Apple boasts of improved cameras, enhanced performance in re-released 'iPad 4'

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 44
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    zoolook wrote: »
    I do not understand their strategy of restricting the capacity to 16GB, which is practically useless these days. It's gone with a couple of games and/or a couple of HD movies. With the retina screen, you'll want 1080p movies and better games. It's short-sighted moves like this, which keep cheap Android alternatives in the race.

    Minimum storage now should be 32GB, with 64GB being mid and 128GB being high. The 16/32/64 paradigm was reasonable in 2009 (5 years ago) but not now.

    Not useless. I have 16 GB. I use several apps, have a bunch of music. I don't have movies on here mainly because I don't need to. I also have a lot of pics.
  • Reply 22 of 44
    jfc1138jfc1138 Posts: 3,090member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Zoolook View Post

     

    I do not understand their strategy of restricting the capacity to 16GB, which is practically useless these days. It's gone with a couple of games and/or a couple of HD movies. With the retina screen, you'll want 1080p movies and better games. It's short-sighted moves like this, which keep cheap Android alternatives in the race.

     

    Minimum storage now should be 32GB, with 64GB being mid and 128GB being high. The 16/32/64 paradigm was reasonable in 2009 (5 years ago) but not now.


    Users vary across a spectrum of storage demands. Entry level products are rather normal.

  • Reply 23 of 44
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post



    4th gen iPad is a great product. But IMO Apple should have replaced the iPad 2 with it last year when the Air was announced. What's the point of doing it now, but not last October?

     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zoolook View Post

     

    I do not understand their strategy of restricting the capacity to 16GB…          It's short-sighted moves like this…,


     

    It IS short-sighted. It occurs to me that this resurrection of the iPad4 is itself an interim measure that will not last through the end of the year if that long. I'm guessing a new iPad Air with Touch ID, 802.11ac, A7X or 8 processor, and the iPad line drops to three models.

     

    Forget the rumored 12" iPad…ain't gonna happen.

  • Reply 24 of 44
    zoolookzoolook Posts: 657member
    mpantone wrote: »
    A lot of these entry-level tablet offerings are geared toward educational, corporate, and industry business, not the consumer arena.

    A business-issued tablet is unlikely to need space for games, HD movies, etc. It's a work tool. Most of the content that the user needs will probably reside on secure database servers behind a corporate firewall: inventory database, medical records archive, CRM, etc. Huge amounts of local storage is often unimportant for enterprise customers.


    That's a really good point, and I honestly had not considered that. However, I am not sure how the enhanced cameras fits into that.

    Even so, I can't help but think Apple are missing a trick with memory here, and despite the other replies, 16GB is extremely restrictive (heaven knows what they're thinking with the 8GB 5C model) especially with large text books and the high resolution images the device can store. The lower end of the market should not be about margins, it should be about preventing erosion from devices such as the Kindle Fire with something clearly better. The iPad 4 is frankly better than anything on the market aside from the iPad Air and retina Mini (I'm sure most here would agree), but storage is a stat consumers look at (unlike CPU cores and RAM on tablets) because it directly impacts the usefulness of the device - not to mention that the ability to buy movies, TV shows and expensive Apps is actually what Apple should be encouraging, given their 30% cut of all those things.

    Having said all that... in some ways it protects the 2nd hand market. I am on a 32GB iPad 3rd generation, which holds its value a little better with the extra memory. So perhaps I should be happy!
  • Reply 25 of 44
    pazuzupazuzu Posts: 1,728member
    rogifan wrote: »
    Still, the press release on this is a bit laughable. Did this really need a press release? And one could ask why Apple didn't replace iPad 2 with 4th gen last October. Keeping the iPad 2 around for 5 months and now this 8GB iPhone wreaks of an Apple obsessed with margins of everything else. If Apple really wanted to spur 5C sales in Europe and China they would have reduced the price on the 16GB model. Honestly 16GB should be the storage capacity for Apple's cheapest iPhone with 32GB the starting point for all other iPhones.
    If I'd bought or received an iPad 2 in the last 5 months this would surely piss me off.
  • Reply 26 of 44
    zoolookzoolook Posts: 657member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post





    4th gen iPad is a great product. But IMO Apple should have replaced the iPad 2 with it last year when the Air was announced. What's the point of doing it now, but not last October?

    I suspect it has to do with iOS 8. It's highly likely iPad 2 support for iOS 8 will be dropped, so they need to stop selling it now, otherwise they will be in the position of releasing an OS not supported by devices less than a year old.

  • Reply 27 of 44
    pazuzu wrote: »
    If I'd bought or received an iPad 2 in the last 5 months this would surely piss me off.

    By your logic, no company should upgrade their offerings because it might hurt someone's feelings. Or maybe they should announce their moves a month or so ahead if time so that stock can languish. Stockholders would love that.

    I must say I live my ipad 4. I love 128gb almost as much.
  • Reply 28 of 44
    pazuzupazuzu Posts: 1,728member
    ivabign wrote: »
    By your logic, no company should upgrade their offerings because it might hurt someone's feelings. Or maybe they should announce their moves a month or so ahead if time so that stock can languish. Stockholders would love that.

    I must say I live my ipad 4. I love 128gb almost as much.

    How is it an upgrade if it already existed?
    This move leave a sour taste in any consumer's mouth- there's no way getting around it.
  • Reply 29 of 44
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Zoolook View Post



    That's a really good point, and I honestly had not considered that. However, I am not sure how the enhanced cameras fits into that.

    The iPad 2 was the first model that had a built-in camera, adequate for scanning barcodes, but not much more.

     

    The improved camera module in the iPad 4 has better low light performance, which is helpful in many industrial settings (poorly lit warehouses, etc.). It is also good enough as a credible document scanner which the iPad 2's camera was not.

