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Why a 7.85" Screen for the Rumored 'iPad Mini' Makes Sense
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Heh, it's too bad people are down voting you cause it shows they still don't understand. This concept is actual proven marketing. Give people too many choices and they'll decide they need to think about it further. Which in general means they won't buy that day, they'll come home, and have a chance to think why they don't really need that item (or even find something else).
Hell, working retail when I try to give people all the information I know about which product to buy on something I know a lot about, I usually end up with them deciding they need to think more about which one they want or deciding it's just simpler to keep with the product they were getting (My job though is more to be helpful and provide information than try to sell one certain product but if I needed to sell a certain product, you can be sure if I was a good saleswoman I wouldn't be going into too much detail on all the info I could give them and just stick to some selling points).
You are better off not giving them a ton of information/choice if you want to make the sale.
That's not saying it's great for the consumer, but to successfully market something, it is better for the person trying to sell. And yes, Apple is trying to sell you something. Don't go fooling yourself that in the end their goal isn't to try to sell as much as possible. In general making good products and building a good reputation for customer service is more because that is their strategy in making more money (by trying to keep people loyal and coming back to them).
How on earth does anyone make their mind up on which iPod to buy? I mean should I get the Classic or maybe the Nano, OMG what about the Touch. I think my head is going to explode!!!!!!!!!!
I guess I must have dreamt the past 25 years when I was a Product/Marketing Manager for some of the world's biggest IT and Consumer Electronics companies.
You clearly have no idea how this works. It's called Product Differentiation. You set out a product road map on which you place the products in sequence: entry level, mid range and high end. This is why you have a 13", 15" and 17" MBP models or 8GB, 32GB and 64GB iPod Touch or 3 iPhones (3GS, 4 and 4S).
Then you draw people in with the headline price on the entry level device and while they are in store you try and up sell them to the midrange or top end model. It's lesson one in the sales manual. I should know I've trained enough sales people over the years.
You then "communicate" that road map in a clear and concise manner by putting the products next to each other so the buyers can see for themselves what the differences are.
Eventually there will be a larger iPad with a screen approx the size of an A4 sheet thereby completing the 3 product circle: iPad 7, iPad 10, iPad 13.
This is what I don't get - why is it ridiculous? Clearly there is a market for it which means it would probably sell very well. You and people like you seem to take the approach that because you don't want it nobody else's view matters. Apple has always sought to diversify their products to appeal to a larger and larger audience. I don't have a need for the 27" iMac. I think it's way too big but I don't think they should stop selling it because clearly some people have a need for it. The iPad is NEVER going to be a post-PC device if we only ever have the one version. A one size fits all approach. Even Apple with its belief in limited product range doesn't believe that or they wouldn't have at least 2 or 3 versions of almost every product they sell.
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iPad or iPad Mini. 2 products. It's hardly that difficult to chose. It's no different to choosing a 13", 15" or 17" MacBook. I don't hear anyone complaining about that.
Zzzzzz... Zzzzzzzz...
25 years ago, there was barely any internet access to the general public.
And the whole technology market has changed dramatically in the past 10 years or less.
Dream on about iPad 13"... LOL! What have you been smoking???
You're probably one of those pushy salesmen people dislike...
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Finally someone that understands. I was in sales for several years and I really hated it! But I learned how it all works the hard way, first hand experience, not by reading a book or being trained by an old fart salesman.
How would they undercut themselves? If Apple sold smaller iPads and people who would have chosen the fire over the ipad because of its size buy it then it only makes sense to go after that market. They can still make the same $ from the sale of a 7 ipad as they do on a 10 ipad. They would simply expand their market share not cut into their own market share.
Not everyone wants a 10" tablet.Here's why..
As an educator who has been involved in a one-to-one iPad deployment in our district, I see a great need for an iPad that is more affordable than the current pricing for the iPad 3 or even the discounted 2. If Apple want iPads to be the universal learning device that Jobs envisioned and run e-text books, the price needs to come in closer to $200. A mini version might fit the bill.
I will be advising our district not to purchase any more iPads until we see where this is heading.
As an educator who has been involved in a one-to-one iPad deployment in our district, I see a great need for an iPad that is more affordable than the current pricing for the iPad 3 or even the discounted 2. If Apple want iPads to be the universal learning device that Jobs envisioned and run e-text books, the price needs to come in closer to $200. A mini version might fit the bill.
