Why Apple’s iPad Mini Misses The Mark [Opinion]

Vincent Messina (1:52 pm PDT, Oct 23rd 2012)

The iPad Mini was announced today, and frankly, it missed the mark. The iPad Mini will simply have no effect on non-Apple users. Apple needed to go $299 or less to make the iPad Mini seep into consumers heads and play devil’s advocate. At $329, that simply isn’t going to happen.

If Apple had gone with something in the $249-$299 range, non-Apple users having issues with their current tablet might have said “hey, for $249, I think I’m going to give the iPad Mini a shot.” Also, at a lower price, I believe Apple would have enticed Apple users to purchase Minis as companion devices, atop of the iPads they already own. It would be much easier, for example, to have parents spend $249 on an iPad Mini for their kids and never have to feel the uncertainty and regret of handing over their $400+ iPad.

History has shown us that any tablet outside of the iPad just simply doesn’t sell. It wasn’t until Amazon stepped in and created an incredible price point with the Kindle Fire that we began to see a market shift. Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t price alone. There have been many low-budget Android tablets that were absolute pieces of junk and did not do well. Amazon had the complete package: a decently built and spec’d tablet, a low price point, and an ecosystem to go along with it. That was the key to its success.

Google and ASUS soon followed suit, taking things up a notch with the Nexus 7. But again, decent build, good specs, and a low price point (and of course Jelly Bean and Google Play).

Amazon soon fired back with the Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9, leaving consumers to sit back and enjoy while two great companies battled for their business with great products and lower prices. So when consumers caught wind of Apple’s plans to join this battle, they couldn’t help but salivate.

All eyes were on Apple as they announced the iPad Mini to the world. This was to be Apple’s answer to the Kindle Fire HD, the Google Nexus 7, and all the other 7-inch budget tablets stealing precious market share from the iPad. Up until today, the iPad Mini was nothing more than leaks and rumors, but now that it’s very real and we have all the specs and pricing, it’s clear that this is not going to be the destroyer of all things 7-inch.

Instead of going for the jugular, Apple jumped into shark infested waters with a 7.9-inch, 1024 x 768, 16GB tablet priced at $329. Sure, it’s Apple, but it’s almost $100 more than the 32GB Nexus 7, it’s over $100 more expensive than the Kindle Fire HD, $29 more expensive than the Fire HD 8.9, and not to mention only $70 less than its cousin the iPad 2 (with whom it shares similar specs).

For Apple consumers, there’s simply no reason other than form factor to choose the Mini over any of the other iPads Apple has to offer. Even if you’re looking to pick up the LTE version, you’re splitting hairs with price and better off getting one of the better spec’d iPads (again, unless it’s the form factor you’re looking for).

It’s sad actually, Apple never even needed a product like the iPad Mini. The iPad has been dominating the tablet market ever since the tablet market was a thing. Every spec and feature Apple touted when comparing the Mini against the Nexus 7 already existed in the iPad: bigger screen, tablet optimized apps, etc. So why did Apple feel the need to create a Mini version?

In my eyes, the only reasons to introduce an iPad Mini is to either try and undercut the 7-inch competitors that have been eating away at market share or to appease Apple customers who are looking for a smaller form factor. If this is purely for those Apple customers that prefer a smaller form factor, then it meets that demand. If they were hoping to undercut their 7-inch competitors — they failed.

Apple missed a huge opportunity here. The iPad Mini could have been a 1-2 knockout in the tablet market. Instead, it has ended up a failed uppercut, leaving Apple’s chin exposed.

Looks like they should have named it the iPad Air, because that’s what they’re swinging at right now.

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Comment »

