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This is the end of 9.7" iPad era
- Thread starter GoodBoy
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It's an oxymoron but when it comes to Tweeners, they're leading the pack. Buying them up and experimenting.
I cannot predict sales. I guess it will probably do OK. It doesn't inspire me much, though.
In my opinion, Apple hasn't led the market with innovations for quite a while. I am not saying there are necessarily "better" tablets out there, and I think the iPad 3 is wonderful, but probably the end of the line for interesting iPad iterations.
I think the same thing happened with the iPhone. I've got a 4S, I've used the 5, and I have Samsung's Nexus III. None of them is terribly innovative, in my opinion, but at least the Samsung screen size makes sense to me, and it is definitely a more enjoyable hardware experience.
What happened to Apple? The nano this year was a disappointment, and the iPod Touch is (yet again) being under-spec'd. What will the iPad Mini bring us that is truly new? Nothing I can see. Maybe next week's announcement will impress me, but I kind of doubt it.
The only innovative thing out there at the moment (in my opinion) is the Windows 8 tablet (who knows when that will be released), because it promises to be a fully functioning tablet. I kind of doubt they will be able to deliver on that promise, and I am still skeptical about Windows RT, but at least it is a stab in the right direction.
I don't know where the iPad Mini is heading, but it certainly isn't leading. It seems to be just following in the footsteps of Kindle and Google Nexus
In my opinion, Apple hasn't led the market with innovations for quite a while. I am not saying there are necessarily "better" tablets out there, and I think the iPad 3 is wonderful, but probably the end of the line for interesting iPad iterations.
I think the same thing happened with the iPhone. I've got a 4S, I've used the 5, and I have Samsung's Nexus III. None of them is terribly innovative, in my opinion, but at least the Samsung screen size makes sense to me, and it is definitely a more enjoyable hardware experience.
What happened to Apple? The nano this year was a disappointment, and the iPod Touch is (yet again) being under-spec'd. What will the iPad Mini bring us that is truly new? Nothing I can see. Maybe next week's announcement will impress me, but I kind of doubt it.
The only innovative thing out there at the moment (in my opinion) is the Windows 8 tablet (who knows when that will be released), because it promises to be a fully functioning tablet. I kind of doubt they will be able to deliver on that promise, and I am still skeptical about Windows RT, but at least it is a stab in the right direction.
I don't know where the iPad Mini is heading, but it certainly isn't leading. It seems to be just following in the footsteps of Kindle and Google Nexus
Personally, a 9.7" iPad is just too big. A 6.95 or 7" iPad (or just a tablet in general) is perfect. It just feels right in my hands.
I agree with most of this, however.. Apple WILL release the Mini. It doesn't have to be called the "iPad Mini", but it's coming. I highly doubt after all of this hype for it they'd shut us down and the idea would never take off. Yes, we have no confirmation, but it's fairly obvious at this point there is an iPad Mini, and it is coming.
Also, for the people saying "Apple is doomed", the Tweens are buying into Apple even more than before, I saw an article the other day about how a huge number of teens (in America) are rocking iPhones. The iPad Mini is pretty much perfect for most teens who like to read, or who wants to do school work without hauling around a big iPad.
Not only that, the iPad Mini was likely in development before Jobs' death. As were many other products we see today.
Erm? No, 9" and up tablets WILL still have uses and a place for consumers and professionals. 7" are much more convenient but the bigger the better for games and video etc. But no, this is in no way what so ever the end of the 9" and up tablets.
To say there's no valid reason for someone to have assorted mobile devices in various sizes is absurd. It's like saying that if you have a 10" cast iron skillet, there's no need to have the 6" and 8" versions, nor any reason to have a nonstick omelet pan. Bah, humbug! Use the right tool for the job. Buy the best tool sets you can afford and step up whenever you can afford to, if you're interested enough to set the money aside for an upgrade.
No regrets here over a rice and beans food budget in order to pay for either my skillets or mobile computing devices. Money doesn't grow on trees, so it's all about prioritizing choices. Savings first, then bills, then options (and yeah, fancy food is only an option in my household, just ask the two cats).