I will be advising our district not to purchase any more iPads until we see where this is heading.
It will be called the iTouch.
No more iPod Touch.
It would be between the iPhone and iPad.
iPhone 4"
iTouch 7"
iPad 10"
Perfect mobile device between a phone and tablet for on the go. Give it the ability of both the phone and iPad with a voice plan if you want it and also LTE. Give it a good camera.
The iPhone still maintains the dominance of the phone market. The iPad maintains the dominance of the home/work tablet and larger size for doing actual work and the iTouch would dominate the space between which is sorta the mobile device for on the go, train, bus, along with having the ability to be a good camera/recorder and actually be better for taking pictures and video while not looking like a dork holding a 10" tablet up.
Clearly a 7.85" iPad would have UI elements exactly the same size as the iPhone so the tap targets would be the same size. However, iPads are typically held much farther away than iPhones meaning that the entire UI would look smaller than on an iPhone. That decreases usability.
To me the big question is "what is the market for a smaller iPad?"
Is it more portable?
No, it still needs to be carried in a bag but won't fit in most purses.
Is it easier to hold?
Yes, it would be lighter
Is it easier to read?
No, everything would be smaller so many people would be forced to hold it at an uncomfortably close distance or wear glasses.
Would it get the same battery life?
No, the battery would be significantly smaller so unless they crippled the speed and took out LTE the battery life would be noticeably worse.
So we aren't going to see a smaller iPad unless and until Apple thinks it's OK for the iPad mini to be a crippled version of the full size one. The fact that an iPad Mini would cannibalize sales of the iPad makes it even less likely to happen.
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5"-6" ereaders sell because they're cheap, light and small enough to fit in many purses. They're a good substitute for paper books and few, if any, expect them to be anything else.
Apple has shown no interest in a product the size of an ereader that would use a third UI in between the iPhone and iPad. They couldn't compete against ereaders on price or weight and they'd have to convince developers to make a 3rd version of their apps with little chance of increasing sales by enough to compensate.
Probably the biggest hurdle facing a "tweener" device is that it would be competing against both the iPhone and iPad. The last thing Apple wants is to convert two sales into one.
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Where I live people wear outerwear 11 months of the year so we almost always have large pockets for carrying a device that's bigger than an iPhone. To me a "tweener" paired with a MacBook is the perfect solution for someone who needs to work on the go and a "tweener" plus a desktop Mac is the perfect solution if you have a desk job. A large phone/small tablet seems perfect to me because the vast majority of mobile data is consumption not creation. A bigger screen is much better for almost all non-telephone uses of the device. If you need to use it as a phone, something people are doing less and less every month, use earbuds or a bluetooth headset.
I realize that few people here and probably nobody in Cupertino agrees with me and I'm totally OK with that.
To me the big question is "what is the market for a smaller iPad?"
Is it more portable?
No, it still needs to be carried in a bag but won't fit in most purses.
Is it easier to hold?
Yes, it would be lighter
Is it easier to read?
No, everything would be smaller so many people would be forced to hold it at an uncomfortably close distance or wear glasses.
Would it get the same battery life?
No, the battery would be significantly smaller so unless they crippled the speed and took out LTE the battery life would be noticeably worse.
So we aren't going to see a smaller iPad unless and until Apple thinks it's OK for the iPad mini to be a crippled version of the full size one. The fact that an iPad Mini would cannibalize sales of the iPad makes it even less likely to happen.
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5"-6" ereaders sell because they're cheap, light and small enough to fit in many purses. They're a good substitute for paper books and few, if any, expect them to be anything else.
Apple has shown no interest in a product the size of an ereader that would use a third UI in between the iPhone and iPad. They couldn't compete against ereaders on price or weight and they'd have to convince developers to make a 3rd version of their apps with little chance of increasing sales by enough to compensate.
Probably the biggest hurdle facing a "tweener" device is that it would be competing against both the iPhone and iPad. The last thing Apple wants is to convert two sales into one.
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Where I live people wear outerwear 11 months of the year so we almost always have large pockets for carrying a device that's bigger than an iPhone. To me a "tweener" paired with a MacBook is the perfect solution for someone who needs to work on the go and a "tweener" plus a desktop Mac is the perfect solution if you have a desk job. A large phone/small tablet seems perfect to me because the vast majority of mobile data is consumption not creation. A bigger screen is much better for almost all non-telephone uses of the device. If you need to use it as a phone, something people are doing less and less every month, use earbuds or a bluetooth headset.