http://twitter.com/KurtALEXis Kurt Igcalinos
missed the mark? i highly doubt it. watched what the guys from theverge had to say and i’d buy this. 10 inch is too big for me and this should fit well. though it is a bit pricey you have to remember that it is a premium product with better apps. as josh topolsky said it makes the other tablets look like toys
- http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
  premium build quality? sure. premium specs? no.
  “Better apps” – that’s pretty subjective, innit?
  And the form factor is still off: my Acer A100 (7″ diagonal screen) fits neatly into most of my jacket pockets and into the cargo pockets on most of my pants. It’s just the right width for my hand.
  I suspect the odd choice of screen sizes (distinctly NOT 7″) was a result of having to work with the immutable iOS screen aspect ratio…
  - http://twitter.com/KurtALEXis Kurt Igcalinos
    if you really know much about tech then you’d know that specs aren’t everything. Just like the screen res, the nexus may have a higher screen res but the overall quality of the ipad mini is better, based on what the engadget and what theverge say
    - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
      I didn’t specifically mention screen res.
      I was thinking about the fact that Nexus 7 has a quadcore chip vs the A5 (which, apparently, runs like a dualcore).
      What spec I did refer to specifically was the physical dimensions.
      Thankfully, the iPad Mini is much lighter than the iPad3, which is too heavy to hold with one hand while riding the subway…
      - John Ford
        Dual or Quad doesn’t make a difference. If you see the A6 iphone’s cpu benchmarks show it smoking the quad cores. Let the benchmarks come out first.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        we shall see, certainly…but the Mini won’t have an A6X, it’ll have an A5…
      - Space Gorilla
        Nobody except a handful of nerds cares about specs anymore, get over it.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        you mean, like that big nerd up on the stage during the Apple announcement?
        You mean, like those big nerds in the audience of the Apple announcement?
        But it easy to believe what you say when, it seems, the Mini is simply a re-packaged iPad2 that they’re calling all-new, and people are getting all sweaty to have their hands on one…
      - Space Gorilla
        What is it about Apple’s success that makes you angry?
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        Do you really want the tale of my underwhelming three years of being an iMac owner? Probably not.
        I have used Macs at various times in the last 26 or 27 years…in personal and professional situations.
        I don’t get the worship. I don’t find OS X to be so “obviously” better than Windows XP, Vista or 7; so obviously better than some of the better Linux desktops…
        I just get a little irked by the outpouring of religious devotion for all things Apple, you know?
        And here we are, in the comments of a column devoted to one man’s opinion of the iPad Mini, and the Apple faithful are out in force, proselytizing…
        I was a bit cranky, I responded.
        That’s all…
      - Space Gorilla
        Whether OSX or iOS is better isn’t relevant. The reality is that Apple is wildly successful. Most of what I see from the anti-Apple crowd is a lot of excuses and explanations on the subject of why Apple is successful, the Apple faithful, sheep, marketing, shiny products, etc, etc. If it makes you feel better to convince yourself that Apple doesn’t deserve its success, that’s your choice I guess, but it doesn’t change the reality of Apple’s success.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        without re-reading everything I’ve written here in the last day or so, I can say that I don’t recall attempting to nullify Apple’s monetary success…
      - Space Gorilla
        Perhaps, but your general tone is belittling Apple and you do seem quite upset by Apple’s success. That seems very common among the anti-Apple crowd. Notice that even in this latest comment you qualify Apple’s success, calling it ‘monetary’. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that Apple makes good products that hundreds of millions of people are happy with?
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        Just before I came here to disqus to see if there’d been any responses today, I was reading this article:
        http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57540154-71/anthropologist-apple-is-a-religion/
      - gjgustav
        Quad vs. dual core is a meaningless comparison if you are not running the same software on them.
    - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
      WELL! that settles it: engadget and theverge have decided.
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=664659068 Paul Finlay
      I costs $130 more for older, lesser tech, with no GPS on the $329 model….., of course it should be better built. Honestly, you Apple fans are quickly running out of ammo
      - http://profiles.google.com/ebernet Eytan Bernet
        Well, $80 more is not “around” 100. It is “around” $80, or < 33% more. For that you get a rear camera, better WiFi, and 275,000 apps (compared to a few hundred native tablet apps). And as for "lesser" tech, not sure the benchmarks back that up, with the Nexus 7 just matching up with the iPad 2 in most comparisons.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        I’ve owned an Android tablet since December 2011…honestly, with few exceptions, I didn’t feel like I was getting a sub-standard experience for using a “smartphone” app on a bigger screen.
  - livehappy8
    Did you watch the key note when they were comparing screen views and the experience of browsing? Huge difference in actual use space.
    - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
      in what respects?
      pixel res?
      PPI?
      - gjgustav
