Apple's iPad mini already on pace to outsell Retina iPad - Page 4

Oh, no. I'm always wrong. Apple must have some other tricks up their sleeve. 

I was at the Apple Store yesterday and was really impressed with the mini. The look,thinness and weight was just perfect. Even my wife was impressed. I found the screen better than my iPad2 but obviously no where near the quality of the iPad 4. What you have in the mini is a glimpse of what the next full size iPad might be. Apple has a major hit with the mini.

Steve was probably right on target at that point in time, considering the technology that was available for volume production back then. Technology changes quickly, what was not possible or practical then at X price for Y features in just a matter of 2-3 years becomes not only feasible but desirable. Today's dreams becoming tomorrow's products happens rather quickly these days.

Mini is a new form factor for the IPAD and is only just available. The 9.7 IPAD form factor has been around for a while and has sold many.  It's hardly surprising that mini will outsell 9.7 IPAD this quarter.

 

In the long-run, will mini continue to outsell 9.7 IPAD?  It really depends on how Apple refine each form factor.  The ideal device would be one with portability and as big as a retina screen possible. 

I have an iPad 3 and a mini. What I would like is a 9.7 inch iPad Retina, the wight and thinness of a mini. I know, I know...

I'd say it was the cheaper price and lighter weight that was "perfect all along". It's the iPod nano all over again. People willing to sacrifice just a little for cheaper, more portable.

Disagree. The iPad was designed as a device to rival the netbooks and low performance, ultra portable notebook computers, and produce a user experience that was so much more portable, personal and intimate, yet extremely functional...that cold perform tasks every bit as well as a laptop of that class. And they knocked it out of the park.

The iPad mini, was designed to be similar in experience to the original, iPad. But with a focus on even more portability and a fairly string emphasis on entertainment, just watch the 2010 January keynote and compare it to this past September keynote and you'll see a pretty sharp difference in how each is marketed and designed.

My point is, Steve wasn't wrong when he said a 7" tablet is DOA because he might have been suggesting a 7" tablet [from anyone but Apple] is DOA...which, unless you copy the iPad (***roid) it just won't work. Not to mention the ipad mini is really more an 8" than 7" tablet.

My second point is referring to my above statements. If you try to make a 8" tablet that can function like a laptop, it's DitW. But if you design it for its size and purpose, it can be a huge hit.

At first, Apple had a very solid concept for the iPad, to take-on the Netbook craze. But it was the users that made the iPad into the massive entertainment device it is today, and that shift in mindset is clearly how Apple revised its strategy for the mini.

Now imagine how many iPhones with 5 inch screens will Apple sell if they only have the courage to launch such a phone!

That makes no sense, at all


Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Forget about the keyboard. That form factor is perfect for stylus. It's like electronic Planner that is also an e-book reader. In essence, Courier coming to life Apple-style.

It doesn't make sense to you because you lack courage and vision. It makes perfect sense to me and to millions other people who buy 5 inch and bigger phones right now. I didn't and I will not buy the current iPhone 5, but I would probably have bought it if it had a 5 inch display. I just don't care about operating the phone with one hand. The benefits of a much bigger display are overwhelming for me. Apple could just launch both a 4 inch and a 5 inch iPhone. Yes, two more sizes, so what? The developers who want to make money I'm sure they will modify their apps and make them as many sizes as needed. I know I would. Let the successful developer who would not modify his app for a 5 inch display raise his hand!

I was a little surprised by the removal of the 17". I think they didn't want to come up with a retina design for it. Other oems still make them. They often provide a high margin product, especially in specialized use cases such as gaming notebooks or mobile workstations. Apple doesn't really make an equivalent to either of these, as they don't do purpose built hardware. If the 17" was a niche item, it was likely due to high price and lack of differentiation. It was a general purpose machine with a high price and little differentiation from the 15" outside of real estate. During the powerbook era the most powerful hardware was coupled with the form factor. I forgot the 17" maintained the express card slot, but Apple didn't get a lot of card options there after it disappeared from the 15". I don't blame those companies. Express cards don't carry huge margins, so development costs may be difficult to recoup on a small market. I don't even know how they profit off some of those sub $50 esata cards.

 

 

I usually agree with you Phil, but not on this.

 

I want a phone with a 5"-ish screen for myself.

 

Tonight my wife told me that she wants the same phone our daughter has because it has a bigger screen making it easier to txt and play games.

 

The proliferation of big-screen phones I've seen on the train in the last three months tells me that LOTS of people want them and are BUYING them.

 

It's true that I may not be able to reach all the way across the screen with my thumb. Fortunately, I have two hands, and so do all those people who are using and apparently enjoying them.