I realize that few people here and probably nobody in Cupertino agrees with me and I'm totally OK with that.
If you bothered to read my posts you would see that I am not a sales person. I have been a Product Manager and a Marketing Manager for a number of multi-national IT companies over the years. One of many tasks was to train sales people how to sell to idiot know it alls like you.
You're that guy in the Samsung ads aren't you. "I could never buy Samsung coz I'm a creative" "Dude you're a barista". I bet you're a barista aren't you or a college kid who thinks they know it all even though they've never done a hard day’s work in their life.
Edit: Oh no wait you're a shop assistant aren't you. Probably one of those geeks in a PC store who try and pretend that they know what they are talking about to bemused customers. Why did you quit? Didn't sell much? Should have listened to your product training lol.
Wow, I can see you just sit on a desk on a top floor pretending to manage sales teams while watching porn all day.
How can you manage something you don't know? To manage a sales team you need to be a salesman first. And if you were, that was too long ago.
And your guesses on who I am were all wrong; I know who I am, and have nothing to worry about. All I know is I shook up your english pride enough to get you worried about your own identity and make you mad.
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You make a lot of good points.
I agree on the need to get to ereader size to get to the portability benefit. I question the above quote in that it's trivial to adjust the viewing distance from "typical iPhone" to "typical iPad" .... especially if we're talking about the one handed ereader size.
It might take a little while to technologicaly get the full iPad functionality into an ereader size -- but it will get there.
And yes, good eyesight/glasses will come in handy
I completely follow your argument, but it's wrong for one very important reason: the part where you said that "developers still get the whole benefit of being able to easily remake apps by doubling the pixels on their iPhone 4 app screens". Apple would never encourage developers to simply use their iPhone apps (with higher resolution assets) as proper apps made for a 7.85" device. iPhone apps are less information-dense than iPad apps. Tim Cook even publicly called out Android tablets as being lame because their "tablet-optimized" apps were simply mobile apps with the information density of a mobile app.
A second point: I see that you point out that the rumored pixel density of 163.06 ppi (of the hypothetical iPad mini) is slightly different than the 164.83 ppi pixel density of the non-retina iPhone. But that fact doesn't damage the rumor at all. Here's why: the "7.85 inch" number that everyone is throwing around likely stems from somebody seeing something that they weren't supposed to see, or somebody obtaining something that they were supposed to obtain. The true size of the hypothetical device could actually be something like 7.83 inches, which easily could get rounded up to 7.85 inches if your ruler isn't precise enough. If you're a hypothetical factory worker looking to leak some Apple rumors, are you really going to get so precise as to say that it's a 7.85" device rather than a 7.83" device? Probably not. You might not have time on the factory line to whip out your extra extra precise ruler to distinguish two hundredths of an inch. Plus those kinds of numbers get rounded up to the nearest .05 inch all the time in products' published tech specs. And that tiny discrepancy between, say, 7.83" and 7.85" is enough to explain the very slightly different numbers for ppi that you noted.
Finally, my last counterargument is that you're forgetting the strongest aspect of this rumor: by preserving the same displays being used for manufacturing iPhone 3GS's, but cutting them out in 7.85 inch rectangles rather than 3.5 inch rectangles, Apple saves an enormous amount in the bill of materials by avoiding the costly retooling process. That means that a 7.85" iOS device with a 1024x768 resolution will cost only slightly more to manufacture than what it would cost to make a non-retina iPod Touch that has the same guts as a current-gen iPod Touch.
Did everyone get that? Let me repeat:
A 7.85" iOS device with a 1024x768 resolution will cost only slightly more to manufacture than what it would cost to make a non-retina iPod Touch.
We are getting into $200-250 price territory here, and that's only possible because at 1024x768 resolution combined with 7.85" diagonal size you hit the magic ppi of 163.
It is a dirt-cheap display for Apple to manufacture because they've been making them for last 5+ years.
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You get the award for most underrated post in this whole thread. Everyone seems to be assuming that the 7.85 inch device must be some sort of small iPad, and thus must have a fat bezel like an iPad.