        So, you didn’t watch then. Do yourself a favour and watch it. Seriously. You’ll see why apps designed for a tablet as opposed to blown up phone apps are much better to use.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        you can answer my questions, or you can be a d*ck…
        My main experience with this is seeing iOS apps that were designed for the iPhone “blown up” to fill an iPad2 screen. They look kind of like blown-up jpegs, you know? Kind of fuzzy and less-distinct (Bet they really look like hell on a Retina display)
        The Android apps I’ve used on both my phone and tablet re-scale like a vector graphic, not a bitmap. That’s what I’ve seen of the differences.
        Yeah, there are some Android devs who screw it up, just as there are iOS devs who don’t get it right, either.
        For example, Aldiko, my ereader of choice, looks great on either size of device, but when they added specific code for tablet interfaces, they screwed up the menu bar at the bottom of the screen, and important settings were made unreachable because the buttons weren’t properly visible. The latest update fixes that, and the app runs just fine on both sizes of device.
      - gjgustav
        If it looked like a blown up jpeg, then you didn’t download an iPad app. You downloaded an iPhone-only app onto an iPad.
        Watching the video would have shown you exactly what I’m talking about. It’s not just about scaling, it’s about UI layout and functionality taking advantage of the larger screen. The Apple video shows this. If showing you where you can get an answer to your question makes me a d*ck, well then I guess I’m a d*ck.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        Stevenjklein shared a video with the relevant footage. I understand what you’re getting at, now. seek my comments there.
        But myy point, again, was that an Android app is an Android app…I don’t need to download an Android phone app AND an Android tablet app…it scales for either screen, even if the layout of the UI was originally done for a phone.
        (silly me for not considering that there are iOS Phone apps and iOS tablet apps. I thought “iOS app” meant that it was made for the OS, not the device)
        This is egregious if one has to pay for the app, right? Buy the app for your phone, buy the app for your tablet…pay Apple/the dev twice for what should be the same application? No, don’t think I will.
      - gjgustav
        The App store is full of universal apps. They run on both iPhones and iPads, and the appropriate UI is run on each. Apple’s dev tools make it easy to do this. Not every developer does this but most do. With a universal app, you only have to buy the app once. And you don’t have to put up with phone UI on a larger screen, you get a better UI experience that results in increased productivity.
        The universal app is likely the reason that there are many more high quality iOS apps with tablet-designed UI than Android apps with tablet-designed UI.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        all of what you say about apps being designed for specific screen sizes (and orientations) is possible with, and done in Android Apps, too.
        And, again, as you said, it is up to the dev to make (or not make) the interface adapt to the hardware device it finds itself running on.
        If I run an app whose UI was done initially for a phone on a tablet, however, it scales and remains readable. i is still usable, if not optimal. this is the distinction I was making initially. Since I’ve only just recently seen the relevant clip of the Press Conference, I now “Get” what you and others were saying about Tablet UIs vs Phone UIs scaled-up to table size.(that is, I get the point you were speaking to. Of course I understand the distinction between designing specifically for different screen sizes. I built my first web page in 1997, and one of the aspects of my current job is UX for an upcoming web app)
        So, , now that we’re on the same page, what wre we talking about?
      - stevenjklein
        I’ve excerpted just that part of the presentation that shows the difference in browsing and apps. The browser comparison starts at the 1:10 point. Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLiMyroGRXc
      - Taylor Levesque
        I could do the same. There are excellent tablet based apps for android that iPad’s are lacking. Gmail for instance.
      - gjgustav
        Sparrow
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        sparrow was bought by Google.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        that is a compelling clip, certainly. thanks for sharing that.
        I see what you folks have been talking about phone vs tablet app offerings. Yes, the iOS devs had done a great job of providing a more tailored experience for tablet users. Esp. when you compare the apps he’s chose.
        Except the Trip Advisor app, which appears to have an enhanced-for-tablet interface, which you can see here: https://lh4.ggpht.com/h9CyyAcWeaGgIa-_zFmISOJdqG8dN7KqB-b8i3rGKLmDYegYQJ0uW4yUbt6-YN77oCU
        That view is the equal of the iPad app, clearly.
        Three last points right now:
        1) these app interface differences aren’t Apple’s doing, they’re the work of external devs.
        2) many of these informational apps (like Trip Advisor, like Yelp), if things continue to progress properly, won’t remain discrete apps for much longer, they’ll become web apps, accessed through the browser, and truly non-proprietary (a big point for Apple when they complained about Flash, for instance)
        3) Yes, the Mini display is bigger than a similarly-sized Nexus 7…but I like the size of my Acer A100. It fits neatly into almost every jacket pocket I have. Nexus, Mini, etc. perhaps not. The size, in a strictly physical sense, is important.
      - gjgustav
        1. It doesn’t matter if they aren’t Apple’s doing. The fact is they are available. There are far less Android apps tailored toward tablet screens.
