Apple announces iPad Mini with a 7.9-inch, 1,024 x 768 display - $329

http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/23/apple-ipad-mini/

by velodrome • 14 years ago

58 110 14 years ago

jordn• 14 years ago

I completely expect this to be the consumer favourite. Maybe outsell the original size by about 2:1. People love being able to easily hold stuff.

cma• 14 years ago

His hand looked really stretched out

phoobahr• 14 years ago

My girlfriend broke both her wrists a few years ago. Now they both give her troble and one thumb has nerve damage. She has travelled the world with her 1st gen ipad and never really thought about replacing it... But I bet she will now inside a month.

She's also a physio who fits and customizes wheelchairs, powerchairs, scooters and the like. You would not believe how many of her clients carry an ipad, often in a custom mount, for all the regular uses plus assisted communication, home automation and the like. Give the size constraints I would not be surprised to see the ipad mini become an 'industry standard' there too.

Permit2• 14 years ago

I'm pretty blown away they're already on a fourth generation of iPads. It seemed like they just released the last one not too long ago. Are people upset over how quickly it released or happy to have a potential upgrade?

revscat• 14 years ago

I have the current (err, previous!) gen iPad. I don't particularly care that there are new models. I'm still happy with mine, and don't have any plans on buying the new one.

Why do you think this would make someone upset?

Permit2• 14 years ago

I was watching a CNet livestream where the commentators were absolutely livid about the announcement. I don't have a tablet of any kind so don't feel strongly either way, I was just curious if their anger was felt by others.

It doesn't seem that it is.

KirinDave2• 14 years ago

The 4th gen is just an incremental push on components the 3rd gen. It seems like Apple is staggering products with their processor releases to let them accelerate that tick-tock for phones and tablets.

Steko2• 14 years ago

I think maybe they just wanted to turn the line over to the new dock faster so this year they went with 2 releases.

wcarey• 14 years ago

I suspect the driver for the new full-size iPad is the lightning connector. Now all of the iOS devices (except the iPad 2?) use it.

nchlswu• 14 years ago

that's my guess as well.

I'm not sure how it aligns with previous launches, but I imagined they were going to discontinue the 2 as well.

JoelSutherland• 14 years ago

Additionally the A5x was a really expensive chip to produce. It didn't have the graphics power to drive the retina screen so they just threw silicon at it. It had twice the die size as the Tegra 3:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5685/apple-a5x-die-size-measur...

nicholassmith2• 14 years ago

My money is on them shipping it pretty much for the Lightning connector and beefing the specs up to at least make it look like an upgrade.

jonknee7• 14 years ago

It was just a minor bump so they can speed along the painful transition to the Lightning connector ASAP. No one's going to sell their iPad 3rd gen and upgrade.

sallen• 14 years ago

I am going to upgrade my iPad 3. I mean you can sell it to Amazon for $400, and buy a new one for $500+tax. Doesn't seem like a bad deal to basically lease the iPad 3 for six months for about $120.

engtech2• 14 years ago

I'm unhappy that my iPad 1 is essential on it's way to brickdom.

I had bought it planning to pass it on to my toddlers as it reached about 4-5 years old.

Unfortunately I don't think there will be any supported iOS 5 apps at that point.

I may have to jailbreak it just to get a newer version of the OS on it at some point (assuming that someone gets the newer OS working on it).

digisign2• 14 years ago

Never buy the first version of any new product.

grecy2• 14 years ago

Are you upset when a car manufacturer releases a new model every year? I love that you can buy the 2013 model of a car in ~September 2012.

Jeep are taking that to a new level.. In Jan 2013 they are going to begin selling the 2014 Grand Cherokee..

(I realize the gap from iPad3->iPad 4 was less than a year, but that happens in the car market too)

kamaal• 14 years ago

Except that Jeep 2013 won't be totally useless by 2017.

togasystems• 14 years ago

Consumer choice - $209 Nexus Tablet from Google or $329 for the iPad Mini.... what do you think the public will choose?

MrMember• 14 years ago

You're underestimating the pull Apple has on people. There are plenty who will pay an extra $120 just because it's Apple.

phren0logy• 14 years ago

It could be "just because it's Apple," or it could be because they already own a lot of useful iOS software.

jug6ernaut4• 14 years ago

True but i would say these people would buy want to buy an iPad anyways, i don't think this is really expanding their user base. Maybe a little but not near as much a they could have with a lower price point that actually competes on price rather than just going of "we are apple" reasoning.

