Future of iPad mini
I've seen several reports and comments suggesting the mini will be discontinued. Alternatively, that it won't receive the pro treatment. I'm interested in your thoughts on this. I currently have a mini 2 and like the smaller, paperback size form factor. However, given the amount of reading and annotating I do on it I would like the new True Tone display on the 9.7" pro and the option to attach a smart keyboard. I realise it wouldn't be usable regularly but it would be a benefit on the occasions I want to note/write something and have left the macbook at home. So what do you see the future of the mini being? Does it have one?
Comments
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160127005552/en/Global-Tablet-Shipments-Fell-Double-Digits-Time
"The release of iPad Pro in the final quarter of 2015 only made limited contribution to Apple’s shipments because the device fell under the high-end segment in terms of specs and price range. The shipments of iPad mini product line last year are projected to reach 20 million units, accounting for an estimated 41% of Apple’s overall tablet shipments."
It is a good size for certain use cases like for doctors/nurses and on flights, here they are used for taking payments and looking at data:
https://www.jetblue.com/mobile/apple-pay/
"To complete the Apple Pay experience, our 3,500 inflight crewmembers will be given iPad mini tablets. These iPad minis will also allow inflight crewmembers to access flight data to further ensure the best possible experience for customers onboard."
It's a good size and price for kids:
Having Pencil support would be good for kids to be able to draw with, maybe they'd be best securing the end cap to avoid swallowing. A smart keyboard cover might be a bit cramped for adults to use and it would be an expensive add-on if parents were buying for kids but there are already 3rd party keyboards for the mini.
It seems like Apple is trying to make the highest priced iPads the most compelling first to get the margins up and gradually bringing the features to lower models. Having good accessories for their lower-end models would improve margins though. For the mini, they'd probably make as much profit from the sale of a keyboard cover as they would from the iPad so it would be like selling two iPad minis.
The iPad mini is most likely here to stay. Whether it gets the accessories and display features depends on the manufacturing cost vs potential sales. The sales volume of the mini depends a lot on price and adding those extras would only appeal to a lower volume of buyers.
One day, they might only sell iPad Pro models in 3 screen sizes and discontinue the other models. The iPad Pro has a $150 premium over the standard iPad just now. That will gradually lower over time.
Making the iPad easier to control without touching the display would help sell them as replacement devices for standard computers. A feature that could improve this on the iPad would be having 3D sensor bars up and down the top and bottom ends of the device. These would project a lozenge shape sensor field in a forward-facing arc. Whether the iPad is lying flat or in a stand, the field would detect hand movement on either side for right and left hands and contact with a nearby surface.
These would display finger points as semi transparent circles on the display that disappear when the hand isn't making any gestures. This would behave like a trackpad but without the trackpad being needed. It would also be able to detect taps on the side of the device for games. There can be added gestures too. The split view can be extended to be a large horizontal strip of apps (just two on-screen at once, a bit like Spaces) and you would be able to slide the whole series of panels left and right and reorder the position of panels. Reordering the panels could be done in multi-tasking view or just something like double-3-finger tap and single finger slide.
OS X can work in a similar way so that universal apps can be made. They'd need to ditch the mouse and cursor, make the menu bar static with a hover gesture over the top left to make a sidebar and get rid of windowing. The Finder would be a sidebar on the right, more of a core service than an app.
The more that people integrate iOS devices into their daily usage, there will be more demand to cover productive tasks and with the mini being a high enough volume iPad model, it makes sense for Apple to add features and accessories to it. It's not clear when they will update the different iPad models. It looks like they are staggering updates in order to counter having a steep drop in sales. If they do them all at once, people will flood in to buy at launch and then the longer upgrade cycle will quickly drop sales of incremental updates. September is the most likely time for the next round of updates so we'll see if the mini gets any Pro treatment.
The iPad Mini has a future. It's a good size for those that need a 'good bit' extra than an iPhone+. For those that don't need a 'regular' iPad as in 'too big.'
Kid friendly. Handbag friendly. Limited space friendly. Very convenient size.
I'm after the iPad Pro m'self...once it gets the A10 cpu. Looking for the screen improvements from the recent iPad Pro update too.
Lemon Bon Bon.
as for the A10 CPU I'm hoping we will see it across the board in all of Apples iOS devices as I'm thinking seriously about a new iPad. The problem is I really can't justify the price structure on IPad Pro and Apple being the idiots they are screwed over the mainstream iPad. Frankly this is why I often wish for a decent tablet running Linux.
This is desire on Apples part to let products languish though is why I'm not certain at all as to what will happen to the Mini. The right thing to do would be to give in the A10 upgrade with the next rev. However I can see Apple f'ing this up and then wondering why sales went into the crapper. In other words my confidence is low that Apple will do the right thing with the Mini.
The he really big question with A10 is this: will it be the big performance boost we have seen in previous revs. Serously, it doesn't look like we will see a process shrink this year which could mean modest performance gains out of A10. A10 might not be as good as some want.