If IPAD mini can happen, I won't be surprised if Apple designs and sell a larger iphone in future.

 

We have several sizes of Ipod, now we have 2 sizes for the tablets, I don't see why we won't have more than 1 iphone form factor.

 

Whatever the management believes at any one time, the marketplace and consumers change and good management will adapt to the customers.

 

Actually, the discounts only apply to the older iPad models, not the new one -- no real surprise there.

 

The big price slash on the iPhone5 is also not the first time this has happened; Walmart was discounting them on pre-order back in September. And the actual size of the discount really depends on the price of the two year contract that you HAVE to take out with the phone. I expect that Wal-Mart is seeing a cut of that. 

 

And I suspect that Wal-Mart probably isn't the go-to place for your typical Apple iPhone customer.

 

Why is it the 'give me five inches or give me death' brigade are always foaming at the mouth? It's very simple: Apple doesn't want to make a big-screen phone (for whatever reason); there are plenty of other companies that do; if having a big screen on your phone is the most important thing to you then just buy another phone.

 

No. It tells you that everyone else is too lazy to do any real research into design to miniaturize their parts. It tells you that Android is too uselessly power hungry, forcing phones to have larger batteries, forcing them to be larger. 

What heat? My iPad "3" barely gets warm. It's stone cold compared to standard laptops. And it's not noticeably warmer than my original iPad that it replaced.

Like Apple, you mean?

Most of them being cheaper has nothing to do with their choice?

TEHO

The market agrees with you! (colors are difficult to discern though)



Like I said, TEHO

If 5" is wanted, will a 6" or 7" also be great to you (all)? How about an iPad mini? Although that is not an 8" in that sense of measurement, because of the smaller bezel at the sides compared to the competition.

Ooh, these are good points. Well founded.

1) He lacks courage and vision? Really, that's what you're going with? Care to explain how he frightened by a 5" phone? Clearly it's not because wife wasn't killed by a one-arm man using a 5" phone... because a one-arm maned would need a phone that he can use comfortably with only one arm.

2) It's great that it's what you want. He never claimed there are people that don't want and love larger phones. That doesn't mean it's a market Apple would be interested in. You mention millions. What is your proof? What research have you down to show that this would be a market that is worthwhile for Apple? An installed base of a few million isn't going to cut it when you consider how many units Apple sells a year. Then you need to consider how the OS, apps and SDK need to be altered for this new resolution. You need to consider how this will affect the App Store, developers, and customers. Did you think of all this stuff? If so, you didn't post it. Where is your resolution for this device? Surely you aren't suggesting the current resolution be blown up to 5". Where do you get two more sizes when you are suggesting just adding a 5" device? Where have you even begun to scratch the surface of a cost analysis? All you've done is imply that because you want it Apple should do it. That's not vision, that's just being self-serving.


Sure, the advantages of a bigger display are clear but you need to look at the disadvantages of them. I personally don't want a bigger device. That's why I'm quite happy with the iPhone 5 as I got a bigger display but a smaller and lighter device. They even went one step further by not making it wider so the thumb sweep still works as expected. If they make a bigger display in a smaller device that is still highly functional in one hand then I'm all for it but don't stick in a larger display for its own sake while ignoring the rest of the device's characteristics.

I can't get my gf to agree to upgrading to the 27 inches because "we don't have enough space". 40 inches? Never in this appartment.

They also started getting really huge when they started putting in power hungry LTE. I would think that we'll start some smaller Android phones with LTE now that the 3rd gen chips are out.

 

The point of being an erarly adopter is to get stuff, well, early. You can't have the butter, the cream, and the dairy girl.

 

Was just about to mention first-generation LTE, too, but Solipsism beat me to it.

 

You ought to take her to an Apple Store and show her the size of a 27". When it's all vertical, space is less of a concern. Though I guess… well, I have a very small house, but it'd be large by European standards; I just can't fathom an apartment size too small for a 27" screen.

 

Ah, pipped (that's the term, right?) .

How about having a real keyboard attached to an iPad? Could call that a Macbook Air or something :p

9 square meters floor, two stories high (but top one is kind of cramped due to shower + bed). Welcome to Paris :D

 

Irrelevant. If he lacks vision, screen size doesn't matter at all.

 

 

 

 

Sorry, couldn't help it.

It is...

I don't have a mini but if Apple can make the 9.7" iPad in the form factor of the mini I'll be the first in line to buy it.

Ah but didn't you know that making things bigger is innovative but making things thinner and lighter is no big deal.

Maybe, but that doesn't explain all of it. I'd like a higher end Mini and would gladly pay more for it than the 9.7" as its all about size and weight to me.

