Apple kicks off sales of cellular-enabled iPad mini in China
Apple on Friday started sales of its iPad mini Wi-Fi + Cellular in China, keeping to the company's planned rollout in the country announced earlier this week.
With the device's rollout, China now has access to Apple's complete lineup of cellular-enabled mobile devices which include the latest iPhone 5 and fourth-generation iPad. Apple announced on Monday that Chinese customers would be able to purchase the cell data network-connected iPad mini on Friday local China time.
China is widely viewed as a key player in Apple's growth over the coming years, especially in regard to handsets and tablets. The country's number one carrier China Mobile is also the world's largest wireless provider by subscribership, but Apple has yet to strike a partnership deal with telecom. Currently, the Cupertino, Calif., company has two partner carriers in the region with China Telecom and China Unicom, both of which provide service for the iPhone and cellular-enabled iPads.
It remains to be seen how strong demand will be for the wireless iPad mini in China, but the Wi-Fi version's launch in December was relatively quiet compared to previous device launches mostly due to the institution of a reservation-only purchasing system.
Prices for the wireless iPad mini, dubbed iPad mini WLAN + Cellular, start at 3,488 yuan (about $560) for a 16GB model and top out at 5,088 yuan (about $820) for a 64GB version. The Chinese Apple Online Store is currently showing two-week wait times for all iPad mini models.
With the device's rollout, China now has access to Apple's complete lineup of cellular-enabled mobile devices which include the latest iPhone 5 and fourth-generation iPad. Apple announced on Monday that Chinese customers would be able to purchase the cell data network-connected iPad mini on Friday local China time.
China is widely viewed as a key player in Apple's growth over the coming years, especially in regard to handsets and tablets. The country's number one carrier China Mobile is also the world's largest wireless provider by subscribership, but Apple has yet to strike a partnership deal with telecom. Currently, the Cupertino, Calif., company has two partner carriers in the region with China Telecom and China Unicom, both of which provide service for the iPhone and cellular-enabled iPads.
It remains to be seen how strong demand will be for the wireless iPad mini in China, but the Wi-Fi version's launch in December was relatively quiet compared to previous device launches mostly due to the institution of a reservation-only purchasing system.
Prices for the wireless iPad mini, dubbed iPad mini WLAN + Cellular, start at 3,488 yuan (about $560) for a 16GB model and top out at 5,088 yuan (about $820) for a 64GB version. The Chinese Apple Online Store is currently showing two-week wait times for all iPad mini models.
Comments
I had some shopping to do recently, and I thought I'd take a little detour and drop in to my local Apple Store to check out what all the iPad Mini fuss was about. Aside from the fact that the store was RAMMED to capacity, the Minis were getting a lot of attention.
I tried out the the black one for a while. This device feels and looks incredible. It is SWEET. It's light, the screen looks great, and it's basically everything iPad in a fantastic, well-built form factor. I must say I'm not surprised that the Minis are getting such play. I think that once the full-sized iPad gets thinner and lighter, iPad Mini/full iPad interest will be a little more at parity. Apple seems to be doing to the iPad family what thdy did to the iPod family. The strategy will pay off handsomely.
The trend toward lighter/thinner is definitely in full force at Apple. And I can see why. As with the Mini, no iPhone has felt better and more comfortable in my hands than the iPhone 5. It's LIGHT, thin, beautifully designed and just a joy to use.
if you ever see a Nexus 7, Kindle Fire or some other 7" tablet next to the iPad mini you'd likely come to the conclusion that the iPad mini is well worth the cost. A much bigger display and better construction.
Import tariffs typically seem the biggest reason for a price disparately.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
Import tariffs typically seem the biggest reason for a price disparately.
A lot of the manufacturing and assembling take place there. So if its pretty much made there, I am not sure how the import tariff would work
I know there are laws that can lessen it which is why we see Apple et al. setup assembly plants in Brasil but it's still an American product from an American company who will ultimately benefit from the sale so I don't think having a Korean component made in Taiwan with final assembly in China is going to do much to negate all the tariffs.
How do the cellular iPad Mini prices in China compare with the no-contract iPhone 5 prices in china?
Let's see...
• 16GB iPad mini :: RMB 3288 = $560 :: http://store.apple.com/cn/buy/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad_mini ($459 in US)
There is a $190 difference between those two items in the US and $290 difference between those two items in China.
Without seeming too sarcastic… Is that for an iDevice made in Brazil or an iDevice made in China?
There is something so wrong about this… Like AlGore buying AAPL stock for $.01 on the dollar.
Aside from that, my real question: can iPad be used as an iPhone in China?
Those are background color words…
Like describing the former IBM has the computer giant from Armonk.
Or Google as the seedy underbelly of advertising from Mountain View.
1) I'm pretty sure that those are all Chinese assembled devices. I would only imagine that Brasilian assembled iDevices are sold to Brasillians with any additional units sold to other countries in S. America.
2) I'm not going to look up the iPad mini's internal HW but it's likely one of the new Qualcomm basebands that allows for voice calls, something previous iPads didn't have. That said, it still doesn't have any of the proper SW for that capability so any voice data would have to be sent to and from the device as IP data from Skype or some other service.
Or Samsung as the copycat "artist" from South Korea.
Writers like words and hate using boring company name over and over in the same article.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
Without seeming too sarcastic… Is that for an iDevice made in Brazil or an iDevice made in China?
