The iPad Mini
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
So now even Gruber admits that the 7" form factor is better for most use cases. With the latest crop of Android 7" tablets providing a lot more bang for the buck than the Mini I think pretty soon we're going to stop calling it the "iPad" market.
Also, it looks like "tablet market" outstripped "ipad market" in late 2010[1]!
[1]: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=ipad%20market,%20tabl...
Except he doesn't. He says he prefers the iPad mini – as you quoted, there – whose screen is about eight inches, not seven.
http://www.apple.com/ipad-mini/overview/
The strike against the sub-10" tablets has been that their aspect ratios have consistently been closer to 16:9, rather than the 4:3 of the iPad. In my usage of the Nexus 7, I found that meant I could only comfortably use the device in portrait – landscape was physically awkward and made all the software look goofy. Which meant I eventually went back to the iPad. 90% of my tablet usage seems to be landscape.
The thing the iPad mini gets right is maintaining the broader aspect ratio while trimming down the size and weight of the iPad.
The narrower bezels, the ones on top and bottom when it is held in landscape, make the mini hard to hold (or prop on your stomach when reclining) in landscape.
I ask because I find that unlikely with a smart cover. I use one with my iPad 3 and, with the smart cover rolled up, propping it up requires little more than my finger tips supporting the back edge.
2) the battery life and recharge time were worse on the 3, leaving many people (including myself) recommending that people by the 2.
2. I've heard from a few people that this is the case, but also that the iPad 4 charges faster, actually delivers on the 10-hour battery life claims and runs noticeably cooler.
Unrelated: I hate Gruber's pedantic style when it comes to Apple product names. Seriously, just write it the way Apple markets it.
I'll be interested in hearing why he's not calling it the iPad mini.
I agree to this. I have an iPhone 4S and an iPad2. Every time I use my iPad2 the pixels seem distorted.
I have an iPad 3; girlfriend still has an iPad 1. Whenever she shows me something, it's painful, particularly text. Luckily she now gets the iPad 3 once my iPad 4 arrives...
Long story short - the difference blew me away, and I fell in love with the Retina Display. The friend I was with swore he could not tell the difference between my 1440x900 2010 13" Macbook Air and the 2880x1800 15" Macbook Pro Retina - even with an App that had been optimized for Retina Display.
He just could see anything different on the screens. Some people just don't see the pixels.
Then I heard the same sort of things about HD a few years later.
Eventually I had to stop assuming that they were all lying to me... I don't know if people just figure their vision stabilized in the 20s and don't realize it's still getting worse cause they don't go to the eye doctor every year, or maybe they just don't pay as close attention as me, but I've heard that sort of thing too much to disbelieve.
And yes, you are write - a good pair of glasses would probably help.
It's the same reason many people find DVDs adequate for movies. It's good enough. Yes, blu-ray is higher quality, but you can only really "notice" when they're side by side and get used to the quality you're looking at.
I understand the emphasis is that it's a waste for you personally, but the statement above is analogous to a person with poor hearing saying they can't tell the difference between a cheap pair of earphones and a set of monitor headphones. To those with decent hearing, it's night and day, so it certainly has value in the market place.
The same applies with high DPI screens and eyesight - individuals with good vision will reap the rewards just as those with a keen sense of sound will appreciate high-fidelity audio equipment.
iPad 4 is now called 'iPad with Retina display' which makes me believe that Apple might even continue upgrading iPad 2 with iPad name, similar to the other product lines with/without Retina.
1. It was heavier. This is one of the few times this has happened with Apple products I think, and to me it was significantly heavier. The iPad 2 was already stretching it as a one-handed device, the extra weight on the 3 was the deal breaker and it wasn't that fun to have it for reading in bed anymore for example. The iPad 4 has not fixed this as it is even heavier than the 3. I used a hover bar ( http://twelvesouth.com/products/hoverbar/ ) and it could no longer support the weight too :/ (yes this is less of an issue but was still annoying and really highlighted the "trade-off" feeling of the iPad 3).
2. The performance sucked. The chip was just not ready to spit out retina-number of pixels. I prefer not losing frames to sharper text or whatever, and as much I'd like to, I really can't tell the difference that much when it comes to retina. I hear a lot of "if you use it for X amount of time you won't be able to go back". This doesn't seem like a great value proposition to me: "after X time this will seem normal (not exciting), and everything else will seem like shit!".