This could very easily be a 7.85 inch device with no bezel at all, since at that size the device does become one-handable and pocketable. Remember folks, the only reason the iPad has a fat bezel in the first place is because you can't hold it with one hand. Everyone's making the mistake of comparing a 9.7" device to a 7.85" device, when really they should be comparing the true size of the iPad (11.75" with bezel) to a no-bezel iPod that measures 7.85". The difference is much more astounding when you account for the bezel.
A 7.85 inch device with no bezel is (a) perfectly one-handable and, (b) pocketable. These two aspects are what categorically differentiates the 9.7 inch iPad from the 7.85 inch "new iPod"--it's what differentiates how you use the device and whether you bring it with you. Phil Schiller will be sure to hammer that in our heads during the announcement.
It is a dirt-cheap display for Apple to manufacture because they've been making them for last 5+ years.
They arent going to go back to a lower res screen after coming out with products that push the Retina...if they do this, it will be Retina.
And that, quite frankly, is the only singular good counterargument to everything I've been saying. Perhaps that's exactly the kind of decision Apple is weighing right now behind closed doors:
"We could make a 7.85" iPod today at non-retina resolution and make a healthy margin, OR we could wait two years when the price of 326 ppi sheets of LCD displays go down to make a 7.85" iPod with retina resolution and make a healthy margin".
There is some profit lost by deferring two years of revenue, and also some strategic capital lost as well.
Remember, perhaps offering a cheap 7.85" NON-retina display device today offers a good upgrade path to a retina display iPad, in the same way that Apple in the mid-2000s strategically positioned the iPod shuffle as a gateway drug for the iPod nano. But I concede that the decision may go the other way; that the 7.85" device should be delayed for two years in order to be able to launch it with retina resolution from the get-go. There's probably a heated debate going-on between Tim Cook and Jony Ive as we speak
But regardless, my point that I keep going back to is that 7.85" is the magic size for this hypothetical device for all the reasons I previously stated in my above posts--all my arguments apply equally to both a 163 ppi or 326 ppi device. A 7.85" device has the magic diagonal size that allows for (a) repurposing the display sheets used for making 3.5" iPhones, be they retina or non-retina, thus preserving a low cost, and (b) maintaining exactly the same-sized tap-targets as an iPhone app when an iPad app is scaled down to 7.85", thus preserving touch usability.
Or, Apple could say screw-it, let's make the retina resolution 7.85" iPod today, but sell it for $300 instead of $200.
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My point (nor the point of the post I was replying to) had nothing to do with that. It wasn't arguing that we shouldn't be given a choice. It's explaining why Apple doesn't like to offer too many choices from a marketing point of view. Please don't confuse the two.
We all know that Apple likes to keep things simple with a limited product range but in this instance I don't really think that offering 2 products (the iPad and the iPad Mini) is going to confuse anyone.
Never. Going. To. Happen.
It doesn't matter if the pixel math adds up....
Does Apple need an intermediate-sized device in its lineup? NO.
Are users complaining about and rejecting the unwieldy size of the current iPad, clamoring for a smaller size? NO.
Do the thousands of app developers want their apps -- which they've meticulously designed -- to suddenly be a shrunken experience, even if it does still meet the human interface guidelines? NO.
NEVER. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.
It doesn't matter if the pixel math adds up....
Does Apple need an intermediate-sized device in its lineup? NO.
Are users complaining about and rejecting the unwieldy size of the current iPad, clamoring for a smaller size? NO.
Do the thousands of app developers want their apps -- which they've meticulously designed -- to suddenly be a shrunken experience, even if it does still meet the human interface guidelines? NO.
NEVER. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.
Wow, I can see you just sit on a desk on a top floor pretending to manage sales teams while watching porn all day.
How can you manage something you don't know? To manage a sales team you need to be a salesman first. And if you were, that was too long ago.
And your guesses on who I am were all wrong; I know who I am, and have nothing to worry about. All I know is I shook up your english pride enough to get you worried about your own identity and make you mad.
I can see you have never worked in a big organisation. As a Product Manager I would train various teams around the world including local sales/marketing teams, product support, installation, training, etc. We are talking enterprise systems worth millions of dollars. We're talking product training rather than how to sell something. The local sales people were the best in the business earning big money. If necessary I would fly in to deliver board level presentations to major corporate clients.
I'm not mad my friend and honestly I don't care what you think. I run my own successful business now and make a lot of money doing it. I'm perfectly happy with who I am and what I've achieved in my career believe me.
i personally would like to see a smaller iPad that could fit in a big pocket or something. but come on, give us a retina display