50 7" Fire. I would ask for evidence that Amazon favors larger tablets - I don't see it. Yes, they make larger tablets, but their bread and butter are still the smaller Kindles.
There's no solid evidence that tells me there won't be any more Minis.
I never said that the market for TABLETS is dying. Nor do I believe that to be the case, myself. I said that the market for MINI TABLETS is dying. Big difference there. Just two years ago, you had a big market of mini tablets that was so vibrant, it made the market of full sized tablets look scarce by comparison. This is not the case today.
I don't believe that mini tablets will ever COMPLETELY disappear. However, as Google pulled out of that market when it was arguably second only to Apple in it, I think that Apple will do the same before too long.
I never said that Amazon ceased development on mini tablets. Just that they don't put the heft of their engineering abilities into them anymore. If you look at the specs of their tablets, especially said $50 7" tablet, you'll find that this is very much ref
The diminishing length of time given to them at each Apple iPad announcement should be telling evidence for you. The iPad mini 3 had more stage time than the iPad mini 4 did when the latter was by far a more substantial upgrade over the immediate predecessor. Also consider that when the iPad mini and iPad mini 2 were announced, there was no iPhone Plus. Now there is. Furthermore, if someone wishes to own both an iPad mini 4 and an iPhone Plus as some (myself included) have opted to do, it's undeniable that Apple doesn't place marketing or even engineering emphasis on the mini. Certainly not like they did with the first or second generations.
- There are PLENTY of mini tablets out there running iOS, Android, and Windows 10. HP, Dell, Samsung, Amazon, Apple, Asus, Lenovo, Acer, LG - all big players making mini tablets - and that's not all.
- Oh, your missing Nexus 7? Rumors say it's on the way. In terms of quality, The Nexus 7 was close to the Mini, but not in terms of sales. In terms of Sales you need to look at the Kindle Fire and Samsung Tab.
- Amazon has done most of their engineering in software with the Kindles. In terms of the larger devices, there's no more 'heft' than the smaller devices.
- The diminished time in the keynote is only evidence that the event concentrated on the iPad Pro and new Apple TV. It;s not the first time Apple shortchanged an updated product in favor of other, sexier hardware. Besides which, the update, while substantial, didn't provide anything new, so why keynote it? Maybe the mini won't get huge fanfare, but that's not evidence Apple is done with the mini.
- True, they haven;t engineered anything new on the mini, but maybe that's the point. The mini doesn't need new engineering, just current engineering.
- Again, with marketing - as great as the mini 4 is, it's a point release - they don't make big advertising pushes on point release MacBooks, and it doesn't mean they're going to stop making MacBooks.
How about this: When you walk into an Apple Store, the minis are front and center - is this the act of a dead product?
I'm aware. However, I don't see too many people using or buying these. Do you?
The Nexus 7 was quite popular for its day. It was reviewed well, and...more importantly...they weren't uncommon in the wild, which is to say that, unlike the tablets you mention above, people actually bought and used them. Also, would love a source for those rumors. I have heard nothing about a return of the Nexus 7. The Nexus 9 is all but gone, having been replaced by the Pixel C which is trying to attack the iPad Air and the iPad Pro (again, Google clearly doesn't see a competition in the mini tablet arena that it can't simply quash with the Nexus 6/6P).
Last I checked (which was minutes ago), the 7" tablet was literally a piece of crap akin to the original iPad mini if that. The specs got better with the 8" but it still looked like the 10" is where they really were packing the most specs/value.
It was the most substantial update it has ever gotten...probably ever. The retina display and the A7 of the second generation mini was pretty huge when it dropped in 2013, but it was externally identical to the first generation. With the mini 4, you have the most substantial update and it receives barely a mention. If that's not diminished interest from Apple, I don't know what is.
A8 is last year's processor tech. A9 is this year's processor tech. So, yes, I'd agree that an A9-based iPad mini would make me feel a lot less like the iPad mini was an afterthought to Apple. As it stands, even if it was perpetually a gen behind, that wouldn't bother me, but where it was the talk of the town in 2012, I wouldn't be shocked if it got less and less attention as time went on. You'd have to figure that if it was their best-selling iPad, they would give it the same white glove treatment like the 13" MacBook Pro gets for the Mac product line.