        2. These all started out as web sites, and went native because that’s what their customers wanted. Web apps will always lag behind native apps, due to the nature of web technology.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        1) it certainly looked like Schiller was taking credit for the “vastly superior experience” afforded by their new sub-10″ tablet, which “nobody else had got right.”
        2) so…if web technologies aren’t ready for primetime, why did Steve Jobs unilaterally banish Flash from the iOS platform and hobble it on OS X? He was saying that HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript were open, standard technologies that were ready to replace Flash and any other proprietary technology for delivery of rich interactive content.
        Which is it? Web tech ready or Web tech not ready?
        Which is it? “We’ll never do a 7″ tablet,” or “here’s the 7″ tablet “done right”?”
        Facebook turned their iOS and Android apps into HTML5 applications with disastrous results. They’re returning to native apps. Mark Zuckerberg said FB isn’t giving up on web apps, just rolling back some because the technologies “aren’t quite ready,” but that they WILL be soon enough. Which is exactly what I said. Which is what Steve Jobs was driving at with shutting out Adobe.
        Info-drive, timely services, like YELP, really SHOULD be do-able with HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, and server-side web services. But right now, today, they’re lagging. Next year? The year after? We’ll come to see web apps as true open, platform-agnostic way to serve the user.
      - orthorim
        In the “35% more screen real estate” respect.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        ah, yes, Stevenjklein finally pointed out the relevant info and answered my question. He’s a mensch, and I thanked him below.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        WTF could people be voting down when all I’ve done is ask for clarification? trigger-happy lot, aren’t you?
    - http://profiles.google.com/cajhne C Rogers
      The keynote comparison of the screens didn’t take into account full-screen mode in android web browsers, or in-fact any android 4.0+ OS.
      They also didn’t mention the Nexus is higher resolution (Oh, yes, Apple DOES want you to care about the high-res on iPhone 5, iPods, and “The New iPad”, just not vs. Nexus 7).
      They also, also didn’t mention the uncomfortably thin bezel on the sides which offer little to no grip, and force you to have your thumb over the content (Apple made a big deal about the wide bezel around all the iPads for “grip”).
      And also, also, also… that the iPad mini is seven tenths of an inch too wide to fit into a standard suit-coat pocket, whereas the Nexus 7 is the perfect size to do that (this is where I keep mine).
      They didn’t mention anything about watching movies either. You’re going to get the same black bars that plague current iPads. Nexus 7 has a screen size that’s formatted to display movies at the aspect ratio that is closer to a real theatre experience. Notice how monitor screens are all widescreen now? Clinging to 1024×768, is just keeping Apple from stepping fully into the present a bit longer. They made a little step with their phone (which has black bars on their old apps). Shame really.
      So the iPad Mini is too expensive, too low-res, too hard to hold, and too damn wide to beat the Nexus 7 on portability form-factor.
      Despite Apple’s description of the Nexus 7 as being “made of plastic”, they “forgot” about the glass and the gorgeous, grippy tactile moulded rubber on the back. The only “plastic” bit seems to me the imitation metal ring around the glass, which is only 3mm thick. In fact, I hadn’t even noticed it was plastic until Apple mentioned it in their keynote. Since I got my Nexus 7, people have been mistaking it for an iPad, so unless you’ve got out your magnifying glass, and some sandpaper, you will not notice a difference in build quality. The Nexus 7 is simply a gorgeous device, which is a big part of its rave reviews, by Apple people, and non-Apple people alike.
      Even the build quality boils down to whether you like slippy brushed aluminum or grippy soft rubber under your fingers. It’s more or less subjective.
      Also, I still have to laugh every time Apple (or anyone) says that iOS isn’t just a scaled-up phone OS, as they have stubbornly kept their 4 x 5 grid of app icons, and absolutely gigantic keyboard buttons exactly the same as iPhone for how many years now? It’s pathetic. In landscape mode on a tablet, you should at least have letters and numbers available without having to press an extra button to get numbers.
  - John Ford
    It’s only a 7/10ths of a inch wider.
    - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
      to borrow a phrase “wider…than the thickness of a pencil…”
techtock
The Quarterly Sales Report will be the judge of that. But you would think $299 for entry would have been a solid leader.
http://twitter.com/maswriter Matthew Arnold Stern
Apple’s other big mistake with the iPad mini was not going retina. At 162 dpi, the iPad mini has a lower resolution than the Kindle Fire HD at 216 dpi. That makes the iPad mini less attractive as an eReader. The lower resolution also makes it harder to justify the iPad mini’s higher price. It’s a meh.
- gjgustav
  If you are just using it to read books, then I agree. Might as well get a paperwhite kindle in that case.
- http://www.facebook.com/herbal.ed Ed Smith
  I’m afraid I have to agree with you here. Perhaps a retina screen would have driven the price even higher.
livehappy8
I think you may be missing the point – I’ve spent already, over $100 on apps, books, music, etc on iTunes. Why would I get my kids a cheaper Fire, when I’d have to repurchase everything? As a companion product for myself, why would I get a cheaper small tablet when I don’t want to lug around my iPad, when all of my magazine subs, books, music, apps, could just be sync’d to a device 100 or so more? I have two kids, I’m more than willing to get them an ipad mini v. a fire, because I’m not going to repurchase all those game apps. Additionally, when you look at the actual experience of an ipad v. fire – it’s going to blow it away in browsing, reading, gaming…just overall a far superior product.