People will buy it, but its not the homerun they were setup for, making it to 2nd base. Game is still on.

baddox4• 14 years ago

Which do you prefer: paying an extra $120 just because it's Apple, or buying a Nexus 7 just because it's cheaper?

garyrichardson• 14 years ago

I'll pay the extra $120 so I can take it out of the box and log into my icloud account and have everything sync onto it.

Well, that's assuming I needed/wanted a smaller ipad.

grecy2• 14 years ago

We all know Apple's products don't compete on price directly... but they sure seem to be selling plenty of them.

phaus• 14 years ago

The ipad 1, 2, and 3 all competed on price. The macbook air is also competitively priced. The ipad mini costs at least a hundred dollars too much. It may sell well, but it definitely doesn't compete on price.

jonknee7• 14 years ago

$209? It's $199 (albeit for 8GB, though Google doesn't really encourage loading stuff onto it in favor of streaming).

Steko2• 14 years ago

You're talking about "the public" like it's a monolithic entity that makes a single choice in the market. That's silly. Many people will buy both. Apple is the most profitable company in the world and prices their goods to turn a profit. Google/Amazon sell near break even for market share/ecosystem returns.

baddox4• 14 years ago

http://gigaom.com/mobile/daily-android-tablet-sales-nearing-...

swastik• 14 years ago

For those who have already invested quite a bit into the Apple ecosystem, bought a lot of apps, etc., I think the iPad Mini sounds like a more logical choice.

I do agree that it's a bit on the expensive side but that's always the case with Apple products. I'd buy it over the Nexus.

gambiting• 14 years ago

The way they compared the new iPad Mini with the Nexus 7 was laughable at best.

They complain about Nexus 7 being made of plastic and having broader basel, and completely forget that Nexus 7 has a higher resolution screen and most importantly is a $199 device while the new ipad is $329. What a joke.

randomchars9• 14 years ago

My favorite part was when they listed the bigger screen as an advantage.

berberous2• 14 years ago

I sold the Nexus because it was too small to read a PDF. The iPad mini may also be too small, but if I can comfortably read PDFs on it, then that's a huge advantage to me.

glhaynes• 14 years ago

Part of that's due to a physically larger screen and part of it's because apps aren't constantly letterboxed by on-screen OS buttons.

erikpukinskis2• 14 years ago

I understand the argument for Nexus 7's screen, but I think I'd still rather do web browsing on the iPad Mini. Web browsing is pretty awful on my Nexus 7. In landscape mode there may be 800px of vertical resolution but it doesn't feel like it, because there's so little physical space. At a reasonable zoom level there's just not much vertical space.

And many web sites (Facebook is an example) go into mobile mode, so the browsing experience is total garbage. As far as I can tell there's no way to force the browser to use desktop mode by default... I can go through a many-tap sequence to do it page by page, but who has the time for that?

I'm sure there are tweaks and hacks I can do to improve that stuff, but out of the box it's not a device I'd want to browse the web on. The iPad, on the other hand, was a joy (I owned the very first iPad for about two weeks and then sold it because I'm poor).

baddox4• 14 years ago

I'm not sure why people expect Apple (or any company) to simply ignore potential advantages their products have over their competitors'.

hospadam• 14 years ago

Small quibble: the 16gb N7 (the most comparable in this case) is actually $250. That might change later this week... but for now - that is still the case.

jonknee7• 14 years ago

Small quibble back: unless you're specifically looking for 16GB instead of the entry level, the comparison is valid. Apple doesn't let you pay any less than $329.

kyriakos3• 14 years ago

this is no longer the case. 250 is for the 32gb version. the 16gb will drop to 199 by google's keynote next week and the 8gb will be phased out.

the price i really cant wait to find out is samsung's galaxy nexus 10... if its lower than 400 it will potentially take away some of the new ipad's sales plus some from windows rt

isaacwaller• 14 years ago

Wow, this is way more expensive than I predicted. I don't see how the iPad Mini can compete with a $199 Nexus 7.

richbradshaw2• 14 years ago

I have a Nexus 7. Technically it's great, but in reality the screen creaks when you use it, it's pixelly (despite having 1.4 device pixel ratio), the headphone jack only works at a certain angle and most apps are awful (some exceptions, but most big brands have worse Android apps than iOS).