There is something so wrong about this… Like AlGore buying AAPL stock for $.01 on the dollar.
Aside from that, my real question: can iPad be used as an iPhone in China?
Obviously it's so wrong. If he exercised now that means he is likely to sell some of his shares soon before piss poor earning or the sell the news after decent earning pop.
Another piece of bad news for shareholders. Wave of bad news after bad news every day. No PR to fight the BS media. No divvy increase. No stock split. No action whatsoever to protect shareholder. And now, no innovation. At least Jobs had the latter. All this happening under the leadership of Cook and the rest of the clowns. They are the ones responsible for driving and burning AAPL into the ground. The media hordes are just adding gas to the fire.
The only thing AAPL seems to be good at now is the hedge funds and insiders coordinating together to make sure the retailers are holding the bag, not just the POS AAPL stock but their POS products also.
Let's see if either of these things happen by the 23rd.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadra 610
I had some shopping to do recently, and I thought I'd take a little detour and drop in to my local Apple Store to check out what all the iPad Mini fuss was about. Aside from the fact that the store was RAMMED to capacity, the Minis were getting a lot of attention.
I tried out the the black one for a while. This device feels and looks incredible. It is SWEET. It's light, the screen looks great, and it's basically everything iPad in a fantastic, well-built form factor. I must say I'm not surprised that the Minis are getting such play. I think that once the full-sized iPad gets thinner and lighter, iPad Mini/full iPad interest will be a little more at parity. Apple seems to be doing to the iPad family what thdy did to the iPod family. The strategy will pay off handsomely.
The trend toward lighter/thinner is definitely in full force at Apple. And I can see why. As with the Mini, no iPhone has felt better and more comfortable in my hands than the iPhone 5. It's LIGHT, thin, beautifully designed and just a joy to use.
if you ever see a Nexus 7, Kindle Fire or some other 7" tablet next to the iPad mini you'd likely come to the conclusion that the iPad mini is well worth the cost. A much bigger display and better construction.
Compared to the 8.9" Kindle Fire HD (which sells $30-$60 less than the mini), you'll see a bigger display, better resolution with true 1080p reproduction. Just drag and drop mp4, m4v & mkv videos and start watching. No waiting for itunes to down convert then sync.
Whatever you are viewing on the Kindle Fire HD, can be displayed at 1080p on a flat screen TV with a standard $10 (or less) microHDMI cable.
With the mini you have to buy a $49 Apple adapter plus an HDMI cable. And it only outputs at 720p.
With the Kindle Fire HD, you'll hear real stereo imaging with better sounding speakers. There's better wifi reception because of MIMO and 4G LTE connectivity for faster downloads which the mini doesn't have.
You can be one of those types that buys a device because it's a better value and has better features, or the type that pays more for a device because it's perceived to have a better housing.
You can make whatever points you want except real stereo imagining bc you are obviously quoting an outdated Amazon spec sheet and don't know anything about audio. It is impossible to have any "real stereo imagining" on any phone or tablet.
BTW, Amazon withdrew that mini comparison from their spec comparison chart when they learned the the iPad mini has stereo speakers.
I guess you work for Amazon or got a Kindle HD for Christmas and want to feel better about it.
However note that most criticism about the thin trend hasn't been about iOS devices, but about Macs, because if you've used several Mac models, you know that the thinner the machine, the sooner fans start to spin at high speed when you do CPU work or play games, and, in the end, the higher probability of a shorter lifetime than if the machine wasn't so thin.
I miss a Mac with the specs of the iMac but without display, and put on a (small yet enough for better cooling) cube.
Thin and intense CPU work don't mix well
That goes against the physics of the design as stated. If it's thinner and instead of less cube-like it has more surface area for heat dissipation for its volume. This is Allen's Rule. Unless you can show that Apple has purposefully eschewed traditional cooling methods so that the extra surface area is over taxed in a standard temp room to cool the device and/or that they've reduced the cooling efficiency so that they have to run the fans at much faster speeds and the internal components maintain a higher average temperature that is deemed destructive for long time use then I don't see that being thinner is in itself a negative. It's all just speculative without any facts or analysis to back it up.
I'm already going to be running RAM tests on my 27" iMac to see what kind of a gain my CAS 9 RAM will have over CAS 11 but I can just as easily create a workload and take a screenshot of the temperature ratings from iStat Menus. Do you have an older iMac to compare with?
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingChael
Obviously it's so wrong. If he exercised now that means he is likely to sell some of his shares soon before piss poor earning or the sell the news after decent earning pop.
Another piece of bad news for shareholders. Wave of bad news after bad news every day. No PR to fight the BS media. No divvy increase. No stock split. No action whatsoever to protect shareholder. And now, no innovation. At least Jobs had the latter. All this happening under the leadership of Cook and the rest of the clowns. They are the ones responsible for driving and burning AAPL into the ground. The media hordes are just adding gas to the fire.
The only thing AAPL seems to be good at now is the hedge funds and insiders coordinating together to make sure the retailers are holding the bag, not just the POS AAPL stock but their POS products also.
I don't believe Apple ever defended themselves from all the lies spilled by the analysts, pundits and hedge funds.
Try to recollect Cramer in an interview by Jon Stewart on how he short Apple stocks by putting out lies about Apple.
Apple seldom make public comments and if they do it once they have to keep doing it which wouldn't help either because if they didn't which means that lie is true.