I prefer a large iPad for instructional videos or movies, an iPhone for skimming through magazine articles (with the font set up so I don't even have to move my eyes as I flip pages), and currently a Nook tablet for eye-friendly super-portable reading of books.
On the mini iPad, I await it with interest and will be torn between getting that and upgrading from my original iPad. The latter still works fine but I don't have a spare and would miss that large format if my trusty original iPad went south.
So yes I want to be able to choose between large and mini iPads in the future and will probably follow both tracks as time goes on, updating one or the other in alternate cycles. And no, this is not the end of the 9.7" iPad. I would expect something like an 11x13 model eventually.
No regrets here over a rice and beans food budget in order to pay for either my skillets or mobile computing devices. Money doesn't grow on trees, so it's all about prioritizing choices. Savings first, then bills, then options (and yeah, fancy food is only an option in my household, just ask the two cats).
I prefer a large iPad for instructional videos or movies, an iPhone for skimming through magazine articles (with the font set up so I don't even have to move my eyes as I flip pages), and currently a Nook tablet for eye-friendly super-portable reading of books.
On the mini iPad, I await it with interest and will be torn between getting that and upgrading from my original iPad. The latter still works fine but I don't have a spare and would miss that large format if my trusty original iPad went south.
So yes I want to be able to choose between large and mini iPads in the future and will probably follow both tracks as time goes on, updating one or the other in alternate cycles. And no, this is not the end of the 9.7" iPad. I would expect something like an 11x13 model eventually.
"Quite a while? It's only been three years since the iPad first came out! How many years was it between the first Macintosh and the iPod? Between the iPod and the iPhone? Plus, Apple is leading the industry in the move toward high res screens and ditching optical drives from laptops.
The iPad Mini, I admit, does feel like a "me too" product, especially if it has a non-retina screen. But I wouldn't start banging the "Apple is no longer innovative" drum quite yet. They can afford to go without releasing a breathtakingly new revolutionary product every other year -- in fact, they shouldn't be trying to do that, because true innovation takes time to grow and incubate, so they shouldn't be afraid to seemingly slow down for a few years while working on the next big thing.
Sorry but analogies and broadsweeping statements won't get you far today. Be specific. Are you willing to risk a chunk of money and time on a device because of analogies?
If you watch the original iPad keynote from Steve it's clear their thinking. Steve said a new category of device in between a laptop and a smartphone has to be better at a list of things in order to have a reason to live. This is an objective... fact about tweeners. They are in fact not better at pretty much most things compared to a smartphone or a full size tablet.
The only thing they're better at compared to the iPad is portability, and even that is suspect. And the reason is you can't really put tweeners in your pocket. So you need... surprise, a purse, holding it in your hand as you walk... or putting it in a laptop bag.
Further, tweeners are not better than a smartphone, laptop, or 9.7" iPad at:
-Surfing the Web. The Web looks terrible on tweeners. It's more cumbersome to hold than a smartphone yet slices the web almost in half compared to the iPad 9.7". No effective benefit and just a compromise.
-Videos, Email, and gaming. Bigger screen is better for this stuff. It's not as easy to hold an iPad 9.7" while watching a movie but nobody would hold either an iPad 9.7" or a tweener for an entire movie. They're both not small and light like an iPhone 5/smartphone. And the near full size keyboard on the iPad 9.7" is excellent for input. On tweeners keyboards are awkward and obscure because the size of the screen makes the keyboard neither near full screen or one that you could use with thumbs with one hand like a smartphone. Therefore, the tweener makes a huge compromise in screensize yet gives you no effective benefit for these tasks.
-Reading books, magazines... again, and this is an area I work in... on multiple tests, surveys, and longterm experiments, the smaller size tablets fail in schools for educational books because the screens are just too small causing a large disconnect between larger paper books and content and digital books on these devices. Students don't like them for this reason and the reasons are valid. What a tweener is slightly better for here in my opinion is reading novels or general books than the iPad because it is easier to hold for longer periods of time. However, some people even disagree with this and like the larger screen for all kinds of books. Anyway, with the iPhone 5 and larger screen, novels and general books look as good or better than they do on tweeners and again, you can hold a smartphone like the iPhone 5 for a very long period of time but with the tweener it's just larger and more awkward, not giving you any real benefit in this regard because the screensize jump isn't enough. And when you have the same storage space and all of your books in your pocket it's a very tough thing to beat.