The iPad mini 4, a point release? Are you serious? The iPad mini 3 was the point release. Actually, no, scratch that. The iPad mini 2 added the display and made the jump to 64-bit iOS-land. But even that was only iterative. The iPad mini 3 just added in TouchID, making it that much less substantial of a release. The iPad mini 4 was probably the most substantial release they've had since the first iPad mini, but it had zero fanfare. If anything, it should've had more fanfare for what it is and was relative to (a) its predecessors, and (b) other iPads in the line (it's way better than either the mini 2 or mini 3 or even the first generation Air).
Also, "sketchy" as this report may have been, it has proven to be otherwise spot on so far: https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/15/no-new-ipad-air-2015/
Not sure which Apple Store you go to. At the one I go to, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are front and center. To the left, you have the iPad mini 2 and the original iPad Air mixed in with the iPad Air 2. On the opposite side from that you have some iPad Air 2 units and some iPad mini 4 units with the iPad Pro opposite those against the wall of the store. Honestly, the only uniformity about any of it is that the iPad Pros are all against the wall. Otherwise, the rest of the lineup appears scattered throughout. That tells me nothing conclusive other than that, for some reason, Apple is even more ambivalent about their two and a half year old tablets, their one and a half year old tablet, and their five month old mini tablet. It's obvious that the spotlight is on the iPad Pro now. However, they seem poised to return that spotlight to the iPad Air with the launch of the iPad Air 3. The point of this entire conjecture is that said spotlight will likely never be on the iPad mini line to such a degree. Apple has real marketing emphasis on the iPad Pro now as it did on the iPad Air 2 before as it did on the original iPad Air. We will see that again with the iPad Air 3. We should've seen it with the iPad mini 4 but didn't and I think that would logically seem less indicative of a bright future for the line than it would a maturation or declination of the line.
[QUOTE="Yebubbleman, post: 22554877, member: 436140]
The point of this entire conjecture is that said spotlight will likely never be on the iPad mini line to such a degree. Apple has real marketing emphasis on the iPad Pro now as it did on the iPad Air 2 before as it did on the original iPad Air. We will see that again with the iPad Air 3. We should've seen it with the iPad mini 4 but didn't and I think that would logically seem less indicative of a bright future for the line than it would a maturation or declination of the line.[/QUOTE]
Wait a minute... Before I get a response to anything else, I need to address this.
No, YOUR point was that the iPad Mini was dying and Apple wasn't going to make another one. If all you want to point out is that the mini will probably not get the spotlight again, I'll agree with that. That's a BIG difference than "the mini is dying and the 4 is the last one".
Let's be honest though, does the mini deserve such fanfare? As much as I love my mini 4, and I do, it is a smaller iPad Air 2 - there's nothing new to celebrate. Yes, I'm glad they upgraded the mini. Yes, I think there are plenty of people who will (and have) bought one, and Yes I think there's enough sales for Apple to continue making them. Just because the mini 4 is a scaled version of current/(soon-to-be-last) generations model, doesn't mean it's dying, but it's also no cause to roll it out on stage and give it's own Jonny Ives video. What more would you have them say about the mini 4? Would you have Ives spend 5 minutes talking about loving the Air 2 but wishing it was smaller? It's a product that fills a market gap. Tech will almost always go from iPhone > iPad Pro > iPad Air > iPad mini.
If you want to talk about how Apple doesn't give the mini the attention it should, I'll totally agree with you - but that's ALWAYS been the case with the mini. Even from a "deminished interest' point of view... I never got the feeling the the mini was anything but a market gap solution - starting from the very first generation. To Apple, the mini was always the "everybody says we need a smaller iPad, so we'll make one" - not "OMG guys, we totally revolutionized how people use the iPad". The first mini didn't even have a Retina display.
Summerize: The mini doesn't get Apple's spotlight attention, but it never really has... but they'll still make them as long as it's profitable to do so.
Postscript: on the other tablets... No, I don't see a lot of people buying/using them... But if I went by what I see around me, iOS has 85% market share of phones and 98% market share of tablets.