3. I could fit less stuff than before (unfortunately this is true no matter what given the silly way Apple handles "universal" retina/non-retina apps). I had a 64 GB iPad 2, and when moving to a 64GB iPad 3 and upgrading the apps they all increased in size by so much that I couldn't fit them all anymore (plus music, etc). This is particularly frustrating because it is 100% fixable by just having a system that distributes different binaries with different resources (with NO extra work to the developer).
I am incredibly excited about the iPad mini. I bought it at midnight when it went on sale and sold my iPad 3 without a second thought (which basically paid for the mini). As the article mentions, I always felt kind of silly taking a Macbook Air and iPad 3 with me, and after the Nexus 7 came out I would always really wonder which of the two to take (NOT a fan of the OS/feel, but couldn't beat the form factor). I now think this one tiny aspect of traveling will feel really good.
On a related note, the added thickness and weight of the 3rd generation iPad does show Apple's prioritizing of battery life over portability. I actually have the opposite preference: I would love a retina iPad with the same size and weight of the iPad 2, even if it had half the battery life.
That's ridiculous, unless you mean they physically can't tell the difference because they've never seen both products.
Six months later, add that missing feature and release v2 of the same device. Print money.
I think not. It was an MVP, finely crafted and still works well to this day for us.
Note when they did release a better iPad with a "missing" feature - camera - it had software that created a full solution (FaceTime). If Apple had waited until July (when the iPhone4 and iOS4 with FaceTime arrived), they would have lost out on several valuable months of hype and market dominance.
Oh, also, the iPad mini has cellular data options.
At least while at home, the sweet spot would be to have a mini and a whopper (perhaps 14" screen, hopefully weight much less than 2 pounds). Having both, perfectly synced, would be great, being able to grab the pad best for whatever use.
Other manufacturers like Samsung might do this first. Samsung did such an awesome job producing the Galaxy III S.
At one point, people would love 13inch touch screen if it can be made as light as 10inch.
Tweaking a 10" optimized OS for a 13" screen sounds like a non-trivial process if you have a UX focus.
Weight is just one of the problems of a larger tablet - there's also display yields, cost, processor to drive the graphics, which leads to heat dissipation concerns, etc.
This November refresh covers all of the Western holiday buying, all of the Chinese New Year holiday buying, and minimizes the inevitable disappointment and sales sag that comes with the typical iPad refresh in April.
We've been deploying tablets in the field since the Panasonic days. iPad replaced them, but not before we tried every alternative as they've arrived. When IPad hit we went 100% web-based.
(bit of background: after getting on the tablet train, we buy anything requested, support it 100%, and let users decide what works. ≈93% iPad, 7% trying out Nexus 7 today, 5 requests for Nexus 10 FWIW)
Playbook, Xoom, TouchPad, Nexus 7 and more were duds. Big complaint was "too small", browser performance (and bugs) came next. Build quality was so bad pretty much all were far more expensive than IPads anyway. I've got 3 dead Nexus 7s on my desk and it seems like they just came out.
If they've built a "perfect size" tablet with a good browser and pro-sumer build quality, well, 20% lower acquisition cost would make me happy. But happy folks in the field is better, and that's where we stand to see a shift.
Edit: Surprised everyone is so ready to ditch the 10" for 8"
Or maybe I am just completely out of touch with the US consumer and their purchasing priorities (I am from Canada)
As you said if it's only previous iPad or iPhone users there are a lot of those.
What about people with small hands ? Maybe you hand your kid a $329 device that fits his hands instead of a $500 that's too big ?
Getting and ipod touch for your kid ? Bump him up to a tablet ( if he doesn't take it to school everyday )
People that like the kindle form factor will also be tempted.
Actually, you should make the same experiment as a shrink did with the iPhone5. That is, take an iPad2 show it around you and say it's the new iPad. Most people would believe you…
It's a tradition after a new Apple product launch for these guys to have a review.
You know that Gruber/Siegler are going to love it, and will write their respective love sonnets to the new device. They are solid writers (Siegler, in particular, has gotten better in the last five years) - so Apple fans appreciate their articles. Topolsky will be pretty analytical and provide one of the more detailed of the reviews that aren't an Anandtech class "we will tell you everything" review. Pogue will have an Apple Bias, with a bit of balance - but carries some semblance of honest tech journalism. Mossberg will be grumpy if something pisses him off about the device, but, in my experience, is probably the more balanced of the review. He has enough Mojo that he isn't concerned in the slightest about losing access to Apple. Dalrymple can be counted on 100% of the time to say a new Apple Device is perfect - his reviews don't get a lot of traction with me for some reason.