It came with Google Play credit, but I can't find anything worth buying. I'm sure there are things, but I can't find them.

randomchars9• 14 years ago

If you find the Nexus 7 pixely than you should know that the iPad mini has a lower ppi.

I agree about the apps though. But if you haven't already than get SwiftKey.

runako• 14 years ago

A few ways:

1) Brand that consumers associate with high-quality consumer goods. (Most Android devices carry the brand of their maker and not Google. Asus is not widely considered a high-quality brand.)

2) Channel availability. iPad Minis will be in the stores where consumers are shopping. Google has historically done a bad job here. For example: as of this writing, Target doesn't even carry the Nexus 7, but they do carry iPads. Wal-Mart bills the Nexus 7 as "The new $249 tablet from Google", effectively reducing the price differential at the largest U.S. retailer.

3) Apps, apps, apps. Note that Google Play isn't 100% available in many countries where the iTunes app store is available.

In the end, both will likely sell tons of units. Note also that Apple is supply-constrained; they typically cannot make iPads fast enough to satisfy demand at their current price points. The corollary of this is that lowering the price would do nothing to increase actual sales, but would simply lead to them earning less money on each sale for no upside.

Finally, if Apple follows the template they have been using since the launch of the iPod 11 years ago, the price of the iPad Mini will begin dropping right after the holiday quarter. This will likely coincide with them tightening up production and improving yields. It will also allow them to more effectively use the 100% of production capacity even after the holidays end. They've done this on pretty much every consumer product they've released for the last 10+ years, and I'd be surprised to see the iPad Mini selling for > $299 come March.

mtrimpe2• 14 years ago

I absolutely love how they reframed the iPad mini from a "reduction" to a "concentration" of the iPad.

I takes the most obvious quip to make about the new product and gives the Apple fan-base a ready-made, perfect, emotional yet simple retort.

Brilliant marketing ...

barista• 14 years ago

That has always been Apple forte. Create value by advertising

rimantas4• 14 years ago

Yeah. Because their products are crap, right? Apple has good marketing for good products. Some think they can skip the first part.

marknutter• 14 years ago

This has always been every Apple detractor's assertion.

monkeyfacebag2• 14 years ago

I don't know a lot about iPads, but that price is about $50 more than I would have naively guessed. Spec for spec, the Nexus 7 (disclosure: I own this) seems to offer more for less (yes, the screen is smaller, but the information quantity & density is actually greater). Sure, there is the value of Apple's ecosystem, but I imagine Android will catch up on this sooner or later.

runjake• 14 years ago

I'm guessing you didn't watch the keynote. Apple highlighted the fact that there is a severe lack of tabletized Android apps. So, an iPad app vs. what is essentially an Android phone app, the information density is actually much greater on the iPad because its app are actually designed to utilize the space.

The materials are a lot better, as well. Aluminum vs. plastic (although I don't mind the N7's build at all). The iPad's screen is a much higher quality IPS display than the N7. Of course, I'm going to expect all of this in a tablet with a $70 higher price point, comparing 16GB vis a vis.

I would have liked to see the price come in at $299, but $329 is perfectly reasonable and this will be a best seller for Apple.

(I own and use both an iPad and a Nexus 7)

w1ntermute2• 14 years ago

> Apple highlighted the fact that there is a severe lack of tabletized Android apps.

There are two issues with this claim:

1. It's less relevant for smaller tablets like the Nexus 7

2. I haven't personally seen any lack of Android tablet apps. I have an Asus Transformer Prime, and I use a wide variety of tablet-optimized apps on a regular basis. Sure, some niche stuff is missing, but the big stuff is there already.

Edit: another point to make is that unlike iOS app development, if you use the new Fragments paradigm introduced in HC, it's very easy to make a tablet version of an existing Android phone app. You don't need to have an entirely separate app.

jonknee7• 14 years ago

> The iPad's screen is a much higher quality IPS display than the N7.

Says who? The N7 is higher-resolution and is also an IPS display. As for the plastic, at least it doesn't scratch...

iamben• 14 years ago

Not trolling, but what apps do you miss on the N7? All the apps I use on my phone I have on my N7. Admittedly, however, I use neither for gaming and photo apps pretty much exclusively on the phone...

