Looks like ALL iPad Retina minis are sold out and about 1/2 of the iPad Airs in my zip code are out of stock. Wow! Going to be another massive quarter for Apple (why am I not surprised?)...
Note the Retina iPad Minis don't ship until late November.
Yes it should be called the 12.2GB. And if you download all the free apps you're down to 8GB (did someone say "Surface"?)
No, it shouldn't. It should describe the hardware capabilities. If you buy a Mac, the disk size isn't specified as "disk size minus operating system and minus free apps". Just because iOS devices are crippled (no root access) and use solid state storage doesn't mean that capacity should be reported any differently than in any other computing device being sold.
I'm actually really surprise any manufacturer still offers a 16GB version, especially Apple since they don't offer any other means of adding more memory later like a Mini SD. Which by the way absolutely drives me batty. It's gotten better now with cloud storage and the app, "Air Sharing" but coping large amounts of data between two machines that aren't connected to a network is still a pain without a Mini SD, example a friends computer. Apples choice to not include one still alludes me but I'm sure it's about forcing the consumer to pay extra for the higher capacity models. People on this board can rationalize that decision all they want, the truth is it's all about greed, the popularity of Apple products have put the company in a position that they can get away with charging more. Memory for tablets is also probably the highest margin item in the computer business. How much does Apple pay for 128GB, 30, maybe 40 dollars. 64Gb and 128GB should be the only two options but that will never happen. This is just one of reasons why I really dislike all of the Apple worshiping that goes on here. The company like every other multi-billion dollar corporation are ripping you off, the almost 3 year old iPad 2 is still being sold for 400 dollars, amazing, a sucker really is born every minute. I apologize if my post bothers some of you but the closer I get to death the more I just don't care about material things. I'm also a little bat shitt crazy right now as I have a morphine pump and this stuff is kind of a truth serum.
Apples choice to not include one still alludes me but I'm sure it's about forcing the consumer to pay extra for the higher capacity models. People on this board can rationalize that decision all they want, the truth is it's all about greed, the popularity of Apple products have put the company in a position that they can get away with charging more.
That's what business is all about unfortunately. You used to work in a bank, right? Imagine if someone came to their bank manager and said 'I have a business plan to sell products with little to no margins when I could get away with selling at a higher price and the intention is to make less money than I could, can I get a loan to start my business?'. They'd be politely asked to rethink their business plan.
It's no more greedy than the companies that sell PCs and try to bundle printers, junk software and all sorts of peripherals, some of which tie you into paying more than necessary. As consumers, we hate paying more than we need. When you are on the other side and trying to make a living from selling, you think in exactly the opposite way and try to figure out how to get as much money from each customer as possible.
Apple just released their 10k filing and they note that the iPad mini carries significantly lower gross margins than the other iPads, which contributes to very slow growth in their revenues over last year. If they released an iPad mini with an SD slot, some people would of course buy the base model and get a supplementary SD Card instead of the more expensive iPads. The way they have it now, it pushes people to more expensive models and this is the case with all of their products. There is a plus for the consumer not having an SD card reader because it means not having to think about storage issues. I had an Android tablet and the SD card was useful but cards vary in performance and copying can be very slow, not to mention volatile. Files would sometimes become unreadable at random. Then some apps wouldn't play media off the card and it had to be copied internally. The tablet also had problems with the internal cache partition (used by the Dalvik VM I believe) filling up and preventing the device adding new software requiring a safe boot to clear it. Getting away from lower level OS and file operations makes for a more pleasant user experience.
There are times that I think having that kind of access is great and of course we use it all the time on the desktop but it doesn't feel missing on the iPad. I'm not a huge fan of plugging it in to drop PDFs over but Airdrop is an improvement here. SD cards are intermediate storage, wireless goes direct.
It would allow cross-device file sharing and not having to buy the camera adaptor. If they just added it to the premium models that had lots of storage, that might protect their margins a bit but it might annoy people more knowing they could put it on the entry model. I was all for an SD reader when the iPad came out. Despite not being cross-platform, I think Airdrop is the better option these days. It can be useful as a cheap way to extend storage capacity but IMO, too many people would rely on that and they'd experience the volatile behaviour in large numbers leading to more user complaints when it's not Apple's fault.
Comments
Note the Retina iPad Minis don't ship until late November.
--> headslap! <--
I forgot!
