$329 for ipad mini

[leebase]

I have an Android 10" tablet (Galaxy tab 10.1), and an iPad 3. It's no contest when it comes to software. The two platforms are not even close to parity. I have no reason to not like the Galaxy Tab, I have one (provided by my employer). But the software is just terrible. Shiller was on the money showing those blown up phone apps that just look terrible on a tablet compared to "built for iPad" apps.

Folks seem to be missing the reality that Apple can only make so many of the iPad mini. Apple doesn't NEED to compete on price because they have a premium product and the inability to meet the demand as it is.

Apple almost never competes on price. The iPod succeeded despite always being the premium priced product.

The iPad mini is not designed to destroy the cheap Android tablet market. The iPad mini provides the iPad experience in a smaller, lighter, cheaper form. It's not aimed at folks who don't want an iPad. It's aimed at folks who want an iPad, but not so large and heavy and not as expensive.

This device will be a big hit for school age kids.

I'm never going to buy a BMW or a Mercedes. I'm just not. I'm not their customer. That doesn't make their cars wrong. What I hear in this thread are the "not Apple customers" showing yet again they are "not Apple customers". Apple is no more concerned about folks like you not wanting their products than BMW or Mercedes cares about me. Apple caters to it's own base.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by ApK

OK, that's good to know. Still, it seems more like the exception than the rule.

Every media consumption app I use loads data other than through iTunes. (There could be ones that only use iTunes, but I don't use them.)
Even for ones that din't have their own built-in browsers you could just use GoodReader[0] to grab the file from wherever it is, and Open In... to the correct app.
So it is certainly true to say that you can't just connect as a USB drive and put files directly onto the device, or add an SD card with your own media, and these are valid complaints, and ways in which Android is much more flexible, but it simply isn't true to say that iTunes is the only way to load media onto an iPad.

[0]: GoodReader has basically become an iOS file manager, that also happens to be able to view PDF files.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by leebase

I have an Android 10" tablet (Galaxy tab 10.1), and an iPad 3. It's no contest when it comes to software. The two platforms are not even close to parity. I have no reason to not like the Galaxy Tab, I have one (provided by my employer). But the software is just terrible. Shiller was on the money showing those blown up phone apps that just look terrible on a tablet compared to "built for iPad" apps.

Folks seem to be missing the reality that Apple can only make so many of the iPad mini. Apple doesn't NEED to compete on price because they have a premium product and the inability to meet the demand as it is.

Apple almost never competes on price. The iPod succeeded despite always being the premium priced product.

The iPad mini is not designed to destroy the cheap Android tablet market. The iPad mini provides the iPad experience in a smaller, lighter, cheaper form. It's not aimed at folks who don't want an iPad. It's aimed at folks who want an iPad, but not so large and heavy and not as expensive.

This device will be a big hit for school age kids.

I'm never going to buy a BMW or a Mercedes. I'm just not. I'm not their customer. That doesn't make their cars wrong. What I hear in this thread are the "not Apple customers" showing yet again they are "not Apple customers". Apple is no more concerned about folks like you not wanting their products than BMW or Mercedes cares about me. Apple caters to it's own base.

And sues their competitors for looking too much like iOS? Is that catering to their customers? I've never heard Mercedes or BMW sue another car company for making a car that looked too much like one of theirs....

(I have no dog in this fight. I don't like the entire Tablet/Smart Phone paradigm. But then again, I'm an Neanderthal...)

[petermillard]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

With the deprecated iPad3 running $379 iPad mini buyers are going to be either very price constrained (which is not a normal Apple buyer profile) or so interested in the mini size to be willing to give up the improvement in the iPad3...

Or maybe they already have an iPad3 and just want something the same shape (4:3) but smaller and lighter??

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ApK

Does that work for music or video? Are there App Store apps that let you get mp3 or mp4 files onto the device without iTunes or downloading from Apple?

You can download MP3's through the Amazon cloud player app. Is that what you mean?

[PatNY]

Originally Posted by leebase

But the software is just terrible.

