Apple launches new high-capacity 128GB Retina display iPad - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 


MBA - larger screen, faster CPU, more RAM, runs desktop apps
iPad - Cell phone capability, portability

I really suspect that the decision is not as difficult as it seems for most people. I believe that most people who walk into an Apple Store (or Best Buy or whatever) intend to buy a tablet or a laptop and that very few actually switch from one to the other. Of course, many people will have both, but for any given purchase, I just don't see that many people who have trouble deciding.

What the f*ck are you talking about?

CPU and RAM? Who cares about that sh*t? iOS is so well coded that an iPad 4 runs circles around any computer on the market today, unless you need Computer-only tasks, making this 1vs1 stupid. Larger screen? Who cares about it when the iPad has "the" screen?

Who cares about desktops apps when you have apps designed just for your iPad? What about battery life?

Unless you need a trully fast laptop for some use (think the best of them all, a rMBP 15) the iPad is the best computer on the market today.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlm8283 

128 GB is great, but the cost is gonna keep me away. I can afford it don't get me wrong, but why pay for something that in about 6 months it will be obsolete with the new new iPad.

The next iPad will be obsolete in an other 6 months. It's frightening isn't it. If you think like that you will grow very old before you buy any new iPad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by techno 

Apple is flooding the market with products and therefore diluting the enthusiasm. No more secrecy = no more suspense = no more cult.

So you think secrecy=leaks and rumors. Now see with this one they fulfilled their claim for secrecy 99.5%. No one saw this coming so soon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lightknight 

I need that. It's actually amazing how fast storage memory gets hoggled up when you have N versions of multiple multimedia projects...

I do think this is the bigger deal for non creatives.  My guess is the enterprise sales types are effectively loading 100's of presentations onto their iPads, and this is driving the update, to compete with netbook/ultrabook options.  

And looking at the pricing discounts, we are now seeing a pricing crossover between macbook airs and the iPad 128.   This is key.  I'm guessing the total ROI on an iPad (cellular kickbacks, app sales, media sales) is now greater on iPad than the MBA (more moving parts, more warranty repair, less downstream sales).

Any bets that the MBA 11 is likely a dead product?

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 


What is the extent of corporate discounts (if any)? How do you know? (Mine gets zero, for instance).

Corp discounts kick in at 100 units on a P.O.  It's not much, (10%), and it's my understanding that it's greater if you go higher.   The bigger discounts for business are for free/reduced iOS developer/support training for fewer purchases (I was seeing 3 free training classes for up to 10 developers each, paired with a purchase of 20 pilot/development iPads and 5 iPod Touchs and a couple iPhones).   Apple wants enterprises to become dependent on custom iOS applications (my project was building custom sales support apps... porting financial services apps from HTML/.Net/Flash/PDF/Word (ugly).  The pilot systems (50) were at full cost, but the dev team got a lot of free development support/training.

Why didn't Apple launch this last year when they launched 4th gen iPad? Doing it now seems more like a reaction to the stock; throwing something out there to get margins back up.  It just seems like such a random thing to do. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by techno 

Apple is flooding the market with products and therefore diluting the enthusiasm. No more secrecy = no more suspense = no more cult.

I bet you read this somewhere...

Quote:

Originally Posted by ricanator 

This announcement seems weird. Kind of out of cycle, in the dead of the night sometime before 5:30AM Cupertino time. Anybody got any insight as to why?

Tuesday is a pretty normal day if you look at general 'soft launch' announcements (basically just component upgrades of existing systems) of years past. 

Just before US market and most stores opening.     and Chinese stores are closing.  Probably the best time in the 'Sun Never On the iOS Empire' world of Apple.

Gives the Retail staff time to 'info up' for the next sales day.