- http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
  why did you get yourself into a boat where your purchased music and books (I’m setting aside games and apps for obvious reasons) are locked into one application set?
  purchasing your music from emusic (my preference, but there are other sources), and your ebooks in epub format from any of dozens of other vendors would have ensured portability and device choice…
  - livehappy8
    Ive been an iTunes user since month one. So I’m fully invested. I do buy lots of books from amazon because they have good deals. But I haven’t used my kindle touch since I got my iPad w/retina.
    Even the apps and games alone, no music, movies, mag subscriptions, etc…I would still easily pay the 100 to not have to buy again.
    - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
      I’ve never found an eInk device that I could be happy with: the page turn/screen refresh is painfully slow.
      I can’t blame you for not picking up the Kindle again…
      But I guess if you’re stuck with all those low-bit rate, DRM’d music files from the past, you wouldn’t want to jump ship away from iTunes/Music Store… (that’s a little bit of snark, just a bit…:)
      - John Ford
        For 24.99 sign up for iTunes Matching. In update you will update the songs to 256 from 128 and lose the DRM.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        I went with a service (emusic) that offered higher bit, variable bit rates and non-DRM files from the get-go.
      - drosspike
        iTunes is DRM free and completely portable to pretty much any service or music player. Has been for years.
      - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
        Has been completely DRM free for…a few years.
        emusic has been DRM free since inception.
        livehappy8 said she’d been using iTMS since day one, so that meant she may have been buying low-bitrate, DRM’d files for six or seven years.
        iTMS also uses AAC, which is, currently and certainly in the past, less widely-supported than MP3
        Context is important, isn’t it?
GarveyCeyRusellLopes
i know why they didnt do 299 cause it could interfere with the ipod touch or other stuff, but they missed the mark. this will sell, when apple says jump people ask how high but this is pretty much a 7 inch ipad 2.
Eric Morgan
Wrong
whodakat
Well, now that we have your opinion, we can all sleep easier. Do you think these guys were confused as to how they would undercut the 7″ market and just priced it wrong? Of course not. They said, lets not compete at price, lets compete at experience. It shouldn’t be a shocker as this is pretty much how they do all their products. MS just made the exact same decision. You all will love this, but Android tablets are shit. I haven’t used them all but I’ve got plenty of time with a Nexus 7 to know if this is the flagship, I’ll pass. MS and Apple don’t want to race to the bottom to see who can lose more money. If they would have hit the $199 mark, Google or Kindle would have given their next tablet away for free! Its a race they don’t want to win. The iPad mini costs Apple $200 to make (about), so $329 is not crazy. Its really only $29 more than I had hoped for. Take into consideration 300,000 apps, and the fact that these apps were made for the tablet and not for the phone and you have a premium product at a decent price point.
Although I would have loved to have seen the Nexus and the Kindle sink like a stone with the iPad mini priced at $249 or even $299, I think Apple will sell more minis then they can make.
Also, I don’t think Apple wants you to look at the mini and go, hmmm, should I buy this mini or this Nexus 7. They are trying to get you to go, hmmm, $329 is a $170 savings off the iPad I can’t afford, or even now I can get an iPad and LTE under $500. I think Apple says, if the Nexus experience is good enough for you, then buy the Nexus, its much cheaper. But if you want something quality, and usable, then drop the extra $100 and you can actually have an iPad!
- tk427
  I have to agree, I’ve got the nexus 7 and an iPad 2 and the interface on my nexus 7 pales in comparison to my iPad.
  The interface on the iPad is leagues ahead of the Nexus 7
- http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
  “Take into consideration 300,000 apps, and the fact that these apps were made for the tablet and not for the phone”
  when I look over my wife’s shoulder as she’s making game purchases for our sons to play on her iPad, I note that she has to make sure she gets the “HD” versions of the app to ensure that it doesn’t look like hell, due to scaling up from iPhone resolution.
  When I buy (or, more often get for free) games or apps in the Google Play store, there are very few instances of having to choose which screen size I need to buy my app or game in: they “just work” regardless of the device screen size.
  Note, also, that I only have to get one app to use on two (or three) different devices, unlike the “HD” and “non-HD” versions of iOS games and apps, which are two different products which you will have to pay for individually…
  - whodakat
    The HD to non-HD thing, I find, has more to do with a game being free vs paid than being a iPhone vs iPad app. Those 300,000 apps are only counting iPad native games. Tack a one in front of that number if you want to see how many different apps I can put on my iPad.
    - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
      HD vs non-HD: well, here we have different experience, I guess.
      But that still doesn’t speak to the fact that there are very few apps that won’t work on either a 10″, 7″, or phone-sized Android device. The hard work of scaling the display has to be done by the developer, but it makes for a more portable app.