Bottom line: the current iPad 9.7 is a hit and selling millions and millions giving Apple lots of profit. The market has spoken, regardless of what you want or what a niche wants. Tweeners have flunked. Many people have gone to market with them and they don't really make anyone any money. Content sales are crap. They're sold at cost. And sales are abysmal. Will Apple making one change this? No, I don't think so, for many reasons some of which are listed above. Smartphones are approaching the billion in sales per year mark and the iPad 9.7 is a hit. This is what people are buying. Other than eInk tablets, the tweener I'm afraid is a deadend derivative of full size tablets like the iPad 9.7.
The 7-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad, Steve Jobs, 2010.
Silly question
The mini probably will take sales from the 9.7", but that means it's the end of the 9.7 era? In a market with demand for 100 million units a year, there's only room for one size?
The mini probably will take sales from the 9.7", but that means it's the end of the 9.7 era? In a market with demand for 100 million units a year, there's only room for one size?
Short answer: Sure. Anyone who has cooked two burgers in a 10" skillet probably gets the analogy I used. However, I'm spending the money because I like that size tablet based on my use of the Nook, and then based on my longstanding preference for the Apple ecosystem, since Apple is apparently going to provide a tablet in that size. Don't worry, the Nook will find a good home in my neighborhood after I have acquired a mini iPad.
I had thought I had given examples of my preferences but I'll elaborate:
I love the larger iPad for reading magazines and newspapers, PDFs, in-depth browsing. And, I prefer it for apps like the one that replicates the once in a lifetime Park Avenue Armory (NYC) exhibit of 651 antique red and white quilts from the Joanna S. Rose collection. The app can be used on an iPhone, and probably on a mini iPad, and in that mode is informative but it's breathtaking on the iPad. You can see photos of the original exhibit in their pavilions and tiers reaching to the ceiling. You can also pinch-zoom the quilts into blocks at a level of detail that shows individual quilting stiitches. For a quilter, it's stunning to have an opportunity to view photos of three hundred year old quilts in that way. In my studio, this is inspiring to me on a coffee break or before starting work on some mundane task like cutting 48 strips of black fabric for the sashing on some quilt. I'm not likely to appreciate the heft and dimensions of that iPad when I am putting items into a handbag, however. So the iPad generally stays home. I think of it as a laptop without feet, sort of. I could go for a bigger one! It would still stay home, same with my laptops.
For portability of general fiction and nonfiction I really, really like the 'tween size because I can take a whole collection of books with me in a purse or totebag. I enjoy that size pageview for that kind of reading. The size suits me also for mail and quick reviews of wire service and market news, photo collections. I've been known to watch TV shows on a 3rd gen nano in the kitchen while waiting on something related to dinner prep, so it will be a treat to stick some TV shows or movies onto a mini iPad and catch part of one while waiting for someone at a lunch meeting. Since I do carry a purse or small totebag when I travel, and this size tablet fits into them, this is perfect for e-reading and a bonus to be able to have some of the other entertainment-related stuff I otherwise keep on the iPad or a laptop. That size is great for photos of fabric swatches, I often work with collections of 6 to 12 fabrics in a project, and they fit on a page nicely in that mini tablet form. For email, I find this size tablet perfect, certainly preferable to the iPhone and iPod touch. It's funny, I don't mind reading books on those smaller devices, because I set the font up so a page is a glance and then time to flip, but reading email on them just makes me crazy.
