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7" iPad, the rumor that won't go away... (1 Viewer)

Sam Posten

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More noise on this this week., including 'confirmations' from Bloomberg and WSJ...
http://www.imore.com/2012/07/03/apple-release-7-inch-ipad/
http://www.marco.org/2012/07/04/the-ipad-mini
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577506471913819412.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/here-comes-nexus-7-nightmare-the-ipad-mini.html
http://parislemon.com/post/26480527091/the-ipad-mini
We'll see. I have a Fire and the form factor doesn't excite me, I've preordered a Nexus 7 to try out Jellybean but I don't see it lighting the world on fire. And I remain skeptical about fragmenting the iPad market into different sizes.
Again, I'd see them calling this an iPod Touch Pro over an iPad, but that's just semantics....
The reasons Apple was planning this, we heard, was the same reason they planned and executed on the lower price point iPod mini and iPod nano -- to take the oxygen out of the market. In this case, to leave no room for discount competitors like Amazon and Google.
Some have a hard time believing Apple would enter the low end tablet market. Apple didn't make a netbook and didn't release an iPhone nano. They thought differently and released the MacBook Air and the iPad, and kept around previous generation iPhones instead. Steve Jobs went so far as to say 7 inch tablets were DOA. So Apple couldn't, wouldn't, and shouldn't do an iPad mini, right?
That's me in a nutshell.
Jobs on 7" might be a smokescreen, who can say.
http://allthingsd.com/20120705/the-7-inch-ipads-biggest-critic-steve-jobs/?mod=tweet
 

DaveF

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What's the price point? Or, what happens to the iPod touch? The Touch starts at $199 and goes up to $399. So it overlaps at the iPad 2.
Is apple going to sell an iPad medium at the same $199 price as the iPod touch, per rumors?
as asked in the BrooksReview: what's the marketing plan for this line? How does Apple position it in their current line?
Interesting times for these products.
 

Sam Posten

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Ihnatko is on to something: market it as an e-reader, not a mini iPad...
http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/13615044-452/is-a-7-inch-ipad-right-for-apple.html
 

DaveF

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Interesting noodling by Ihnatko. Assuming a 7" iPad this year, which remains to be seen... I think it will be of the "iPad" line, not "iPod" line. An iPod is pocketable, joggable, breast-pocketable. From my Kindle usage, a 7" device is not, unless you have cargo-pants-of-holding. I can imagine a marketing campaign around books and magazines (and games).

But I get stuck on the price and place in product line. My core prediction is that there won't be a 16 GB, A5 iPad mini for under $399. Apple won't sell a smaller iPad 2 for a lower cost. I think it has to be more than the iPod Touch, and less than the iPad 2.

What I like best is an iPad 7" device with 8GB A5 for $299. That puts a 7" with 16GB at $499, matching the iPad 2, and there's no confusion in price / performance -- just consumer choice on preferred device size.

But Ihnatko argues:


Quote:



Final problem: the $399 iPad 2. I believe Apple’s longterm strategy includes keeping a budget configuration of the previous year’s iPad on the price list at a lower price. Apple could price a 7-inch iPad above a $199 Nexus 7 by successfully pitching their device as a premium product. They still couldn’t price it so high that there was more than a phone or a cable bill’s worth of distance between it and the Nexus, nor between it and last year’s iPad. They could get away with charging $249, but $299 would present issues.






Does a 7" iPad 2, with 8GB and A5 at $249 make sense? I don't think so.

So I could also imagine an iPad 7", 8GB A4 system for $249.



And also this Fall the iPod Touch line drops in price $50 or gets an upgrade to the A5 CPU.
 

Sam Posten

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Don't think it's hard to fit pricing to make sense if it's real. Just a guess:
[/B]iPod touch 8gb 149 16 199 32 299
iPad 7 8gb 199 16 249
Retina iPad wifi 16 399
IPad 4 16 wifi 499
 

Joseph Bolus

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I still think this is going to be a 7" iPod Touch.
The 16 GB iPad 2 for $399 has been holding its own against the Kindle Fire since March. Why would Apple even need to bring out a "crippled" iPad which doesn't fit with Jobs' vision for the device?
OTOH, I could see a 7" iPod Touch competing against recent mobile game handsets on one end and against "Nook"-style eReaders on the other end. Just don’t call it a tablet!
 