The display looks great... That is an old and tired argument.
next gen will probably still be 1024x768, but the 3rd will be Retina. The tech just isn't there for retina right now unless it performs horribly, or is bigger.

That's code for "get rid of some of your other junk before buying more bigger junk"

 

That was just GG's way of saying that small Android tablets were better than the iPad. But, you are right, of course, this is about price more than it is about size. (And, as we know, the mini is significantly larger in screen real estate than the 7" "widescreen" tablets he is referring to.)

I completely agree on this one.  The main reason I have a Galaxy Nexus instead of a 4s is the 4.6" screen is just easier to read....period...  In fact I would still chose the larger android phones over the iPhone 5 for this reason.  It is the extra width of the screen that makes the difference.  THis is the exact same argument of why the IPad Mini is more readable than the Nexus 7....  And at least for me, price has NOTHING to do with it...

 

Like it or not Apple is losing a significant amount of phone sales to larger display phones period....

 

Phones are not tablets, so applying the same considerations to them regarding size doesn't make sense. That a significant number of oversized phones are being sold, doesn't mean, "Apple is losing a significant amount of phone sales to larger display phones." Many of those are sold to people who buy them for ideological reasons. Many more are sold to people who walk into carrier stores and have whatever the carrier wants to push that week shoved down their throat. (And, there's no point arguing that that isn't happening, it is.) In both case, this isn't an iPhone sale lost, and it certainly had nothing to do with a larger screen being preferred. If you want to push that claim, bring some evidence.

The iPad mini is the cheap low-end into Apple's ecosystem; it was expected to fare well for that reason all along. Most people are cheap, they buy Apple mainly for the status, as evidenced by the number of Wi-Fi-only 16GB 9.7" iPads out there. The may be anecdotal evidence, but only other person I know who has a 64Gb iPad with cellular connectivity besides me is my cousin, and that's because his iPad 2 was mine and I sold it to him at half-price when the iPad 3 came out.

Incidentally this, is why precedents like these shouldn't happen. Good technology gets killed this way, as the mass market doesn't care about it. That's essentially what happened to the LCD market, where all IPS and VA panels with less than 27" disappeared because below such sizes people were only looking for cheap TN stuff. Let us hope that Apple does not stop making 9.7" iPads because of this, and that developers don't lower their quality standards with the more popular 7.8" models in mind. Having played Infinity Blade 2 and Need For Speed Most Wanted on the iPad recently, I fear that games like those may end up being the apogee of gaming on iOS.

The JooJoo was 12.1" and that already seems too big to hold comfortably for any length of time.

There is a lot of bezel in the JooJoo... so you could probably get a 13" screen in that same size device.

But... that's still over 1 foot tall at 12.7 inches. And no matter how thin you make it... with that much screen area it would be a heavy device.

Bigger is better, right? I'm not so sure with tablets.

 

All of that may be true, but largely irrelevant because people are BUYING them. LOTS of people. So, if Apple can bring to bear that formidable arsenal of design skills on a phone with a larger screen, it can win back those who are choosing to forego the advantages of an iPhone in order to get the feature they consider most important.

 

 

When polled, size was one of the least important features.

 

I'm guessing that $$$ was the most important consideration for the majority of those people buying a larger phone.

 

Ah, the future. What wonders you can bring.

 

 

And this means what? They're not using them. The devices are trash. They're disposable. They're one-use-and-gone. They're the phone equivalent of the disposable razor blade that you slip in the razor disposal slot in the wall of the really, REALLY seedy and disgusting motel when you're done using them. 

 

Does that date me? How many places have razor disposal slots anymore?

 

People are buying them because they're cheap-as-free™. They're buying them because they don't understand you don't need a Mac to use an iPhone. They're buying them because they're the only thing advertised, so they're the only thing they know about. They're buying them because they're something that isn't an Apple product. They're buying them because salesmen sell Android over the iPhone.

 

And yes, they're buying them because they do things that Apple products don't. That's the Linux crowd. The people who buy Android devices because iOS is "too restrictive" are the same people (and the same NUMBER of people) that go with Linux because Windows and OS X are "too restrictive". 

 

Unless you are among those who wish iPads had phone capability. Some months ago I mentioned that one of my co-workers was using his iPad with headphones when his iPhone rang and he had to pull out his earbuds, put down the iPad, pick up the iPhone and have his conversation. Obviously not a big deal, but it occurred to us then that it would be cool to be able to just take that call on the iPad.

 

There are, of course, some pretty significant limitations involved in using an iPad as a phone, including not being able to conveniently carry it around in your pocket or hold it to your ear, but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for something smaller than a 9.7" iPad but bigger than a 4" iPhone.