MatthewPhillips• 14 years ago

That's nice spin but what you're essentially saying is they are price gouging based on their current market advantage. If true that is pretty short sighted. I'd love to hear what the actual reason than the high-than-expected price -- maybe it's as simple as everyone else is selling at-cost -- but I highly doubt that reason factored in at all.

king_jester3• 14 years ago

> I'm guessing you didn't watch the keynote. Apple highlighted the fact that there is a severe lack of tabletized Android apps. So, an iPad app vs. what is essentially an Android phone app, the information density is actually much greater on the iPad because its app are actually designed to utilize the space.

This is the big issue for Android tablets at this time, hence why the Android team have been pushing tablet design videos and documents lately. During the press conference for iPad mini, when they were showing iPad apps side-by-side with unoptimized Android apps, I think it highlighted just how bad the situation with developers ignoring the Android tablet space, esp. since some of the apps shown put a big emphasis on high quality apps in the first place.

monkeyfacebag2• 14 years ago

This is a great response. I did not watch the keynote, though as a Nexus 7 owner, I keenly feel the dearth of apps. Music creation apps, in particular, are absent from Android because of poor support for low latency audio in the SDK. Most of the time, however, I use the Nexus 7 to browse the web, in which case, I imagine it performs roughly as well as the iPad mini, except with the higher information density.

>The iPad's screen is a much higher quality IPS display than the N7.

I'm curious how you know this. I understood the Nexus 7 screen to also use IPS. What makes the one in the new iPad better?

>Of course, I'm going to expect all of this in a tablet with a $70 higher price point.

My Nexus 7 was $199. Yes, it has less storage space than the mini, but the difference between getting an Android tablet and and iPad is actually $130, not $70.

dchuk• 14 years ago

as an owner of both a Nexus 7 and an iPhone 4S, I just can't ever imagine Android catching up in terms of app quality, most likely due to fragmentation in their ecosystem amongst peripherals and because of less stringent quality standards.

iOS is simply a more polished, user friendly environment.

king_jester3• 14 years ago

I don't think the current issues with tablet apps on Android are due to fragmentation and something about Android lacking quality standards. The tools to create a robust, good looking app on Android are the same tools for all devices and the Android team at Google has done a tremendous job in creating (and still improving) developer tools to handle so many different device types.

A large part of the issue has to do with the low adoption rate of tablets to date on Android and a general lack of focus on polish for Android apps. Ultimately the developer community and business haven't gotten behind Android in the same way as iOS and the result is apps that aren't well thought out or are missing support beyond phone-type devices.

numbnuts• 14 years ago

You get two cameras with the iPad Mini. Usable ones at that, it seems. The N7's (I have one too) front-facing camera is barely adequate for video calls.

brownBananas• 14 years ago

I don't know how they are going to compete with Microsoft Surface(1366 x 768) with this Mini(1,024 x 768) without Retina Display.

Edit: Price difference - I see.

mikeevans• 14 years ago

Price, app ecosystem.

lostlogin• 14 years ago

If those were equal, do you think Microfoft would catch up or overtake Apple?

r00fus• 14 years ago

Add to your list: build quality, touch drivers, and (big differentiator) LTE - not available on Surface, Nexus or Kindle Fire 7".

erikpukinskis2• 14 years ago

I'm pretty surprised by the price. It's more than twice as expensive than the entry-level Kindle Fire at $159. Now, it's obviously a much better product, but that's a big gap.

Apple has maintained pretty aggressive pricing compared to the 10" Android tablets, but that's just not the case here. They're going to try competing on product quality, not price. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.

fieldforceapp• 14 years ago

Dear Apple, thanks for keeping the same display dimensions as the iPad -- I was actually starting to sweat about the prospect of having to do more AutoLayout work!

czr80• 14 years ago

I find the pricing odd - is the 30 dollars really worth giving up the appeal of a 299 price point?

arrrg2• 14 years ago

The lesson to take away from this is that Apple does not compromise on price. If the iPad mini with a 30% or so margin has to be priced at $330 it will be priced at that.

randomchars9• 14 years ago

The fact that Android tablets apps of large corporations suck is more of a reflection on the companies themselves than on Android as a platform.

How do the developers of the demoed apps feel? Basically they work was called a piece of shit.

richbradshaw2• 14 years ago

Compared with what the iOS teams are doing, it is.

king_jester3• 14 years ago

It's not so much that the shown Android apps are pieces of shit, but they have a huge, glaring flaw if devs aren't willing to or can't get company support to get their app working well on as many devices as possible, which is Android's biggest strength in the first place.

mladenkovacevic2• 14 years ago

Too expensive for me, but the tech uninformed have probably never heard of the Nexus 7 and will probably think this is a great deal. The bezel seems really thin too, how are you supposed to hold it?

rimantas4• 14 years ago

Some well informed still think that it is a great deal.

mason55• 14 years ago

> The bezel seems really thin too, how are you supposed to hold it?