You mean the android OS on it? Or the apps? Which apps? Which flavor of android is on it?

The iPad mini is not designed to destroy the cheap Android tablet market.

So then what was the point of Apple attacking the Android tablets in their presentation? Why even bother then?

What I hear in this thread are the "not Apple customers" showing yet again they are "not Apple customers". Apple is no more concerned about folks like you not wanting their products than BMW or Mercedes cares about me. Apple caters to it's own base.

But I am NOT a "not Apple Customer." I am part of their customer base. My favorite tech device the last few years has been my 64gb ipod Touch. It is my DAP and my PIM, as well as a mini web browser and very occasional e-Reader. I have no plans to ditch it anytime soon. They could have gotten more money from me had they designed a better iPad Mini. But now I think I'll give that money to Nook or Google.

--Pat

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by petermillard

Or maybe they already have an iPad3 and just want something the same shape (4:3) but smaller and lighter??

I am that person.
If it was £100 quid less, I'd buy it.
If it was a retina display and £100 more, I'd probably buy it.
As it is, I'm struggling to justify the price.
For all of the Apple-tax comments, the iPad was never priced a huge amount above its actual competitors, other tablets in the 10" range, it was maybe 10-15% more, maybe as much as 20%. Now with the iPad Mini, that figure is getting up to 75%-100%. If it offered iPad3 resolution, that would make it clearly superior (in that respect only) to the competition, and maybe the markup could be justified.

[Penforhire]

The most peculiar 'sideload' thing I spotted in my GF's iPad was the camera connection kit. It let her upload directly from a memory card. Did that just fine. But you'll get some grey hairs trying to reverse that process. On the road she found it simplest to e-mail photos to herself, to pull them off the device.

But in general, any iOS app can offer sideloading. Most of mine do it through a wifi server mode. I can use any PC browser to transfer that content on or off. The sharing comment is correct, sandboxing prevents that but content can be 'sent' to any other app. My VLC iOS app gets called on frequently to show videos.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by ApK

Man, that was a lot of words just to say you have no defense for your position.

In other words, you don't choose to read people's posts or even count words -- you take in the word count gestalt.

Your response shows precisely why I'm not fisking your post:

(1) Doing so requires more thought than you've actually put into it. Responding to you at length has to be fun if it's going to be arduous.

(2) I've had the same discussion innumerable times over more than a decade. It's a stale conversation made worse because you're more interested in being right than talking about ideas.

(3) You're a zealot with a cross rather than a conversationalist with a point. If a disinterested party were talking to me about specs and limitations, that might be more interesting.

I had to leave the office an hour ago and initially regretted not having time to respond your last post at length. But then I realized that responses to your arguments don't matter because you don't care about being mistaken. You continue to assert that one can't sideload onto an iDevice no matter how many times people tell you otherwise, which shows you don't listen. Your responses are filled with presumptions, such as the idea you need to explain that a KF can be rooted and the UI overlay bypassed; that shows you probably don't even want to listen. It seems as though you're only listening to the soundtrack of your own rightness.

And then there's the fact you respond to relative statements as if they were absolute and abstract statements as if they were literally true. I'm not here to explain rhetoric and metaphors to you.

Ad subsidies are hardly unique to Amazon (see, for example, every free app in the Apple app store), and, again, has nothing to do with side loading or restricted platforms which is what we were talking about.

"We" were not talking about anything. I'd listed the pros and cons of the KF and the iPd as I saw them and was answering someone else when you heard what you wanted and responded to what you decided to hear.

And "harass?" Again, a seeming ignorance of the meaning of word, since there is no harassment, just a well integrated store, which OBVIOUSLY they'd like you to shop in.

An harassment of ads; get back to me once you've grasped that the term of venery I've just used is actually correct. In a poetic description, or a conversational metaphor, ads might very well harass, hector and even intone harangues. If you can't comprehend abstractions, then you lack the credibility to comment on usage.

You do realize this is the News forum, not the Apple forum, right?

P: "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."

A: "You do realize it's exactly the same color over there, right?"