The point of this entire conjecture is that said spotlight will likely never be on the iPad mini line to such a degree. Apple has real marketing emphasis on the iPad Pro now as it did on the iPad Air 2 before as it did on the original iPad Air. We will see that again with the iPad Air 3. We should've seen it with the iPad mini 4 but didn't and I think that would logically seem less indicative of a bright future for the line than it would a maturation or declination of the line.[/QUOTE]
Wait a minute... Before I get a response to anything else, I need to address this.
No, YOUR point was that the iPad Mini was dying and Apple wasn't going to make another one. If all you want to point out is that the mini will probably not get the spotlight again, I'll agree with that. That's a BIG difference than "the mini is dying and the 4 is the last one".
Let's be honest though, does the mini deserve such fanfare? As much as I love my mini 4, and I do, it is a smaller iPad Air 2 - there's nothing new to celebrate. Yes, I'm glad they upgraded the mini. Yes, I think there are plenty of people who will (and have) bought one, and Yes I think there's enough sales for Apple to continue making them. Just because the mini 4 is a scaled version of current/(soon-to-be-last) generations model, doesn't mean it's dying, but it's also no cause to roll it out on stage and give it's own Jonny Ives video. What more would you have them say about the mini 4? Would you have Ives spend 5 minutes talking about loving the Air 2 but wishing it was smaller? It's a product that fills a market gap. Tech will almost always go from iPhone > iPad Pro > iPad Air > iPad mini.
If you want to talk about how Apple doesn't give the mini the attention it should, I'll totally agree with you - but that's ALWAYS been the case with the mini. Even from a "deminished interest' point of view... I never got the feeling the the mini was anything but a market gap solution - starting from the very first generation. To Apple, the mini was always the "everybody says we need a smaller iPad, so we'll make one" - not "OMG guys, we totally revolutionized how people use the iPad". The first mini didn't even have a Retina display.
Summerize: The mini doesn't get Apple's spotlight attention, but it never really has... but they'll still make them as long as it's profitable to do so.
Postscript: on the other tablets... No, I don't see a lot of people buying/using them... But if I went by what I see around me, iOS has 85% market share of phones and 98% market share of tablets.
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Look, there's a big difference between getting a Jony Ive product launch video and getting more than a simple "oh yeah, and now it has the same power as the iPad Air 2". Hell, for how long the iPad mini had that horrible color gamut, you'd think that they'd at least mention that it has the best display out of all three lines of iPad. The point is that they totally could've mentioned more and given it more fanfare than they have. It wouldn't have cost them anything. The fact of the matter is that diminishing fanfare even when your latest update is more substantial than the last two updates (that each got more air time) is not the sign of a product that is held in as high of an esteem. Case in point: the sixth generation iPod touch was the first ever whole new generation of iPod to not get a keynote appearance. Why? Because it is a product of diminished value to Apple.
I love my iPad mini 4 tons. I think it's great. I love the iPad mini line as a whole, despite how lame I thought the mini 3 was. But that doesn't mean that I don't see Apple's own interests in the iPad family changing. They have two iPhone sizes now the bigger of which will likely dissuade further purchase of the iPad mini. iPhone Plus > iPad mini, in terms of importance to them.
Some relevant articles:
http://gizmodo.com/big-phones-are-killing-small-tablets-and-thats-just-fi-1647242920
http://www.cnet.com/news/small-tablets-losing-to-phablets-ipad-mini-sized-models-getting-hit/
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Actually, having looked more into this, you are totally wrong here. The Kindle Fire HD tablets, which are practically disposable pieces of crap that you don't see anyone actually using in the wild are not the flagship tablets that Amazon has put most of their engineering heft into. As for the tablets that they HAVE put engineering heft into, that would be the Kindle Fire HDX, which last I checked, was closer in size to the iPad Air than the iPad mini.
Again, I'm not saying that people aren't making mini tablets as much as the trend would appear to be that no one is buying them (which is why Google exited that market when it was arguably one of the top two brands of it and why Apple gives a steadily decreasing amount of f*cks about it).