As for 'out of cycle' I see February/March, 'Corporate' device announcement time.  Corporate POs for orders go out March-April, after February confirmation of year end numbers.  This announcement is less out of cycle for those types.  Allows them to decide whether to change orders to increase spending for increased capacity.  Doing it early may portent that the 'S' versions of iPads will now be in the Spring, along with '.1' releases of SW.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rogifan 

Why didn't Apple launch this last year when they launched 4th gen iPad? Doing it now seems more like a reaction to the stock; throwing something out there to get margins back up.  It just seems like such a random thing to do. 

I remember someone saying that no matter what Apple does now there will be someone who is skeptical and someone who will bitch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by island hermit 

I remember someone saying that no matter what Apple does now there will be someone who is skeptical and someone who will bitch.

Definitely not my experience.

Usually is way more than one of both.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rogifan 

Why didn't Apple launch this last year when they launched 4th gen iPad? Doing it now seems more like a reaction to the stock; throwing something out there to get margins back up.  It just seems like such a random thing to do. 

Not stock market related, not random.

128GB is likely targeted at corporate purchases (for 99% of consumer iPad users, 128GB is superfluous storage as it's really for 'offline' use.  corp users require 100% availability of information, and if you don't support flash drives as a 'failsafe backup' you need local storage).  

My guess is that Apple is now switching to a  Fall iDevice 'for the masses' announcement, and this is just the spring 'Corporate Config' announcement for the same set of devices.  February/March is when procurement budgets are set based last quarter's/year's final numbers, and setting this option up allows them to budget (and then pay) for it.

Less stock driven, more corporate sales cycle driven.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by island hermit 

I remember someone saying that no matter what Apple does now there will be someone who is skeptical and someone who will bitch.

Well doing it last year when they updated the iPad 3 would seem to make more sense.  Or waiting until the next iPad event (unless this means we're not getting another event until the fall).  This seems more like reacting to the stock and throwing something out there to get ASP's and margins up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlm8283 


Sorry bout that happy fingers. Yes businesses and yes apple corporations and any corporations for that matter would disagree with me, but I'm talking about the consumer. Now there will probably be the elite few 1% of the consumer population that will get it just to say that they have it.

Only Apple knows what the sales mix of various RAM capacities are currently, as well as what the trends are. Because this product now exists, I suspect Apple sees a developing demand for it. 

On a side note: My first Apple product has a whopping 128K of RAM. What difference 30 years makes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh 

Too expensive! Wow. I have a 64GB iPad which is getting pretty full, but an extra $430 from the "base" price is just too much. Not quite sure why the base model is still 16GB (especially for the iPad), and I think it is good to up the maximum storage... just think the price needs to be a little more grounded for people to be able to justify upgrading later on.

Agreed.  For the price one may as well buy a MacBook Air.  It's just as portable and much more useful.  

I also find it hard to believe that 128 GB is costing Apple any more than 64 GB did a few years ago.  It's not like they're using MLC Toggle NAND in these iPads, it's just slow flash memory that's dirt cheap.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aizmov 

I hope by the iPad 5, Apple drops the 16GB model and make the 32GB the entry model at $499.

I would rather they keep it and lower the price by a hundred dollars instead.  

Until they allow us to merge our devices and just use one for all purposes, all I need on my iPad is documents which take almost no space at all.  My music can stay on my phone.  16GB is more than enough for some. 

Ooooohhhhhh..... I love this!

Flesh out the product line!  Release product when ready, Gridley!  Keep 'em guessing!

Well played!

Hmmm... Now what new software could be brought to the iPad requiring that capacity?

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 

You do realize that there is more than storage capacity there, right? 

Um, yeah.

Quote:

Originally Posted by antkm1 

I've always said the two things keeping me from storing my music/podcasts on my phone is max storage, and eyes-free UI.  They're about 1/3 of the way from me dropping my iPod classic but still no dice.  I'd love to have that all-in-one experience, but the touch interface of the iPhone/pod touch just doesn't cut it.  So with that, I still say they need to update the iPod classic to SSD.  Now that they have 128gb chips in the iPad, I don't see why not.  I'll take a 32gb drop if i could have a thinner, lighter high capacity iPod Classic.  Plus it would justify the $249 price tag of the Classic.  The Nano's UI is just not eyes-free enough, and the home button is too far to the bottom of the device and awkward to reach for.