      And 1 million iOS apps aren’t a measure of quality.
      400k fart and lightsaber apps don’t really mean that much.
  - http://profiles.google.com/ebernet Eytan Bernet
    Um, if you go to the store from the iPad, it shows you iPad applications. You have to specifically choose to see iPhone apps. If you go via iTunes, there is a clear delineation. Of those, over half are single apps, designed to work on both th iPhone and iPad, with a distinct difference: the interface is tailored to look different, not just scale, between the two platforms, unlike the Android ones you mention.
    - http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
      It may be as you mention. I stated at the outset, when looking over my wife’s shoulder, as she searches for games for the kids, there are HD and non-HD offerings of the same titles. This is not what I see when I look in the Google Play repo.
      Apps designed simply “for android” may simply scale on the different screen. But there are many apps, esp. those written for Android 4+ that, just like iOS apps, alter their appearance based on the screen size and orientation.
      My point in all of this is that iOS and Apple aren’t, by default “better,” just “different” from the offerings in the Android world.
      - orthorim
        I am sorry but your argument makes no sense. Apps specifically designed for a larger form factor will always be better than apps that upscale automatically.
        There is nothing that prevents Android developers from creating specific tablet version – except the fact that the market is tiny to non-existent. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Apple has forced devs to create tablet versions and that has lead to a very quick explosion of tablet specific apps.
- orthorim
  Bravo! It seems obvious to be honest, I am glad at least some people see it.
  Apple will sell zillions of these.
http://twitter.com/gnomehole The Gnome
Why are cult of nerd droid articles showing up in my Cult of Mac feeds. I don’t need to be reading this biased clueless Fandroid junk thats just baiting people to fight in comment areas.
Keep this shit to the nerd herd and let the adults talk Apple, Mac and iDevices…
- E2design
  It’s bigoted people like you that give Apple fans a bad name. Respect other people’s opinions, and maybe you won’t seem like such an asshole.
  - http://www.facebook.com/herbal.ed Ed Smith
    Actually it takes an asshole to call someone an asshole. You should try a little respect yourself.
    - E2design
      You’re right. It was wrong that I made that comment, and I sincerely apologize for my choice of words–but my point remains the same. To slander people based on their OS preference is not only childish, but the complete opposite of what “adults” should do.
http://www.facebook.com/lichunan Li Ying C An
The pricing of $329 for the iPad mini is higher than I thought. But then I don’t think Apple really gives a damn what other competitors are doing, or what so call “analysts” or “pundits” are recommending. Remember a few years ago when the $300 Netbook was the rage, and everyone says Apple *HAS* to get into the Netbook business? I guess we know how that drama turns out.
- orthorim
  Hahaha, too true. Apple is making cars while the others are figuring out how to make horses faster.
quanji
Respectfully, I disagree. IMO, the $329 price point makes a lot of sense.
First off, a $200/250 price simply isn’t a viable option right now. Yes, Amazon and Google both sell tablets at those prices, but they aren’t making any money from the hardware. If anything, Google’s plans to soon double the capacity on the Nexus 7 will probably cause them to lose money off of each device sold. It’s very enticing for consumers and a good temporary solution to compete with Apple. But unless it is successful to a point where mass numbers of users increase (so that they can make up for the loss in their respective app/content stores), they will not be able to sustain this business model.
Secondly, I believe Apple’s decision to price it at $329 instead of $299 is solely because of the iPod Touch. It would be ridiculous of them to price the iPad Mini the same as the iPod Touch. And as the iPod Touch currently exists, it wouldn’t be wise of them to lower that price either. Yet. When the next wave of device revisions are released next year, I believe a shift will occur in the iPod Touch device so that it will focus on photography and incorporate a better camera. When this happens, it will be more realistic for Apple to lower the cost of the iPad Mini so that it matches the iPod Touch. I’m not saying that they will (because they probably won’t), but it’s a possibility.
Having said all this, you do bring up some good points. The iPad Mini is definitely far from perfect. Just to name a couple, the screen resolution is disappointing and the hardware is last-gen. But this won’t really matter because the iPad has never been about the hardware/specs. The user experience is what’s most important to Apple and a large reason why many people buy the iPad. The Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7 may be superior by specs, but the Apple is clearly superior when it comes to the solid design of the device and the user experience it gives. And to many, that’s enough to justify the additional cost.
http://twitter.com/Senturion Spencer Callaghan
You would think someone who writes for a blog called “Cult of Mac” would understand that Apple competes on quality, experience and ecosystem, not price.
These will absolutely decimate the 7″ tablet market.
- http://www.iterativearts.com bud latanville
  I’m reading this thread on the cultofandroid.com site…http://www.cultofandroid.com/17533/why-apples-ipad-mini-misses-the-mark-opinion/
  perhaps the backends of cultofandroid and cultofmac “crossed the streams?”
http://twitter.com/denisvj denisvj
I tested a Nexus and it feels like a toy made of plastic.
caricaturist
