I'm not going to pass judgment because I've personally burned a lot of money on expensive gaming machines just because I wanted to play games on the highest settings. Everybody derives pleasure and satisfaction from different things and if burning tons of cash on Apple gadgets makes someone's life better and more enjoyable... more power to them.
But his opinion can't be due to rational, fact based assessment of his practical experience with his iPad. No. It must be irrational and mindless based on marketing. It can't possibly be that he's happy with his iPad because, you know, it's actually good and would appreciate one that's even better. That can't possibly be it.
IMHO, Apple's situation is much better than the CPU/GPU upgrade cycle. They release like once every 1.5 years in each product category instead of like every 3-6 months. And they hype up each release much less than AnandTech/Toms/etc hype up the latest NVIDIA/ATI cards.
How many people bought netbooks only to find out they had no real use for one? Now tell me that people wouldn't do the same thing for a product they actually do find genuinely useful. Find where that intersects with the people who have a need for the new features of the latest iPad and you'll find the number of people who are buying the newest version of the hot device simply because they want the newest version.
This from a company who's whole strategy is about being the upmarket, high margin option. They're so obviously leaving a price umbrella so that next year they can price-drop the current version when the next iPad Mini comes out and still make money hand over fist, while also leaving the opposition nowhere to go price wise.
They release a blockbuster refresh of their main products and gear up to make more money than ever before and their stock price dives 12%. Unbelievable.
But you can believe that "Wall Street was effectively upset that Apple would be making too much money" if it makes you feel better. I'm sure those fund managers stay up late at night worrying about beating their targets...
In this sense I agree with the analysis that Apple needed to introduce a lower cost medium form factor tablet for strategic reasons. I just expect them to do so in two phases, in exactly the same way that they have with previous devices. That is, introduce the new device at it's premium price point this year, and then move the year old device down to a lower introductory price point the year after.
In other words I agree with the argument that the introductory iPad Mini should be under $300. I just think that next year is when that should happen and jumping the gun would be a panicky amateur move that Apple would be idiots to make.
Long term iPad margins will be lower than they have been up to now, but that's inevitable one way or another and Apple are doing a great job managing the transition.
Do you have a source for this? It seems to me that the whole tablet market is cannibalising conventional computer sales, in which case there's a hell of a lot of growth left.
It seems strange to me, but it looks like 'personal mobile computers' have a requirement for "device freshness" that is much closer to the shelf life of sliced bread than it is to that of a comparably-priced television.
If this is at all the case, Apple would seem to be headed for $4,000 per share.
I most interested in day 30 - 100 when the initial buzz wears off.
That doesn't say anything about cannabalization either way, just that I think there's a lot of Minis out there now
Furthermore, average selling prices for iPads have already been sinking. Apple's just giving customers another $200 cheaper option to capture that demand. And as long as they can stay the default no-brainer choice in customer's minds, they'll be fine.
[1] http://www.tech-thoughts.net/2012/10/ipad-mini-cannibalizati...
[2] http://allthingsd.com/20120809/apple-vs-samsung-trial-forces...
It would really just depend on the extent of the cannibalization.
This is a fascinating example of "no such thing as bad publicity" :-)
I'm not saying they're the only ones to blame here, all consumer electronic companies are doing the same thing, but they're certainly the largest player.
Forced obsolescence around devices that are largely unchanged from one version to the next is not new, but the pace is insane. People are bored days after purchase.
We're sitting on a mountain of tulips. Exploitive, environment damaging tulips.
There's a big difference between consumer debt (often held locally) and national debt (held overseas). I'm not sure consumer debt is as big an issue as you think.
Though I find it interesting you can buy an iPad 2 for seventy dollars more than the mini. For many that is a great option.
For me, having to buy some gifts this year I can get three kids into Nexus 7s for price of two minis.
Regardless, that's an impressive number for a device that already had well established competition and Steve Jobs claiming nobody wanted it.
EDIT: oh wait, that's 4th gen and iPad Minis combined? I thought it was for just the mini. Are there numbers out there about how the mini sold? I don't see it broken down in the press release unless I totally missed it. I think it's a bit unfair to say that the latest iPad and the mini doubled the number sold of the previous iPad since that's comparing the totals of two products against one. Still, impressive numbers.
Given that the white models sold out* within hours (or was it minutes?) and the entry level black model sold out the next day, subsequent orders would not be included in this figure.
* By sold out I mean shipping date slipped
The iPad is one thing, made by one company, that comes in two sizes.
Which may be used with or without accessories such as a keyboard or stylus.
One thing indeed.
I liked the old Apple, which out-sold the competition just on their product and product differentiation.
I for one am glad that Apple is so much more international than Google and Amazon, because I live outside of US.
IMO, it would be hard for me to think of any company that would not consider this a successful launch.
Sure there's talk of cannibalizing of larger iPad sales but for me the larger iPad was not that interesting due to having to carry a laptop AND a tablet is painfully heavy (it adds up). I was debating waiting for a Mini with a Retina display but decided early Friday morning to just pick one up.
This is my first ever iOS device and in the days since last Friday, it's been fun to use, is the right form factor for my use cases and frankly, I'm happy with my decision. YMMV.
Now, my next most pressing problem is to find a case for it... Suggestions anyone?
After January 1st, there will (probably) be sub-$300 "good as new" iPad minis available as refurbished devices in the Apple Store too...
