Steve Jobs was right. The iPad mini should have never been a thing.
All it did was cause tablet prices to drop even lower.
Right because consumer electronics becoming more affordable is a bad thing. My mother has an iPad mini that she uses every single day. She loves it. If it had been more expensive she never would have purchased it. Not everyone is made of money.
So why don't we see $199 iPhones? Or $499 Macbooks?
Apple does not do cheap. They made an exception with the iPad mini and it bit them in the butt.
And this isn't a new opinion. I said the iPad Mini was a mistake the day it was released.
Your statement WAS valid until Apple launched the iPad 2017 recently. It is NOT a valid statement anymore.
Very sad if true. I was just sitting in a meeting the other day, and various execs had their 9.7" iPads set up on the conference table, and I was holding my small notepad in my lap along with my phone to check messages and respond to e-mail. I realized how usefully a mini would be to me -- about the same size as my notepad, and would give me the ability to take notes and do other tasks at the same time without switching devices. I had planned on buying the next gen mini for work, assuming they would eventually add Pencil support to it as well -- which I need for the note taking. I was really looking forward to the possibility.
That would be another dumb decision by post-Steve Apple. As other have commented, sales are down not due to the plus size phone but due to the lack of updates to the mini ... not to mention the high pricing, and thick form factor that has not been updated for more than 2 years.
Ah yeah, the arm-chair executives know best, right!? Not the guys who actually work within Apple, on their inventory and study this stuff day in and out, for years. Nope, anonymous dudes on rumor sites got this down!
Me, I suspect Apple knows more than you do. I'd bet that they stopped updating it when it stopped selling.
See, the argument that "Apple knows better" can be applied to EACH and EVERY criticism against Apple. What do you suggest? EVERYONE in this WORLD should PRAISE Apple non-stop even if they do not like what Apple does?
Few points in favour of Mini from my perspective, despite sales were reduced in the last 3 years. 1. The Apple tablets (unlike Android/Windows tablets) lasts for a very LONG time. So the slower replacement cycles are NORM. 2. The iPad mini lineup was given ill-treatment by Apple (A joke of an upgrade for iPad Mini 3 from Mini 2 compared to the iPad Air 2 vs Air 1 upgrade in 2014, Apple A8 in newly launched iPad mini 4 in 2015 when even iPhones came with A9). All of this, just to promote larger iPad sales where margins are higher. 3. After gimping it for 2 consecutive years, Apple stopped updating Mini citing lack of sales, while the plan itself was to reduce the sales of Mini by upselling the larger iPad to improve the ASP of iPads sold.
The point 3 as a strategy is NO longer valid, with the introduction of iPad 2017 which WILL reduce the ASPs of iPads in this year. So there is no valid argument against updating the Mini with A9 this year, at a price point of $300. It is not going to reduce the margins significantly further down, but WILL establish Apple a monopoly in tablet sales for all practical purposes.
Steve Jobs was right. The iPad mini should have never been a thing.
All it did was cause tablet prices to drop even lower.
Right because consumer electronics becoming more affordable is a bad thing. My mother has an iPad mini that she uses every single day. She loves it. If it had been more expensive she never would have purchased it. Not everyone is made of money.
So why don't we see $199 iPhones? Or $499 Macbooks?
Apple does not do cheap. They made an exception with the iPad mini and it bit them in the butt.
And this isn't a new opinion. I said the iPad Mini was a mistake the day it was released.
Your statement WAS valid until Apple launched the iPad 2017 recently. It is NOT a valid statement anymore.
Huh? Define cheap.
$329 - is that NOT cheap for you? I did not mean cheap in Quality. I meant cheap in price. iPad 2017 is still a high-quality product, like Apple always does. It is a Value For Money device is an added bonus.
Here's a contrary headline but looking at the data still shows healthy iPad mini sales even if it has dropped since 2014. The most recent drop in sales is likely tied to the lack of updates as opposed to lower demand. No point in updating your mini if you already own the iPad mini 4. Sales were solid until 1Q17 a year after the 1Q16 (sept 2015) release of the 4.
And there are sound reasons to score better on a regular iPad: the games are designed for those, all controls, figures, targets are designed with regular iPads in mind. When you shrink down the regular iPad, playing becomes harder due to the shrunken size of targets, figures, and controls.
Touch targets on the iPad mini are still compliant with the minimum HIG values.
Touchscreens report the centriods of a touch even so the contact patch isn't really all that relevant. Guidelines for touch targets are 6mm minimum, 8mm preferred and no bigger than 15mm with 8-10mm spacing between elements. The 44 point HIG minimum for touch targets on the mini is the same physical size as on the iPhone.