Missed the mark? I predict this “mark misser” will sell by the truckload non-stop and dive deep into tens of millions of purses across the world… Price points matter to frightened consumers fearful of spending too much on the wrong product – price points DON’T matter to educated consumers who have vast evidence of a massively superior product which truly gives them an excellent and consistent experience…
Chumley99
The only way I would even consider this would be if I could somehow rationalize the usefulness of a 16gb wifi only product for a kid or something. I have at least a dozen Apple products but it has gotten really old getting raped for the upgraded models. 16gb is almost useless in this type of device. You end up with 14.x gb of user storage which might get you an average array of apps (assuming they weren’t huge games), a few family picts, a couple music albums and what? 1 or 2 movies? They should be ashamed of $100 for 16gb add-on and $129 for cellular. With the carriers pushing shared data, it might make sense to get the LTE version but when you price out a 32gb LTE version with a case and tax you’re at $600+ for what really is a downsized product built mostly from specs that go back 2 or more years. Lower resolution than most new phones, ipod processor, and a 2 1/2 year old camera with no flash? No thanks.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bob-Forsberg/100001387343371 Bob Forsberg
$249 is a price someone might throw out there with no manufacturing or distribution experience in life. To say $299 would make non-Apple users switch but $30 more rules it out is further evidence of delusion. $30 is two movie tickets and popcorn.
lucascott
Missed what mark? Vincent’s ‘my wonderful idea’ mark?
It hasn’t even gone on preorder so judging anything now is just wacked. It might be a no go or it might sell millions (wont that piss off the FanDroids)
- http://www.facebook.com/herbal.ed Ed Smith
  Exactly …. and we all know how often Apple misses the mark.
http://www.facebook.com/james.a.larson James Albert Larson
Why Apple Failed With iPad Mini Intro Today
iPad 4 is a much better deal for not much more money while iPad mini is charging a premium for technology that is two generations old and almost guaranteed to be revised within seven months to what it should have been today: retina and A6. I wanted one more than anyone but they failed everyone. Think about it…
To the rich person who does not need to factor in money: Apple has updated their retina display and the iPad mini is inferior technology offering very little of a sales pitch for its reduced size.
For the die hard Apple device user: the reduced size device is covered between the iPhone 5 and new Retina iPad; why do they need the in-between unless they are just that “trendy?”
Finally, to the so-called budget conscious, student, or consumer who wants to buy into the iPad experience at a reduced cost or so forth, they are much better off getting a Kindle Fire or Nexus, or if they want the iPad, to save up a little bit more for the better technology that is not as behind the curve.
So who is this for? Who? I wanted it so bad, but now I am writing why I am so upset? Why? Think about it. Are they so arrogant to think that we just want anything they make because it has that cue and elegant techno geek factor? Well, almost, they almost have me that easily? But they could have dropped the price with what they are offering? i would get the compromises becasue they wanted to target the lower end, but they didn’t do that.
And if they are just making the best device, albeit just “concentrated”, then why did they make it with the older screens and lower PPi count?
I will tell you… They know they can just put it out there and it will be a high profit margin item they can clean up with. While trying to thwart competitors taking over their lucrative tablet ecosystem. It is very cynical because they know they probably didn’t have the ability to get the better specs in time or with the profit margin, unless they did as Amazon, and took a hit on the margins, which by the way they could do as Apple, with more Cash than most divinities have on tap… and if they did, they would have wiped Google and Amazon off the map.
Fortunately for us all, they did not do that, and we will watch as the battle can only be good for consumers everywhere.
- http://www.facebook.com/herbal.ed Ed Smith
  I think you missed Apple’s point in offering the mini … IT’S SMALLER!
Peter Vandelinder
I hope this thing is a total flop. CrApple needs a good kick in the ass. They’re a morally bankrupt company that should be ashamed of their pricing and branding tactics. Seems like all the CrApple fan-boys forgot about iPhone 4 and all the antenna problems that Apple refused to fix. I guess you are the device you use, and it’s clear, CrApple devices fall short on many things, and so do their fans.
- http://www.facebook.com/herbal.ed Ed Smith
  Yeah … iPhone 4 was a real flop, huh?
http://www.facebook.com/KWT78 Khaled Alwaleed Talal
What a stupid article. It’s hilarious how some people just want to push out articles just to have their opinions read.
vx117
Let’s pay more for less or less for more. I think everyone here is smart enough to do the math.
drosspike
I believe the columnist may want to wait for actual sales figures before he claims that the iPad mini “missed the mark”. With that said, I do think it should have been priced at $299 as well. We’ve seen this pattern before; Apple is betting long with this device by debuting it premium priced (it’ll continue to sell at a sub-$300 price when the second gen is released), but it would have been nice to see it more competitively priced this year, and not next.
honest
Thanks Apple for inventing something called “iPad” which makes a lot of idiots and hopeless companies inspired to clone it and even by cloning it they still far away!!!. who thinks of other brands than apple he is absolutely has no taste in technology and design period!!!
http://www.facebook.com/carlhancock Carl Hancock