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And this is a *reading* dominated forum.

It ceases to be purely a reading forum when people make blanket statements about the uselessness of specific hardware and the obliviousness of everyone who buys it. That means examples of other uses need to be brought in. Moreover, it doesn't matter who "dominates" a forum because this isn't an S&M club or even a consensus. It's a collective conversation.

A number of people (yes, even on MR) have said their primary use for a tablet might be different from that of the average reader. No one has told them to get lost or to shut up and none of us would, because their concerns are every bit as valid as that of the majority.

Given the constraints on application behavior that Apple imposes it should surprise nobody that a reading-oriented forum should prefer reading value-add functions available in non-iOS environments.

Aren't you imparting attributes to an assumed forum consensus which really belong to you? There are also a number of people here who prefer reading on iPads, and their exact number shouldn't render them valid or invalid.

Last time I leered, this was about the best experience for the individual, not the chosen device of the majority. This isn't really a global gadget election, is it?

In this venue, the consensus leans against the Mini because it really has nothing meaningful to justify the price to readers looking for a premium reading experience.

But to determine its value to "readers," you'd actually have to use the device, and neither you nor I nor anyone else here has done so, and even if we had, our findings would only apply to us.

Truthfully, I'd be far more interested in a Samsung/Nexus tablet than an iPad at this stage if it weren't for certain necessary software. But that doesn't mean the iPad Mini is automatically irrelevant.

[obsessed2]

Originally Posted by leebase

The iPad mini is not designed to destroy the cheap Android tablet market. The iPad mini provides the iPad experience in a smaller, lighter, cheaper form. It's not aimed at folks who don't want an iPad. It's aimed at folks who want an iPad, but not so large and heavy and not as expensive.

Marketing research findings suggest that brand loyalty is a product-specific phenomenon and there is no such thing as a loyalty-prone consumer. Sooner or later even the most loyal customers become bored and look elsewhere for satisfaction. Eventually even Apple will need and want to attract customers who normally don't want or can afford an iPad. Apple had a golden opportunity to reach a whole new segment of consumers who are or potentially are Android buyers if the iPad Mini had been priced at a $250 entry level price. This would have made for a tough choice between a Fire HD, a Nexus 7, A Nook HD, and an iPad Mini.


Barry Schwartz sums it up pretty well: The new tablet or smartphone is so enticing that we can’t keep our hands off it. But before long, it’s just another way for people we don’t want to hear from to lay responsibilities on us. There’s no denying that we get tremendous pleasure from the things we have. But the pleasure is disappointingly short-lived. And although this adaptation happens to us again and again, we never seem to learn to anticipate it. The result is that even when we get exactly what we want, we often end up disappointed.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...with-less.html


http://humanepursuits.com/2012/04/03...nsider-it-too/

[ApK]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

No, that is a basic design restriction of iOS devices. Each app is completely sandboxed and cannot interact with other apps.
You can copy a file from one app to another, Apple provide an "Open In..." API that mediates between the two apps, but that creates a separate copy of the file in the filespace of the second app, you cannot share a file between two apps.

I guess that's the reason...or part of the reason anyway...that I maintain that Apple's system is inherently more restrictive and more resistant to side-loading.
Though it is nice to know that there are more ways to make use of other content then I thought. I had thought that downloading videos from a local network like you say OPlayer does would have required a jailbreak.

Originally Posted by anemicoak

You can download MP3's through the Amazon cloud player app. Is that what you mean?

It's a grey are for me, but I think I still see that as an official download of content intended for the app, not side-loading of my own content.

Yes, I could upload my own MP3s to Amazon, and then download to the app, and if I wanted to use the main iPod music player for everything, if I understand murraypaul correctly, I could copy files individually into that player. So, yeah, better than a total lockout, I guess.

[hrosvit]

Originally Posted by PatNY

But I am NOT a "not Apple Customer." I am part of their customer base. My favorite tech device the last few years has been my 64gb ipod Touch. It is my DAP and my PIM, as well as a mini web browser and very occasional e-Reader. I have no plans to ditch it anytime soon. They could have gotten more money from me had they designed a better iPad Mini. But now I think I'll give that money to Nook or Google.