I would understand the decision to discontinue the iPad mini if they were to make a bigger iPhone (bigger than the Plus) but not if the Plus phones are also on the way out ?
because of discovering new apps to use, I am still finding uses for iDevices all the time and I think this is a big mistake, especially when home automation and video security hardware is falling in price. There are plenty of uses for a small size iPad where I wouldn't want to use a phone.
Besides my personal preference for or against the Mini, this seems surprising. The vast majority of people really use an iPad only for reading, videos, and FaceTime. I know many will shout that it is a productivity device, but honestly, I just don't see anyone using them that way. Most use them for consumption (maybe emails).
And for consumption, I would assume that a lot of people prefer the smaller size of the Mini, it seems a lot better for book, news, and even videos on a plane.
At our home, the 9.7 is a sofa /day device, the Mini is a bedroom device. I can't imagine reading a book on the 9.7 in bed, and my 6S is too small. Maybe Apple is conceding books to the Kindle?
Your experience is very limited then. I use the Mini for myriad tasks both for work and personal productivity.
But the mini actually fits into my jacket pockets!
The iPad mini, especially the mini 4, is simply the best tablet device portability-wise with enough power and features. A great travel companion. You can have on it everything you need and that can run on its bigger siblings, like maps (not the ones from Apple or Google), navigation tools, communication utilities and software, news, weather and travel applications, document editors, everything. Without the bulk of the bigger ones. It is not about weight here, which is anyway small, but about physical dimensions. The mini is so much better to have in a bag, or even in a pouch.
I only hope that this rumour is bogus. Otherwise, I will buy one more of the current iPad mini 4 offerings and keep it for as long as I can.
And there are sound reasons to score better on a regular iPad: the games are designed for those, all controls, figures, targets are designed with regular iPads in mind. When you shrink down the regular iPad, playing becomes harder due to the shrunken size of targets, figures, and controls.
Touch targets on the iPad mini are still compliant with the minimum HIG values.
Touchscreens report the centriods of a touch even so the contact patch isn't really all that relevant. Guidelines for touch targets are 6mm minimum, 8mm preferred and no bigger than 15mm with 8-10mm spacing between elements. The 44 point HIG minimum for touch targets on the mini is the same physical size as on the iPhone.
OK but games are not played in millimeter precision. Those measurements mean nothing to gamers. This is the subjective experience of the game that counts and Steve Jobs was right about the sandpaper.
And I can't really use an iPad as a phone. Well you can link it to your account in ways, but not use as a sole phone.
Not sure if I understand. I frequently use my mini as an autonomous phone unit, through software, at very low cost.
I equipped my mini with skype, talkatone and magicApp and it is a btter phone than most phones. But if you make a lot of calls, the need for headset or the use of it on speaker may prove impractical.
Here's a contrary headline but looking at the data still shows healthy iPad mini sales even if it has dropped since 2014. The most recent drop in sales is likely tied to the lack of updates as opposed to lower demand. No point in updating your mini if you already own the iPad mini 4. Sales were solid until 1Q17 a year after the 1Q16 (sept 2015) release of the 4.
So your whole "the mini doesn't sell" assertion is untrue given the publicly available information.
A contrary headline proves the point, see Exhibit 3: iPad Unit Sales by Screen Size (TTM) there. It shows clearly that while all iPad sales decline, Mini's share is shrunken by an increase in regular iPad sales. You seem relate that to the lack of updates, but even if it is so, keeping a product which is hard to update does not make sense. Larger form factor provides more room for updates. Putting an A9 in an iPad Mini seems hard to imagine with such a small battery while the pixel count remains unchanged.
And I can't really use an iPad as a phone. Well you can link it to your account in ways, but not use as a sole phone.
Not sure if I understand. I frequently use my mini as an autonomous phone unit, through software, at very low cost.
I equipped my mini with skype, talkatone and magicApp and it is a btter phone than most phones. But if you make a lot of calls, the need for headset or the use of it on speaker may prove impractical.
This is the only real downside. Perhaps the AirPods provide an acceptable solution in between. But in cases of normally expensive calls, an iPad mini 4 plus Skype is almost impossible to beat. I say "almost" because I have not tried Talkatone. Is it as good as Skype?
The worst part is that even though I get to say, "I told you so," I don't even care anymore, at all. Whether products that make sense and improve a person's life are released doesn't seem to matter anymore. I should probably just lock myself in a room and stop eating.
The imminent cancellation of the iPad mini for the very reasons stated in this particle, has been predicted by "Apple Insiders" since the iPhone 6 Plus was first confirmed.
My 4 year old daughter has been using an iPad mini since she was 18 months old. She currently has the Mini 4 which is the ideal size device for her. The 9.7 inch mini, even my 9.7 pro is too big for her. An iPhone plus obviously makes no sense for a 4 year old, and is triple the price.