Oh, it’s less.
Yes it should be called the 12.2GB. And if you download all the free apps you're down to 8GB (did someone say "Surface"?)
Oh, it’s less.
Yes it should be called the 12.2GB. And if you download all the free apps you're down to 8GB (did someone say "Surface"?)
No, it shouldn't. It should describe the hardware capabilities. If you buy a Mac, the disk size isn't specified as "disk size minus operating system and minus free apps". Just because iOS devices are crippled (no root access) and use solid state storage doesn't mean that capacity should be reported any differently than in any other computing device being sold.
No, I’m not agreeing with you.
Did someone say pathetic attempt at FUD that can be disproven by anyone?
I'm actually really surprise any manufacturer still offers a 16GB version, especially Apple since they don't offer any other means of adding more memory later like a Mini SD. Which by the way absolutely drives me batty. It's gotten better now with cloud storage and the app, "Air Sharing" but coping large amounts of data between two machines that aren't connected to a network is still a pain without a Mini SD, example a friends computer. Apples choice to not include one still alludes me but I'm sure it's about forcing the consumer to pay extra for the higher capacity models. People on this board can rationalize that decision all they want, the truth is it's all about greed, the popularity of Apple products have put the company in a position that they can get away with charging more. Memory for tablets is also probably the highest margin item in the computer business. How much does Apple pay for 128GB, 30, maybe 40 dollars. 64Gb and 128GB should be the only two options but that will never happen. This is just one of reasons why I really dislike all of the Apple worshiping that goes on here. The company like every other multi-billion dollar corporation are ripping you off, the almost 3 year old iPad 2 is still being sold for 400 dollars, amazing, a sucker really is born every minute. I apologize if my post bothers some of you but the closer I get to death the more I just don't care about material things. I'm also a little bat shitt crazy right now as I have a morphine pump and this stuff is kind of a truth serum.
That's what business is all about unfortunately. You used to work in a bank, right? Imagine if someone came to their bank manager and said 'I have a business plan to sell products with little to no margins when I could get away with selling at a higher price and the intention is to make less money than I could, can I get a loan to start my business?'. They'd be politely asked to rethink their business plan.
It's no more greedy than the companies that sell PCs and try to bundle printers, junk software and all sorts of peripherals, some of which tie you into paying more than necessary. As consumers, we hate paying more than we need. When you are on the other side and trying to make a living from selling, you think in exactly the opposite way and try to figure out how to get as much money from each customer as possible.
Apple just released their 10k filing and they note that the iPad mini carries significantly lower gross margins than the other iPads, which contributes to very slow growth in their revenues over last year. If they released an iPad mini with an SD slot, some people would of course buy the base model and get a supplementary SD Card instead of the more expensive iPads. The way they have it now, it pushes people to more expensive models and this is the case with all of their products. There is a plus for the consumer not having an SD card reader because it means not having to think about storage issues. I had an Android tablet and the SD card was useful but cards vary in performance and copying can be very slow, not to mention volatile. Files would sometimes become unreadable at random. Then some apps wouldn't play media off the card and it had to be copied internally. The tablet also had problems with the internal cache partition (used by the Dalvik VM I believe) filling up and preventing the device adding new software requiring a safe boot to clear it. Getting away from lower level OS and file operations makes for a more pleasant user experience.
There are times that I think having that kind of access is great and of course we use it all the time on the desktop but it doesn't feel missing on the iPad. I'm not a huge fan of plugging it in to drop PDFs over but Airdrop is an improvement here. SD cards are intermediate storage, wireless goes direct.
It would allow cross-device file sharing and not having to buy the camera adaptor. If they just added it to the premium models that had lots of storage, that might protect their margins a bit but it might annoy people more knowing they could put it on the entry model. I was all for an SD reader when the iPad came out. Despite not being cross-platform, I think Airdrop is the better option these days. It can be useful as a cheap way to extend storage capacity but IMO, too many people would rely on that and they'd experience the volatile behaviour in large numbers leading to more user complaints when it's not Apple's fault.
with the Applecare, the ones that have gone for it, has it worked out worth while? Or more hassle than it was worth??
Ive seen a few places around town that do repairs, but all looked a bit sketchy
Any one used any courier sites like these? Not entirely sure what to look out for, but have many reviews.
Would like an Ipad Air, but think i need to sell current one first.