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Would you buy a 7-inch apple ‘ipad mini' for $200? by wgre ethbtn
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Would you buy a 7-inch apple ‘ipad mini' for $200? |
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Business,Business News,Business Opportunities
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Tell me if this makes sense to you: Apple's preparing tolaunch a significantly smaller version of its alreadynot-exactly-huge iPad and keep everything exactly the same — including the 2048 x1536 screen resolution — except for storage, whichit'll drop from the entry-level iPad's 16GB to 8GB. Oh,and it'll cost between $200 and $250 instead of $500.That's the latest rumor tossed around by tech blog iMore , anyway. Who knows if it's true — it's one of those rumorsthat, whatever Apple does or doesn't do, will live on in oneform or another — but let's say it is true. I'm trying to imagine this thing (beyond the amusingPhotoshop iPad image shrinks some sites seem to think we need asvisual aids) and what its primary allure would be.
$200 for an iPadwould be pretty sweet, no doubt about that. Apple already sellsgazillions of iPads at the $500 price point, so imagine whatCupertino might move for half that or less. And Amazon's7-inch Kindle Fire seems to be managing well enough from a sales standpoint(though you rarely really know the extent to which people are using these things —Nintendo's Wii was gaming's retail hero for years, forinstance, but study after study indicates it's hugelyunderused next to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3). ( MORE: 6 Reasons Not to Buy Apple's ‘New' iPad ) But Apple's in a very different place than most of itscompetitors: Amazon has no iPhone/iPod Touch equivalent, forinstance. And that's often how I think about my 3.5-inchiPhone — just a miniature iPad, which is why I haven'tpicked up an actual iPad yet.
There's very little I'd do with a 10-inchslate that I don't already with my iPhone 4, from gaming ( X-Plane , Infinity Blade , Civilization Revolution ) to show-watching (Netflix, Hulu) to handing around family photosand videos to noodling in semi-sophisticaed music apps likeGarageBand or Yamaha's TNR-i. As you've probably heard, even Steve Jobs scoffed at the notion Apple would release a 7-inch tablet, tellinginvestors it had nothing to do with hitting a price point, but thatit was "because we don t think you can make a great tabletwith a 7-inch screen." According to Jobs, "The 7-inchtablets are tweeners, too big to compete with a smartphone and toosmall to compete with an iPad." It's a finger/interface thing, said Jobs, claiming a userwould have to have fingers "around one quarter of the presentsize … This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inchscreen size is the minimum size required to create great tabletapps." Of course Jobs conveniently overlooked Apple's iPhone andiPod Touch when saying that, and I don't recall anyonecomplaining about the Kindle Fire's interface or itsapplication icons being too small — though the defaultlegibility of text without fiddling around sizing, on the otherhand, has been a sore spot for some. Either way, the point is that7-inch tablets hit what I tend to think of as a"confusing" spot for consumers — much too big tosupplant a smartphone, not quite big enough to go toe-to-toe withthe iPad and yet too cheap to dismiss out of hand. ( MORE: Apple s 7-inch iPad: The Rumor That Just Won t Die ) And what if the next iPhone's screen is bigger, as rumorspredict it might be, expanding from 3.5 to four or even as much as4.5 inches? One thing Apple's done reasonably well so far ismaintain functional distance between its iOS products.There's the 3.5-inch iPhone/iPod Touch or the 10-inch iPadand that's it.
Imagine an Apple-verse instead composed of3.5-inch, 4.5-inch, 7-inch and 10-inch tablet/phones. How do youchoose? What's the functional point of a 7-inch tablet in the iPad-verse? It's still toobig to fit in your jacket or pants pocket, and only slightly betterthan the 10-inch version at sliding into an average-sized purse.Then there's battery life (a smaller battery?), processingpower (lower speed, to counter thermal issues?) and so forth toconsider. With the latest iPad's warmer thermal footprint , it's hard to imagine Apple doing a straight size shrinkwithout performance tradeoffs. Sure, there's the fabled $200-$250 price tag.
But ifApple's really just looking to stiff-arm Android, why notdrop the price of the iPad $100-$150? iSuppli estimates Apple's bill of materials plus manufacturing for the latestiPad is about $316. That doesn't factor in additionalexpenses like software, licensing, royalties, etc., but I'mthinking about the games industry, where hardware margins are oftenrazor thin, or outright negative, and the profit model tends to bein peripherals and software. Apple scrapes 30% off App Storesales/transactions and the company has a $100 billion cash hoard.Why wouldn't it simply lower the iPad's price, if thiswere really a price-point game? While I have no doubt a $200 or even $250 iPad Mini would sell likecrazy and even functionally appeal to many, the idea that Applewould shrink the iPad a few inches, drop the price and call it aday doesn't wash. I'll eat crow if this thing everappears (in October this year, say rumormongers), but it'lltake a lot more than just a $200-$250 price tag to convince meit's a good idea.
MORE: Is Apple CEO Tim Cook Right? Are Laptop-Tablet Hybrids Dead in theWater?. I am Furniture & Furnishings writer, reports some information about wood dowel rods , coats and clark.
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