The Apple mini is the obvious "gateway drug" for creating new Apple users right from a very young age.
If you have a young child you get this. For this very reason I would actually be VERY surprised if Apple ever cancels the mini, without brining in a similar inexpensive device suitable for young children. Sure an iPad mini does not need yearly updates like iPads targeted at more advanced users. But its place in the Apple lineup is very clear to me.
Companies typically fall all over themselves to lock new users into their brand as early as possible. The iPad mini IMO serves this function for Apple.
Sure an iPad mini does not need yearly updates like iPads targeted at more advanced users.
Sure it doesn't. I see mine. It is from the first, or so, batch in the market, bought back in October 2015. Today it runs at least as well as in the beginning, if not better under iOS 10.3.2. A very pleasant experience. If the iOS update trend continues, it could hold easily for two more years. A8/A9 iPads last a long time.
The mini would be just fine with a biyearly update cycle.
Comments
Huh? Define cheap.
Few points in favour of Mini from my perspective, despite sales were reduced in the last 3 years.
1. The Apple tablets (unlike Android/Windows tablets) lasts for a very LONG time. So the slower replacement cycles are NORM.
2. The iPad mini lineup was given ill-treatment by Apple (A joke of an upgrade for iPad Mini 3 from Mini 2 compared to the iPad Air 2 vs Air 1 upgrade in 2014, Apple A8 in newly launched iPad mini 4 in 2015 when even iPhones came with A9). All of this, just to promote larger iPad sales where margins are higher.
3. After gimping it for 2 consecutive years, Apple stopped updating Mini citing lack of sales, while the plan itself was to reduce the sales of Mini by upselling the larger iPad to improve the ASP of iPads sold.
The point 3 as a strategy is NO longer valid, with the introduction of iPad 2017 which WILL reduce the ASPs of iPads in this year. So there is no valid argument against updating the Mini with A9 this year, at a price point of $300. It is not going to reduce the margins significantly further down, but WILL establish Apple a monopoly in tablet sales for all practical purposes.
On amazon the mini outsells the normal iPad. Last year the mini topped iPad sales.
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories-Computer-Tablets/zgbs/pc/1232597011
The whole "iPad mini's aren't popular" wasn't true January of 2016.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/21/mini-takes-lead-in-ipad-sales-as-ipad-pro-jumps-in-at-12-percent-survey-data-says
Here's a contrary headline but looking at the data still shows healthy iPad mini sales even if it has dropped since 2014. The most recent drop in sales is likely tied to the lack of updates as opposed to lower demand. No point in updating your mini if you already own the iPad mini 4. Sales were solid until 1Q17 a year after the 1Q16 (sept 2015) release of the 4.
https://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2017/3/29/apple-is-pushing-ipad-like-never-before
So your whole "the mini doesn't sell" assertion is untrue given the publicly available information.
Touch targets on the iPad mini are still compliant with the minimum HIG values.
Touchscreens report the centriods of a touch even so the contact patch isn't really all that relevant. Guidelines for touch targets are 6mm minimum, 8mm preferred and no bigger than 15mm with 8-10mm spacing between elements. The 44 point HIG minimum for touch targets on the mini is the same physical size as on the iPhone.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/07/05/24/closing_the_book_on_apples_mac_mini
Ten years later and not quite dead yet.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/05/27/airport-extreme-time-capsule-pulled-from-us-apple-stores-
A year after AI claimed that Airport Routers were pulled from physical stores the nearest 12 Apple stores to me show I can walk in and buy one today.
I'll believe Apple discontinued something when Apple reports it as discontinued because AI's track record on dead products is dismal.
I only hope that this rumour is bogus. Otherwise, I will buy one more of the current iPad mini 4 offerings and keep it for as long as I can.
The imminent cancellation of the iPad mini for the very reasons stated in this particle, has been predicted by "Apple Insiders" since the iPhone 6 Plus was first confirmed.
My 4 year old daughter has been using an iPad mini since she was 18 months old. She currently has the Mini 4 which is the ideal size device for her. The 9.7 inch mini, even my 9.7 pro is too big for her. An iPhone plus obviously makes no sense for a 4 year old, and is triple the price.
The Apple mini is the obvious "gateway drug" for creating new Apple users right from a very young age.
If you have a young child you get this. For this very reason I would actually be VERY surprised if Apple ever cancels the mini, without brining in a similar inexpensive device suitable for young children. Sure an iPad mini does not need yearly updates like iPads targeted at more advanced users. But its place in the Apple lineup is very clear to me.
Companies typically fall all over themselves to lock new users into their brand as early as possible. The iPad mini IMO serves this function for Apple.
The mini would be just fine with a biyearly update cycle.