+1. I have given Apple a good chunk of change over the last 5 or so years - two classic iPods, a Nano, two Touches, an iPhone 4 and an iPad 3. I have also owned a few Android devices. And I was anxiously awaiting the announcement of the mini, because I am currently in the market for a 7"-ish tablet for my son. But this won't be it. It doesn't compare to the specs I can get from a device that is (or, presumably will be, when they announce the 32GB Nexus 7) about $180 cheaper (not even considering the lack of GPS at that price). Buying the mini would make no sense.

And I am also willing to admit that my Apple "experience" has not been significantly better than my Android experience. In my own experience, I have failed to notice any benefit from being in the Apple ecosystem. It's got its problems, just like the others. My "out of the box" Apple experience is in no way superior to my "out of the box" Android experience.

I realize that people make their purchases based on different qualities - aesthetics, price, technical specifications, etc. I make mine based on function, followed by price (the damn gas company insists I pay my bill). Given equal quality the cheaper one wins. And given (in my mind) superior quality, the cheaper one definitely wins.

[afv011]

Gzmodo are not impressed with the mini's screen, saying that "it sucks".

The screen may have a bigger physical size, but the lower pixel counts means you will see less stuff on the screen and it will not be as sharp as the Kindle Fire HD, the Nexus 7 and the Nook HD, which is the densest screen of them all.

Obviously, Apple's claims about having more web browsing space than the competition are false; things will appear bigger, but it's the same amount of stuff. And obviously, this thing looks more and more clearly overpriced by the day. It's ok, though, there will still be plenty of drones buying it.

Source

[leebase]

Originally Posted by PatNY

You mean the android OS on it? Or the apps? Which apps? Which flavor of android is on it?

The apps. The OS is fine. A little laggy, crashes a bit more...but that's not where the serious difference lays.

As for "which apps" -- ALL apps. I've yet to find ONE that is on par with the iPad. Not saying one doesn't exist...just that of the apps I use, if they exist on Android at all (and most do), they are phone apps, not tablet apps.

So the browser is fine, Kindle app is fine, Email, maps. Any app made by google or is just a bar of info at the top and a page of content.

Face bucks. Zite is poor. Yammer is ridiculous as is MyFitnessPal and twitter. All of them are phone apps, not tablet apps.

Seriously. I have the tablet, I'd _LIKE_ for it to be a good thing. Well, it is spectacular for one thing...it's LTE and my company pays for the data plan. So I use it as a hot spot, and connect my iPad.

Originally Posted by PatNY

So then what was the point of Apple attacking the Android tablets in their presentation? Why even bother then?

Because they SHOULD. It shows that you get far more for your money, that a tablet it not about specs. That's HOW you create Apple customers, you show them the value. The value of quality build, elegant design, and the power of Apple's ecosystem.

People are going to want to know "what makes the $329 iPad mini a better value than a Galaxy Nexus 7". Comparing the apps -- priceless. Showing the difference when browsing the web...a big difference.

Compare this one moment in a keynote presentation to Samsung's sustained commercial campaign. Why buy Samsung? Because only morons/sheeple and clueless parents buy iPhones. Samsung criticizes the PEOPLE who choose Apple. Brilliant marketing. So unlike Apple's Mac vs. PC.

Originally Posted by PatNY

But I am NOT a "not Apple Customer." I am part of their customer base. My favorite tech device the last few years has been my 64gb ipod Touch. It is my DAP and my PIM, as well as a mini web browser and very occasional e-Reader. I have no plans to ditch it anytime soon. They could have gotten more money from me had they designed a better iPad Mini. But now I think I'll give that money to Nook or Google.

So you paid MORE for your iPod touch than the iPad Mini...well, enjoy your Android, is all I can say. Time will tell if Apple has mispriced this product.

Frankly, though. I've yet to see ANY announcement by Apple -- EVER -- that folks didn't say "they cost too much".