In your palm. See here http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini/overview/

mladenkovacevic2• 14 years ago

So I guess I've been "holding it wrong" all this time then. On a serious note that grip looks very stress-inducing for any average sized hand. Try stretching your thumb and fingers out all the way out like that, then tilt your palm so that it faces you. Now hold that kung-fu grip for more than 15 minutes. I prefer to do the bezel thumb and index finger hold... and then switch hands every once in a while.

KirinDave2• 14 years ago

One thing I am really curious about is the bezel size for the iPad mini. Mathias Duarte gave a huge exposition about carefully laying out the bezels for lots of comfortable holding angles with the Nexus 7 in his interview, but the iPad Mini has only a fraction of those bezels.

So one of the following is the case:

1. Mathias was BSing to make lemonaide from the lemons of the slightly odd looking screen form factor. The Nexus 7 could have been smaller or had a bigger screen. The iPad Mini is easy to hold.

2. Mathias was right, but only considering the weight of the Nexus 7. The reduced weight of the iPad Mini still makes it easy to hold.

3. Mathias was right, and the iPad Mini's design is more about photo ops than daily use, and users will tend to accidentally tap when they hold it.

I'm really curious here, because device design is something of a mysterious art and I have enjoyed watching the different schools of design play out.

UPDATE, "iPad mini intelligently recognizes whether your thumb is simply resting on the display or whether you’re intentionally interacting with it. It’s the kind of detail you’ll notice — by not noticing it."

So, software. Which means that it'll be fine for reading, but probably not fine for gaming where there is a lot of input sensitivity required. That may explain why the bezels on the top ends (for holding it in portrait) are more conventionally sized.

lukifer• 14 years ago

I would've preferred a larger bezel. The new one looks a little off to me, and I'm guessing there will be lots of accidental touches on the edge. (Oh: software correction. Still, that'll misfire occasionally, and create a subconscious stress on the user for the simple act of picking the thing up and switching hands/grip.)

kyriakos3• 14 years ago

N7's bezel is just about right. I have big hands i guess but if it was any less i would be touching the screen all the time.

rg• 14 years ago

Apple had an insoluble problem, and they failed to fit the iPad Mini into a man's suit, sportcoat, or blazer inside chest pocket.

  Apple iPad Mini width (Apple specs):   134.7 mm

  Man's jacket inside pocket (size 41R): 124.0 mm

  Google Nexus 7 width (Google specs):   120.0 mm

Result: the Nexus 7 with comfortable bezels fits very neatly in the pocket of any jacket I'm wearing (and I carry it there all the time invisibly);

The iPad Mini with troublesome bezel will not fit into any of those same jacket pockets.

Such a tiny difference, but it separates Nexus convenience from iPad Mini serious inconvenience (note that the thickness makes no difference here).

samd• 14 years ago

What I like most about the Nexus 7 is the soft rubberized backing. I'm not constantly worried about scratching it, I can toss it around more, but it doesn't require a bulky, obnoxious case. Have you seen those sci-fi movies where people just have tablets laying around everywhere, like people have documents and books laying around now. That's what the Nexus 7 feels like.

Most every other computer, tablet, smartphone has to be managed. I have to worry about where I set it, where the case is, where it's plugged in, whether I'll drop it, etc. I don't feel that way about the Nexus 7.

I'd rather have iOS and the iPad's battery life, but I don't want my tablet to feel precious.

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

That's very subjective. When I first bought my iPad (1st gen) I treated it like a baby, but now it's just like a paperback book; I throw it on the couch, carelessly shove it in a bag, squeeze it among clothes in a backpack. It can handle that, and I bet the aluminium back will still look better than rubber after a year of heavy use.

chucknelson• 14 years ago

Agreed - don't these soft rubber coatings wear away after a while?

ryanglasgow• 14 years ago

Apple doesn't seem to be pricing this against competitors, but rather themselves. A price point less than $300 would cannibalize their full-size iPad sales.

Apple announces iPad Mini with a 7.9-inch, 1,024 x 768 display - $329

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