As rumors swirl (I, II, III) about the arrival of an "iPad Mini" with a 7.85-inch display, 52%...

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Wall Street Smart Comments (472)
 
The smaller tablet would be sick but ofcourse 300 price range would not be possible unless subsidized
4 May 2012, 04:56 PM Reply Like

Sacto_Joe Comments (186)
 
I don't agree. You can buy a much larger 2011 iPad for $400. $300 sounds about right, maybe even $285.
5 May 2012, 04:50 PM Reply Like

muoio Comments (2961)
 
You should work for AAPL!
9 May 2012, 10:40 AM Reply Like

remurraymd Comments (2306)
 
According to (AMZN) reports sales of the Kindle Fire tanked from 17% to 4% this quarter a BIG flop all those folks moved to (http://bit.ly/pFSoX2) . The mini is geared to respond to that market. I had a Kindle Fire I liked the size but it was a piece of junk.Slow no loads hard to see text would not expand. I sent it back as crap.I would be a buyer in the $299 range of the iPad mini already have the big one would like something small clean functional with expandable fonts lighter and more portable I could slip into a coat pocket for travel when I visit clients.Should be VERY bullish for our long Apple holdings over time APD
4 May 2012, 05:10 PM Reply Like

mynameiseric1 Comments (30)
 
Disagree on not sustainable price point. Apple people and amazon people are from entirely different quality planets. They will always pay the premium because, they know better than to buy a cheap POS, like the Swindle...I mean Kindle.
4 May 2012, 06:09 PM Reply Like

KillerSgt Comments (244)
 
"Swindle"...hehe...I like that.
6 May 2012, 03:54 PM Reply Like

zd2002 Comments (143)
 
Apple won't do that, for five reasons:

(1) Steve Jobs once said that he doesn't know how to make a 7" tablet that is not a piece of crap. Although he's dead, his voices will still live on on the Apple Campus.

(2) With the iPad 2 lowered to $400, it's now a serious competitor to the Kindle. $250 for a device that does little more than reading book, or $400 for a device that can do everything (and barring the screen, still set the gold standard for the industry).

(3) Regardless of Apple's scale, they cannot bring the price down to $300 and still earn a decent profit. Apple is a hardware company, it earns next to nothing through its iTunes store (relatively speaking of course).

(4) Apple positions itself as a premium brand. It doesn't want to compete on price. $150 extra for a better device, of a better brand name isn't that much to charge. Once you start perceiving Apple as a "cheap" brand, Apple got a problem.

(5) It causes segmentation. Developers will have to support 5 different screensizes (iPhone, iPhone Retina, iPad, iPad Retina, plus iPad 7"). Apple is against that from the very beginning.

Apple doesn't have a problem with the 10" tablet market, it has ~70% market share (and 90% profit share???). And it's a new industry with huge growth ahead. I don't expect a smaller iPad, at all.
4 May 2012, 06:51 PM Reply Like

dab3z Comments (312)
 
I agree with basically everything you said. While it could be argued that this is an iPad and not a tablet market already, a smaller iPad would absolutely annihilate the competition. I don't see that as a bad thing.
4 May 2012, 08:01 PM Reply Like

Brad Sneckner Comments (5)
 
You think so? I almost feel that by bringing in a slightly smaller, cheaper iPad, they would simply be attracting more of that "other" 30% of the market share they DON'T have, and be making AAPL nerds out of currently resistant consumers. They wouldn't be making a "cheap" product, but rather a quality product that captures a previously untouchable share of the market.

I could be off my rocker, I am very new to this stuff.
5 May 2012, 01:31 AM Reply Like

lundypartners Comments (2)
 
they are sure to respond to all the pundits. people want a product they can put in their pocket. a nd apple people will pay apple prices kindle people will sit on the sideline and wait and see. but make no mistake, kindle is going down. hope the girl likesit.
5 May 2012, 09:01 AM Reply Like

Sacto_Joe Comments (186)
 
The game-changer that Steve Jobs wasn't thinking about is the retina display. With a retina display, they can literally run any iOS software, except the new retina display software for the 2012 iPad, right out of the box at full resolution. And yes, it'll be cheaper.
5 May 2012, 04:54 PM Reply Like

neversweat Comments (59)
 
I'd rather have a MaxiPad, at least 13". My iPad 3 is a little cramped.
4 May 2012, 08:41 PM Reply Like

COS911 Comments (42)
 
MacBook Air, with 13" iPad screen...
7 May 2012, 11:25 AM Reply Like

dmarilley Comments (287)
 
The current i Pad has a tired look
5 May 2012, 02:34 AM Reply Like

rome123 Comments (9)
 
love my new i pad ..read in bed with no light on to bother anyone ..go apple ....i need the money
5 May 2012, 11:23 AM Reply Like

samuelwaldman Comment (1)
 
It would be foolish of Apple to pass up on making a whole new device if they release just a scaled down carbon copy of the current iPad. The problem with this, of course, is that if apple has two iPads on the market, anyone that could've and would've paid $400 for an iPad can now pay $200, cutting into their profits. What I would do:

7 and 8 inch display
Retina Display
12MP Camera
Optical Zoom
2GB Storage (and a free 6 GB cloud storage)
4G LTE on every model
Price: $300 / 350
the iPad Cloud

Sacrifice storage space in exchange for better optics, price it basically the same and don't say it's an inferior tablet, just a completely different one. If you want a tablet as a second computer and storage device, get an ipad classic, if you want a device that you can adventure with, take beautiful pictures and videos that instantly go to the cloud, facebook, twitter, and your blog get the ipad cloud. They won't do it, but they should, Apple starts trends, they shouldn't follow them.
16 Jul 2012, 01:49 PM Reply Like