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The lead up to tonight’s announcement of the Apple iPad mini was such that the actual event was a bit of a yawn. Actually, I found it a bit annoying. I tried to count the number of times words like ‘incredible’, ‘unbelievable’ and, most of all, ‘amazing’ were used but lost count. There is also something disconcerting about seeing a theatre full of journalists applauding every sentence in much the same way as a Party Leader at a Party Conference.
The iPad mini is pretty cool. At 7.9 inches, it is bigger than the main 7 inch competition. As it has exactly the same pixel count and ratio as the iPad2, everything developed to look good on that should need no alteration to look good on the mini. I rather liked the fact that its weight (308 gramImage may be NSFW.
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s/half that of an iPad) and size meant you could hold it in your hand like a Kindle. Clearly Apple has the ebook market in mind. It also has the huge educational market in its sights too. The iPad mini is ‘sachet-sized’.
I guess the only surprise was the price. $329 in the US but a massive £269 over here. Must be using a different exchange rate than the rest of us. That’s a good £100 more than the Kindle Fire HD and the Google Nexus 7. And that’s for the basic 16gb WiFi version. The 4G 64gb version will set you back £529. So, all those rumours about Apple sacrificing margin are probably wide of the mark. Pre-orders start 26th Oct for shipping 2nd Nov.
The other annoying thing about the launch today was a new proper sized iPad – called the ‘fourth generation iPad’. Just 6 months after the last ‘third generation’ one. Sure, you can still use the old one but for those that always want the very latest model, this must have been a bit of a blow.
As my Godson explained, the real advantage is that all the apps his Dad had bought for his man-sized iPad would work on the mini that I am now committed to buy him for his birthday. I’m sure that others will think the same. But many others might well baulk at the high entry price. So the verdict is far from clean cut. The market was unimpressed marking Apple down over 3% before the close – that’s a 12% decline since the high of just a month ago.
I suspect this is just the start of the next round of a Battle Royale for mobile supremacy with Google and Apple being the front runners and Microsoft hoping for its life that it can at least maintain a podium position.
Footnote - Phil Schiller, Apple's CMO, announced a new 5mm thick iMac. It gets to be that thin by ditching the DVD drive. He said that people who still viewed DVDs were 'stuck in the past'. My now 5 year old iMac drives our 50inch plasma. So here's me with hundreds of DVDs costing £000s that I couldn't play anymore if I upgraded to the new iMac.
Of course, that also affects people like me who still buy CDs and upload them to my iTunes system. Can't do that anymore on the new iMac either. CDs are a great way of 'sharing' music and still the best 'permanent backup' around.
PS - I also have drawers full of VHS tapes...
