

IPad Mini production has kicked off - bootload
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/03/ipad-mini-production-has-kicked-off-says-wsj-7-85-inch-lcd-screen-no-retina-display/

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michaelfeathers
Sounds nice, but the way the market in consumer electronics is going, it's
about time for Apple to do something disruptive. This seems like a "me too"
move, unless it has features we don't know about.

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fierarul
>Sounds nice, but the way the market in consumer electronics is going

How is it going?

>it's about time for Apple to do something disruptive

How many disruptions do people need? The iPad is 2 years old!

Some people get bored so easily they won't be satisfied until we reach the
Singularity!

~~~
andyjsong
>How is it going?

In terms of screen size, everything is shrinking. 10 years ago, the hottest
product was the LCD panel TVs. Consumer electronics were reaching new heights
with bigger and bigger screens. The LCD TV/PC market is now saturated. Almost
any CE company can make a decent LCD/PC, but making a great smart phone, not
just in terms of hardware spec, but UI/UX is much more difficult because of
the space constraints. HP got their asses handed by the market with Palm
(remember that?) but they still recognize that mobile/smaller screens are the
future. Now CE is trending towards wearable computers. People want information
at their finger tips, they also want a flawless Siri/Google equivalent. In
about 10 years, CE will be reading our minds and voice/keyboard entries will
be seen as a barbaric task. Devices that need power will be charged using
solar or wireless charging. (why are we still plugging things into walls?)
Google is doing interesting things with Glass and self-driving cars.

>it's about time for Apple to do something disruptive

Apple is trending towards a great design firm with a tech focus. There are no
bleeding edge products in their product portfolio.

Apple could disrupt the market by entering into emerging CE categories like 3D
printing, wearable computers and robotics. I've seen some amazing products
built by startups, if Apple invests their $100 billion cash reserves to into
these categories, I can see them lasting another 30 years before teleportation
and intergalactic travel become the norm.

The iPad mini, meh.

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Avenger42
> Google is doing interesting things with Glass and self-driving cars.

> There are no bleeding edge products in [Apple's] product portfolio.

I see these as two different companies having different ideas about what to do
with unreleased products - Apple hasn't even announced an "iPad Mini" which is
apparently starting production, and Google has announced products with a time-
to-market measured in years (if they ever arrive).

I don't know what "big ideas" Apple's working on because they've decided not
to tell us, but I at least give them the benefit of the doubt that by the time
we see discussion about a product, it's much more likely to be released, and
soon.

~~~
andyjsong
> I don't know what "big ideas" Apple's working on because they've decided not
> to tell us, but I at least give them the benefit of the doubt that by the
> time we see discussion about a product, it's much more likely to be
> released, and soon.

While I mostly agree, the average CE customer probably already knows what a
iPad mini looks like. Google Glass is something that is foreign to the same
person and Google is educating potential customers about their product. Apple
doesn't need to do that and that is why they are doing well in terms of
monetary value. Self-driving cars cannot be kept secret because of all the
government regulations and road testing, which involves exposure to the
public.

Just from my own experience, Apple hasn't impressed me from a technology
standpoint on the past several products released. Specifically:

\- The "new" iPad

\- iPhone 4S

\- iPhone 5

From a monetary and stockholders standpoint, they have been absolutely
dominating the market. Apple stores make over $6,000/sqft, Tiffany's is 2nd
with $3k. [1]

> I don't know what "big ideas" Apple's working on because they've decided not
> to tell us, but I at least give them the benefit of the doubt that by the
> time we see discussion about a product, it's much more likely to be
> released, and soon.

It's a double edge sword, they keep everything under wraps until they have
something to show, but the build up of anticipation doesn't usually meet my
expectations. e.g, #shutupandtakemymoney.

I think sooner rather than later, the rest of the public will catch on and
demand more innovation from their CE manufacturers.

[1] [http://www.asymco.com/2012/04/18/apple-stores-have-
seventeen...](http://www.asymco.com/2012/04/18/apple-stores-have-seventeen-
times-better-performance-than-the-average-retailer/)

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wmf
Apple only releases a new product line every ~3-5 years (iPod 2001, iPhone
2007, iPad 2010), so you shouldn't expect to be blown away every year.

~~~
andyjsong
I think the release cycle of new product lines are much longer for Apple. The
jump from iPod to iPhone was significant from an innovation standpoint, but it
can be debated that the iPad is just a bigger iPod touch (released in 2007).
So it's been roughly a 5-6 year cycle of a new product line. We're ending the
cycle soon, and everyone is only talking about the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. As
far as I know, the rumor mill has not given the public any kind of notion on
what's next.

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molmalo
If this is true and it releases on October 17, just a few days before Windows
8 and Windows RT tablets hit the market on 10/26, some manufacturers might
have just a week to adjust prices to react. I don't expect them to do it
anyway, but it will be fun to watch the markets in a few weeks.

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ilmare
Been looking for ~7" tablet as reading device. 7.2-8" diagonal is about size
of regular book printed on A5 (two pages on A4 as booklet) which I find good
balance between portability and readability. Nexus 7 is almost perfect fit but
has major issue(at least from what I've seen) - pdf rendering is very rough
making reading/navigating books experience inconvenient. Hopefully rumored
ipad mini would be better candidate, one worry though is no "retina"/high
resolution which imo would be major drawback.

Anyone could share experience of reading technical books/sci papers on nexus7?

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navs
A smaller iPhone the size of the current iPod Nano would be nice. I just can't
figure out a solution to the keyboard input problem.

~~~
stonemetal
Just give Siri some time then the keyboard problem will be solved by its
removal.

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arrrg
Never gonna happen, even if the speech recognition were without flaws. Talking
to your device is not a viable input method whenever other people you do not
want to disturb are around. That doesn’t make voice recognition useless (I
think it’s very useful), but it also doesn’t make voice recognition a viable
keyboard replacement.

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pxlpshr
So the iPad and iPhone are retina, but this iPad mini will not be retina?
Surprised that a technology author would assume Apple would take a step
backward like that.

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SquareWheel
Why do you think a retina display would be more likely?

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ceejayoz
The most recent three generations of iPhone, one of iPad, one of Macbook Pro,
and one of iPod touch have all been Retina.

I looked at a 3GS the other day and had a "this display looks like shit,
what's wrong?" moment before I remembered. That's not how Apple wants the
first encounter with an iPad mini to go.

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SquareWheel
It may be necessary if they want to hit a certain price point. Competitors are
at the $200 mark and that's with razor thin margins. I understand that the
screen is an expensive component and I wouldn't be surprised to see it be
lower res, especially since it'd be marketed as a cheaper/lower tier device.

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ceejayoz
Apple has consistently avoided cheaping out to compete in the lower-end
market.

Consumer and press response would probably be "Apple has fallen off the wagon,
they're making crap now", not "Apple's moving into the lower-end market".

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spot
so let's see we have iphone, retina, iphone5, ipad, ipad retina, and now mini
ipad. does that count as fragmented?

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ctdonath
No. A product line of 3-5 products with minor variations each (with/without
retina, 3 capacity sizes, two colors) is hardly "fragmented".

Contrast, say, Sony's offerings.