DaveF

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Sam,, you think apple is releasing the iPad 4 this Fall?
No. Way.
Joseph, my guess is Apple expands IPad line, not iPod line.
I once predicted larger iPads. Bit having used it now, I have trouble foreseeing a 13" iPad. :)
 

Sam Posten

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I'm not making any predictions on any dates, I'm just saying they can slot the pricing, that's what they do better than anyone.
As noted, for the record, I think a 7" iPad is a totally dumb idea but I think a 7" iOS device that is targetted at book reading and othher specific consumption activities (like the role the iPod touch fills now) makes a little sense. I wouldn't call it an iPad tho.
 

DaveF

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What is an iOS device targeted at reading, but an iPad with a different marketing campaign?
I think iPads at sizes besides 10" are an eventuality. It's just a matter of when and what sizes.
 

Steve Tannehill

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Actually, I think a 7-inch iPad for $199 would kill the Kindle Fire, especially if it ran the Kindle app.
 

Joseph Bolus

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Steve Tannehill said:
Actually, I think a 7-inch iPad for $199 would kill the Kindle Fire, especially if it ran the Kindle app.
Agreed. But a 7 inch "iPod Touch" would accomplish the same thing without the taint of releasing a "crippled" iPad.
You may think that this is a simple matter of semantics, but it’s most definitely much more than that:
The 7" inch iPod Touch would need to run "universal" apps in "iPhone mode"; otherwise the 10" optimized layouts would be uncomfortably small on the 7" screen. I'm sure there will be many apps which will run fine on the 7" screen -- like games, books, and movies. But it doesn't change the perception of the device as a "crippled" iPad. Far better that it be thought of as an "enhanced" iPod Touch!!
 

Sam Posten

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Hmmm..
http://daringfireball.net/2012/07/this_ipad_mini_thing
I’ve seen a fair bit of speculation that, if Apple produces a 7-inch iOS device, then maybe it would be a bigger iPod Touch, not a smaller iPad. One aspect of this line of thinking is that rather than making on-screen tap targets smaller (and, the worry goes, perhaps too small), a bigger iPod Touch would make tap targets bigger.
Whatever the merits of that idea (and I don’t think it has many), that’s not what Apple is doing. For one thing, the rumored device has a very specific screen size: 7.85 inches diagonally, 1024 × 768 pixels. That’s far closer to 8 inches than 7. In fact, it’s closer to 8 inches than the 9.7-inch iPad-as-we-know-it is to 10 inches — so if you want to round to the nearest integer, it would be more accurate to call it an 8-inch iPad than a 7-inch one. Plus, the aspect ratio matches the iPad, not the iPhone/iPod Touch.
For another thing, I and others have heard from Cupertino-area little birdies that what Apple has been working on in the lab is a smaller iPad, not a bigger iPod. Same goes for last week’s reports from Bloomberg and the WSJ.
 

Sam Posten

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Helpful comparison:
http://yfrog.com/z/h36j2np
Seeing that I'm LESS inclined to like the smaller form factor without actually holding one in my hands to try. It just looks weird.... Maybe different bezel ratios would help.-
 

Joseph Bolus

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Ok ... So what we’re saying here is that the new device (iPad Mini?) will actually utilize an 8" screen in the same 4:3 aspect ratio of the iPad ... *and* that it will scale at almost exactly 50% of the 10" iPad screen. I can (almost) see that working. I still think that "Universal" apps will seem cramped if they default to the "iPad mode" -- but I’ll try to keep an open mind regarding that until I see the actual implementation.
Bottom Line: An 8" 4:3 aspect ratio device seems much more feasible as a workable iPad Mini than a 7" 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio device. The latter would almost certainly have tarnished the iPad brand since it seems obvious that "Universal" apps would have had to default to iPhone mode.
 

DaveF

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Rumors have been consistently been for a 1024x768 screen, just like the original iPad, only smaller.
And even with a A4 processor, it's still an "iPad" and not a "media " device that can only do books and movies, but apps :)
If it comes out, I still like the idea of $299, 8GB A5 device. Fits perfectly into the price lineup, with no conflict on either with iPad or iPod touch.
Still can't guess if it will actually come out this Fall.
 

Steve_Tk

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So much speculation regarding aspect ratios of the Mini iPad and the forthcoming iPhone. I have not followed the rumor mill enough in the past to know if they pan out. I think recently the rumor mill had the Mac Book Pro all wrong.
 

Sam Posten

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Awful lot of "mays" "shoulds" and "coulds" here. More wishful thinking than real facts, unusual for the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/technology/apple-may-meet-tablet-competition-with-smaller-ipad.html?pagewanted=all
 

Steve_Tk

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I read that it was leaked to Post and others around the announcement of the Nexus 7, and now it's leaked to NYT around the release of the 7. I hope they release it. 8" to me is more ideal for my use.
 

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