Something tells me all these “pundits” are going to be eating their words then Apple announces iPad Mini sales numbers at the next Apple product release event. How many times have we heard “Apple misses the mark.” only for the product to be a raging success? When will you guys learn?
http://www.facebook.com/paul.wren Paul Wren
As a current iPad 2 user, I’m delighted by the Mini. I’m going to buy one and dump my iPad 2 on ebay, and I’ll be much happier with the form factor. As an Apple shareholder, I’m disappointed. At $329 it can’t compete with the Nexus and the Fire, yet it competes favorably with the iPad 2 and will likely cannibalize sales of other iPad models.
http://www.tumblr.com/blog/his-divine-shadow His Shadow
As per usual, this sounds like the same tired nonsense that gets trotted out every single time Apple releases a product.
When the numbers come back in January, I hope you will reflect on this boring screed and think harder before you upload.
gjgustav
I’ve read this same opinion about the iPod mini was released. It ended up being a huge success.
http://www.facebook.com/cnystrom Christopher Conrad Nystrom
If they can sell all they can manufacture between now and Christmas then it does not make sense from a business perspective to go with a lower price. And then after Christmas you can drop the price to $299. It is a small enough price drop the existing owners will not mind;
http://www.facebook.com/people/Koen-van-Hees/1301049198 Koen van Hees
Why not say “mark my words, they won’t sell more than 10.000 of those mini things” instead of “they totally missed the (your own very personal) mark. Now you’re selling yourself as madame fortuna, barely missing the opportunity to use words like “fanboi”. Instead you could have set yourself a challenge and us an opportunity to say either “claim chowder” or “damn, cultofandroid was spot on!” half a year from now. And btw, why downplay form factor as a non-consideration for gadgets?
http://www.swift2.blogspot.com Swift2
Are the Android tablets maybe feeling abut the same as whoever was $50 cheaper than the iPod mini?
http://www.swift2.blogspot.com Swift2
Feeds and speeds. We’ll se.
http://www.facebook.com/davidmcelroy David McElroy
Honestly, if you were capable of “getting” the whole iPad thing (whether original size or Mini) you wouldn’t be writing for Cult of Android. So OF COURSE you’re going to miss the point. I say this not as criticism, but to point out that it’s simply what’s expected. There’s nothing to argue about here, because the article’s view represents a certain mindset that doesn’t understand iOS and its ecosystem, just as the anti-Android point of view represents a mindset that doesn’t understand the appeal of Android. It cuts both ways.
orthorim
“For Apple consumers, there’s simply no reason other than form factor to choose the Mini”
You’re more right than you probably think. The form factor is the killer here. This thing is 6mm thin! That’s crazy!! It costs $80 more than the comparable Nexus 7, which is the industry’s low point as far as price is concerned – Google makes no profit on it. And if you put the Nexus 7 next to an iPad mini, even from the press shots, it’s immediately obvious why one costs more, and it’s actually surprising it doesn’t cost a whole lot more. The Nexus 7 is a nice tablet; the iPad mini is like a slice from the future.
Apple did not go out and say: Hey, let’s make a little bit worse of a product, for less money. They went out and said: Let’s make a new iPad in a new form factor that people will choose over the original iPad.
Apple isn’t competing with the Nexus 7, and certainly not with the Kindle fire – it made a competitor to the by far best selling tablet out there, the iPad. If you think about it, that makes a lot of sense.
JoseO42
This is my feeling as well. Apple had a golden opportunity to have a huge gain with consumers on a budget but at the price of $329, it is over priced. Apple should have done what was necessary to get the price down to $249 or so and they would have something that would have given worries to their competitors.
I am sure that it will still sell well but not as well as it would have if they kept that price point. I had a friend who was waiting for the iPad mini but when they saw the price, they decided to go with something else instead.
Walt French
“I’m waiting for the original innovator with the superior choice of apps and media to come down to the price of the mail-order cheapie with dubious app quality/choice, a track record of crappy customer service and two year lags of innovation. Heck, it’s only a couple of bills that i’m risking. Because ‘open’ !” — Precisely, exactly nobody.
Bolling Bryant
This product was designed for the education market primarily. Many schools will buy them.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Coleman/1671302259 Bill Coleman
Prediction: Apple will be completely supply-constrained on the iPad mini during the entire holiday quarter. Therefore, they got the price exactly right.
Remember, they can always lower prices later. But if you can sell as many as you can make, then your price is either too low, or just right.
http://www.facebook.com/dleute Derrek Leute
I think many of you people have a short memory. The iPhone debuted with an astounding premium *with* a 2-year contract required. Remember? $500-$600? This “premium” for the iPad Mini is nothing compared to that. Missed the mark? try well undercut the mark. Particularly by apple standards.
And, yes, it’s essentially an iPad 2 in a smaller package. That’s what makes it genius. Why mess with such an incredibly successful product?

About the author

Vincent Messina has been writing and evangelizing about Android for the past three years. When he's not playing the part of "Loki" to his 5 and 4-year-old, he can be found here, covering all things Android. He adamantly believes Android has the greatest community around and can be harassed at any of the following locations: Google+, Twitter.

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Posted in Android, Opinions | Tagged: Amazon, Android, Apple, Google, ios, ipad mini, kindle fire hd, nexus 7, tablets |