  • Reply 30 of 44
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by pazuzu View Post





    How is it an upgrade if it already existed?

    This move leave a sour taste in any consumer's mouth- there's no way getting around it.

    Why?

     

    The iPad 4 has never existed at this price point. The $399 you spend today gets you more iPad than what it did yesterday: Retina Display, Lightning connector, faster CPU (A5X vs. A5), and improved camera & graphics performance.

     

    And if you bought an iPad 2 a week ago, you could still exchange it, get the iPad 4.

     

    If you bought it two months ago, well that's too bad, but that's the nature of consumer electronics purchasing.

     

    If one can't accept the fact that whatever one buys today might someday be superseded by a superior product at the same price point, well, one should stop buy consumer electronics. It's as simple as that.

  • Reply 31 of 44
    ivabignivabign Posts: 61member
    pazuzu wrote: »
    How is it an upgrade if it already existed?
    This move leave a sour taste in any consumer's mouth- there's no way getting around it.

    If you had desperately wanted an ipad with retina for $399, they were always available refurbished with a one year warranty for even less ($369) so your point is essentially moot.
  • Reply 32 of 44
    clemynxclemynx Posts: 1,552member
    A wise change. Offering an iPad 2 that doesn't work that well with iOS 7 and that would probably work even slower with another update gave IMO a bad first impression to people who discovered Apple with this as their first device.
    iPad 4 is a lot faster and better in every possible way.
  • Reply 33 of 44
    clemynxclemynx Posts: 1,552member
    I get it just fine. I read more and better, have more fun playing, browse more and edit more docs on a chinese phone with a 5" then the best phone Apple offers. So the conclusion is simple:

    - For people like me, a bigger iPhone is a better iPhone. Now, the question is, how many people like me are out there, waiting for it, so it makes sense to make one?

    Appleinsider cited a number when they made an editorial about high end phones. They said Samsung sold 100 000 000 million galaxy S and galaxy note compared with 150 000 000 iPhones. Of course, they tried to spin something positive about it, but the truth:

    Put that number together with the number of all flagships being sold, plus the "mini versions" that are still bigger than an iPhone and the answer is clear.

    But of course, I don't expect you to understand it. All of those phones cost the same or more and the number being sold is huge. But there you are, again and again.

    Less than 13% of Android phones have a screen bigger than 4 inches :

    https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

    Knowing that Android has, in the US, approx 50-55% of market share, that means that about 7-8% of Android phones in the US are bigger than 4 inches. Compare that with 45% iPhones. So, from what we know now, a large majority of people (90%+ in the US) are fine with a screen of 4 inches.

    I'm not saying that a bigger iPhone couldn't be successful. If they did one without caring about implementation it would probably work very well too. But they are going to think about implementation, and making a bigger one without thinking about the UI or while they stop making the current size wouldn't make sense for them.
  • Reply 34 of 44
    jfc1138jfc1138 Posts: 3,090member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by pazuzu View Post





    How is it an upgrade if it already existed?

    This move leave a sour taste in any consumer's mouth- there's no way getting around it.

    Upgrade to their product line.

     

    And someone has to buy the last one: if it's years into a product's life getting annoyed is silly: the writing is always on the wall as the calendar moves forward. A purchase should be made because the device does what it wanted. That being the case nothing changes when it's supplanted by something that does other things.

  • Reply 35 of 44
    clemynxclemynx Posts: 1,552member
    they don’t need a larger device.

    I wouldn't say they don't need a larger device. I'd say they don't need to be influenced by others to make it.
  • Reply 36 of 44
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    zoolook wrote: »
    The lower end of the market should not be about margins, it should be about preventing erosion from devices such as the Kindle Fire with something clearly better. The iPad 4 is frankly better than anything on the market aside from the iPad Air and retina Mini (I'm sure most here would agree),...

    You obviously don't know Apple. The 4 isn't the low-end.
    pazuzu wrote: »
    How is it an upgrade if it already existed?
    This move leave a sour taste in any consumer's mouth- there's no way getting around it.

    Why? If we waited for the latest and greatest, we wouldn't buy anything because there is always something better on the horizon.
  • Reply 37 of 44
    dunksdunks Posts: 1,254member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wakefinance View Post



    Wow, this is amazing value.

     

    Though for the same price you can get an iPad Mini with retina display which has the same display resolution, an A7 processor and is 321 grams lighter.

  • Reply 38 of 44
    I get it just fine. I read more and better, have more fun playing, browse more and edit more docs on a chinese phone with a 5" then the best phone Apple offers. So the conclusion is simple:

    - For people like me, a bigger iPhone is a better iPhone. Now, the question is, how many people like me are out there, waiting for it, so it makes sense to make one?

    Appleinsider cited a number when they made an editorial about high end phones. They said Samsung sold 100 000 000 million galaxy S and galaxy note compared with 150 000 000 iPhones. Of course, they tried to spin something positive about it, but the truth:

    Put that number together with the number of all flagships being sold, plus the "mini versions" that are still bigger than an iPhone and the answer is clear.

    But of course, I don't expect you to understand it. All of those phones cost the same or more and the number being sold is huge. But there you are, again and again.

    Everything you described would be better achieved with an iPad, not a larger iPhone. But perhaps you're too poor to afford one.
  • Reply 39 of 44
    pazuzu wrote: »
    If I'd bought or received an iPad 2 in the last 5 months this would surely piss me off.

    But you didn't, so the best thing for you to do is shut up.
  • Reply 40 of 44
    With the iPad 4 at the same price as the iPad Mini w/retina, who would buy the smaller device? I mean, a person would really have to want a smaller iPad in that case? It would seem to me that Apple is planning on adjusting the iPad Mini prices downward to build in a price step, wouldn't you think?
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