I guess it was obvious that the very first moment the iPod touches reached the same capacity as the Classic, that some other excuse would pop up.  

- the iPod classic will never be updated with SSD

- they will never really make another Volkswagen Beetle

- Vinyl records won't be making a comeback

- Bluejeans have actually been out of style for many years. 

In short, nothing is forever. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlm8283 

128 GB is great, but the cost is gonna keep me away. I can afford it don't get me wrong, but why pay for something that in about 6 months it will be obsolete with the new new iPad.

One day I hope I'm as rich as you...

Quote:

Originally Posted by pedromartins 

What the f*ck are you talking about?

 

CPU and RAM? Who cares about that sh*t? iOS is so well coded that an iPad 4 runs circles around any computer on the market today, unless you need Computer-only tasks, making this 1vs1 stupid. Larger screen? Who cares about it when the iPad has "the" screen?

 

Who cares about desktops apps when you have apps designed just for your iPad? What about battery life?

 

Unless you need a trully fast laptop for some use (think the best of them all, a rMBP 15) the iPad is the best computer on the market today.

$70 differentiates an actual keyboard. As I type on my ipad, it's "ok"- but not even close to a keyboard. There is still plenty of room for the 11" MBA.  How bout the fact I can export from FileMaker on my air into a PDF to email. Can't do that on FileMaker go on the ipad.

To think "your" way is the only way is smug and arrogant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacCentric 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlm8283 

128 GB is great, but the cost is gonna keep me away. I can afford it don't get me wrong, but why pay for something that in about 6 months it will be obsolete with the new new iPad.

Buy something when you need it. Apple supports their devices better than any other company in the space. It has always been the case with technology that within a few months, something better will be out, but that does not take away from your device performing the tasks which you bought it for. If Apple didn't update the iPad with the A6X in Oct and waited until March, then all the holiday season buyers would have a lesser processor. I think it was a great and valuable move for Apple to update when they did.

Unlike Android, you also easily get new features for several years after purchase.

Best post of this thread!

Quote:

Originally Posted by pedromartins 

What the f*ck are you talking about?

 

CPU and RAM? Who cares about that sh*t? iOS is so well coded that an iPad 4 runs circles around any computer on the market today, unless you need Computer-only tasks, making this 1vs1 stupid. Larger screen? Who cares about it when the iPad has "the" screen?

 

Who cares about desktops apps when you have apps designed just for your iPad? What about battery life?

 

Unless you need a trully fast laptop for some use (think the best of them all, a rMBP 15) the iPad is the best computer on the market today.

I'm waiting for a bump in RAM so Photoshop Touch can handle images larger than 12 megapixels.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoxMacCary 

Wait a minute ....

Does this mean no new new iPads until October?!?

Aw, maaan ....

No!  It means Apple will release new products as technology becomes available and/or it is a business advantage to do so.

It's called "being agile".

Quote:

Originally Posted by techno 

Apple is flooding the market with products and therefore diluting the enthusiasm. No more secrecy = no more suspense = no more cult.

You forgot "and they're doing nothing to compete with the multiple phones from Samsung" as well as "Apple needs a cheap iPhone" and "Apple needs a bigger phone".

Damned if they do something, damned if they do nothing?

I suspect that the next version will be a lot lighter and possible smaller (smaller bezel) and thinner...

I just can't see any good reason to get this one with the next version most likely a few months away....

For those of you who thinks this marks the end of the iPod Classic. You're wrong. Yes it's time is limited. But, the iPod Classic has 160GB of storage. The iPad only has 128GB, it's still catching up. And it will be even longer before, Apple gets into iPhones or iPod Touches.