For their super-portable quality and multi-purpose usage, I do so like the iPhone or iPod touch: utilitarian stuff like fabric inventory spreadsheet extracts, notes, on-the-go photo documentation of my work, reference photos (fabric collections I'm using and perhaps trying to get more of), plus an occasionally updated assortment of entertainment (music, TV shows, movies, audiobooks, podcasts, the works!). I'm not a true fan of email on that size screen so it will be a pleasure working that stuff off the mini iPad. The appeal of the small form factor is more about HAVING the data available in the tiny container, and much less about comfort of using it on a small screen. But you know, when push comes to shove and you need some data, having it in a little device is better than not having it. And let's face it, I'm not going to hike around in the hills with an iPad OR a mini iPad in hand. The iPhone fits in a pocket and I'm out the door, armed with some necessities and some luxuries in a tiny box. Do I like reviewing fabric swatch collections on a phone? No, but I have them there for when I have to reference them while I'm away from the studio.
So those three form factors of portable computing gear are the equivalent of my 10", 8" and 6" skillets. The nonstick omelet pan, well.. maybe that's the red nano due in here tuesday.
It's true that one's pretty optional!Short answer: Sure. Anyone who has cooked two burgers in a 10" skillet probably gets the analogy I used. However, I'm spending the money because I like that size tablet based on my use of the Nook, and then based on my longstanding preference for the Apple ecosystem, since Apple is apparently going to provide a tablet in that size. Don't worry, the Nook will find a good home in my neighborhood after I have acquired a mini iPad.
I had thought I had given examples of my preferences but I'll elaborate:
I love the larger iPad for reading magazines and newspapers, PDFs, in-depth browsing. And, I prefer it for apps like the one that replicates the once in a lifetime Park Avenue Armory (NYC) exhibit of 651 antique red and white quilts from the Joanna S. Rose collection. The app can be used on an iPhone, and probably on a mini iPad, and in that mode is informative but it's breathtaking on the iPad. You can see photos of the original exhibit in their pavilions and tiers reaching to the ceiling. You can also pinch-zoom the quilts into blocks at a level of detail that shows individual quilting stiitches. For a quilter, it's stunning to have an opportunity to view photos of three hundred year old quilts in that way. In my studio, this is inspiring to me on a coffee break or before starting work on some mundane task like cutting 48 strips of black fabric for the sashing on some quilt. I'm not likely to appreciate the heft and dimensions of that iPad when I am putting items into a handbag, however. So the iPad generally stays home. I think of it as a laptop without feet, sort of. I could go for a bigger one! It would still stay home, same with my laptops.
For portability of general fiction and nonfiction I really, really like the 'tween size because I can take a whole collection of books with me in a purse or totebag. I enjoy that size pageview for that kind of reading. The size suits me also for mail and quick reviews of wire service and market news, photo collections. I've been known to watch TV shows on a 3rd gen nano in the kitchen while waiting on something related to dinner prep, so it will be a treat to stick some TV shows or movies onto a mini iPad and catch part of one while waiting for someone at a lunch meeting. Since I do carry a purse or small totebag when I travel, and this size tablet fits into them, this is perfect for e-reading and a bonus to be able to have some of the other entertainment-related stuff I otherwise keep on the iPad or a laptop. That size is great for photos of fabric swatches, I often work with collections of 6 to 12 fabrics in a project, and they fit on a page nicely in that mini tablet form. For email, I find this size tablet perfect, certainly preferable to the iPhone and iPod touch. It's funny, I don't mind reading books on those smaller devices, because I set the font up so a page is a glance and then time to flip, but reading email on them just makes me crazy.
For their super-portable quality and multi-purpose usage, I do so like the iPhone or iPod touch: utilitarian stuff like fabric inventory spreadsheet extracts, notes, on-the-go photo documentation of my work, reference photos (fabric collections I'm using and perhaps trying to get more of), plus an occasionally updated assortment of entertainment (music, TV shows, movies, audiobooks, podcasts, the works!). I'm not a true fan of email on that size screen so it will be a pleasure working that stuff off the mini iPad. The appeal of the small form factor is more about HAVING the data available in the tiny container, and much less about comfort of using it on a small screen. But you know, when push comes to shove and you need some data, having it in a little device is better than not having it. And let's face it, I'm not going to hike around in the hills with an iPad OR a mini iPad in hand. The iPhone fits in a pocket and I'm out the door, armed with some necessities and some luxuries in a tiny box. Do I like reviewing fabric swatch collections on a phone? No, but I have them there for when I have to reference them while I'm away from the studio.
So those three form factors of portable computing gear are the equivalent of my 10", 8" and 6" skillets. The nonstick omelet pan, well.. maybe that's the red nano due in here tuesday.
Non-stick skillets...
No, Sven. Cast iron skillets. Nonstick pans are definitley optional. In my opinion. In my household. In my budgets!
It's about choice, right? The market has room for multiple sizes of tablets until the day someone rolls out the magical shrinking tablet. You want a white board 4 x 8 feet, here it is. You want a nametag sized gizmo to wear on your shirt at a conference, just press command-ctrl-alt-shift-H and you got it. We are not at that day yet, so people who want different size tablets get to save up and buy them, or get the largest one they think they need and live with lugging it around.
If you don't like the tablet size of a mini because Steve dissed it, don't forget that he dissed the whole idea of a tablet by saying that no one reads any more. Right before bringing out the iPad and the iBooks store piece of iTunes. So you know, get a sense of humor about it, why not? Steve had one and it was sly.
Anyway Apple's flying its product line however it likes, and if they're bringing out a mini iPad it's because they see the same use for it that I do and plenty of 'tween size other-brand tablet users do. Market's wide open. I still say I see the bigger ones coming after the mini.
It's about choice, right? The market has room for multiple sizes of tablets until the day someone rolls out the magical shrinking tablet. You want a white board 4 x 8 feet, here it is. You want a nametag sized gizmo to wear on your shirt at a conference, just press command-ctrl-alt-shift-H and you got it. We are not at that day yet, so people who want different size tablets get to save up and buy them, or get the largest one they think they need and live with lugging it around.
If you don't like the tablet size of a mini because Steve dissed it, don't forget that he dissed the whole idea of a tablet by saying that no one reads any more. Right before bringing out the iPad and the iBooks store piece of iTunes. So you know, get a sense of humor about it, why not? Steve had one and it was sly.
Anyway Apple's flying its product line however it likes, and if they're bringing out a mini iPad it's because they see the same use for it that I do and plenty of 'tween size other-brand tablet users do. Market's wide open. I still say I see the bigger ones coming after the mini.
highly doubt there's room for one size.. Everyone has there own preference wheather it be gaming or reading books.. I personally like the larger size and will be getting one probably in March or maybe the refresh with connector..
i doubt sales will tumble on the larger verison
They will. There are already reports that every 5 iPad minis sold will eat 1 iPad 9.7". And that's only prediction for initial sales. In time, iPad mini can cannibalize even more bigger iPads. Depends on how it'll do on the market. I think it will do very well, and that's why I think it will eventually totally cannibalize iPad 9.7" or put it in the niche product category. Not instantly, of course it's gonna have to take some time. What is not questionable though, is that iPad mini will shrink the sales and the market of the bigger iPad. It's inevitable. Question is how much and can the big iPad survive in the long run...?
By the same logic, shouldn't the iPod Touch be doing a lot better? It does everything the iPad can do, but it costs about half as much, and is far more portable. The answer, of course, is that having a large screen is really nice. As someone with a Nexus 7, I can report that it is a great screen size, but for most things, I reach for my iPad before I reach for it.
It's great that people who have been wanting this form factor are getting it, but I think there are a lot of people out there who are quite pleased with the iPad. Why? The same reason we have 11", 13", and 15" Macs. Because different folks like different stuff. I wouldn't write the iPad off so quickly.
I guess if you can't get a mac pro you'll have to settle for an iPad to render 4k video
I just can't figure out people like that.The iPad is a media consumption toy. Nothing more. Not that there's anything wrong with that limitation. But I don't understand why people can't seem to understand that.
I guess if you can't get a mac pro you'll have to settle for an iPad to render 4k video
The iPad is a media consumption toy. Nothing more. Not that there's anything wrong with that limitation. But I don't understand why people can't seem to understand that.
Yep. I'll just make all of my Cinema 4D stuff on my pro-grade 9.7" screen and kick it off to my iPhone when render time comes around.
But really, it's great for casually watching video and surfing the Internet, but I wouldn't say there's anything "pro" about the iPad except for a testing tool for app developers.