We’ve been referring to the new small iPad as the Crabapple, thanks to Web editor Rich Steeves – the name certainly fits in its own strange way. We may simply end up continuing to call it the Crabapple, but Apple itself has now finally weighed in and set the record straight.
It’s been just over a month that the iPhone 5 launched, yet it feels like it was only yesterday. Why is that? Because the amazing thing known as the Apple Marketing Machine (AMM) has managed to keep our attention on Apple almost non-stop for the last five weeks, even though AMM itself has done very little to promote Apple or its products. The tech media world does that all on its own, and all AMM has to do is send out the occasional clever media invite to ensure a never ending stream of coverage – fueled by never-ending speculation, leaked photos and the like.
It has occurred to us that a very stealthy Apple itself is behind the numerous leaks – by playing off a “significantly weakened fortress of secrecy” theme, Apple simply generates ongoing coverage – brilliant!
There was lots of hardware announced today – which we’ll defer to follow-up articles. The big news is new 4th generation big iPad technology!
But today is the big iPad Mini/Crabapple day – and Apple has put its cards on the table. What do we have? First, the official name? The iPad Mini – strikingly original we think! And the price…there was the usual much ado about nothing in the media as speculation ranged from $250 to $350 for the basic model (one editor referred to that price as an “epic fail”) – well above the commonly perceived 7 inch tablet ceiling of $159 - $199 for the most basic machines in the Amazon (Kindle Fire HD), Google (Nexus 7) and Barnes & Noble (Nook HD) camps.
Well, the price for the basic model comes in at $329 – and our very strong belief is that Apple will find that price point frictionless relative to the powerful desire people will have to buy it and to own that enormous Apple cachet. Consumers will gladly put down the extra dollars for that. They also get that superior Apple jewel-like fit and finish – it is a key piece of what Apple offers and a key piece of what imparts that cachet. The competitors cannot match it simply because unlike Apple, they must care about those extra dollars they can’t add to the price tag.
We can expect the iPad Mini to fly off the shelves and leave Amazon, Google and others scratching their heads. It is going to be an amazing holiday buying season in terms of Apple sales – we’re already anticipating what the post holiday season earnings call is going to be like. If Apple can muster 10 million small iPads out of their suppliers they will sell every one of them in short order.
As our colleague Peter Bernstein puts it, “Apple has picked up the ‘tab.’”
As with the other the iPad series of devices, there are three key price points, $329, $429, $529
Next, here are the vital statistics for the basic $329 machine:
- No retina display, 1024x768 resolution – the same as the iPad 2, but will be much sharper due to the much smaller screen size, will offer 163 dpi (though not retina quality, it will be significantly sharp and clear, though color saturation will not match the new iPad or iPhone 5); All the larger iPad apps will work with the iPad mini due to same screen size
- Lightening connector
- 7.9 inch screen size – measured diagonally, somewhat larger than the competitors, but it is always that little difference that sets Apple apart
- 7.2 mm thin, black or white body, similar to iPhone 5
- Dual core A5 processor
- Front (5 MP) and rear (HD) cameras
- 16 GB RAM (16, 32 and 64 GB optional)
- Fast Wi-Fi - and LTE support!
- Battery – Apple always strives to keep iPad battery life in the 10 hour range, but smaller tablets have much less room for big batteries. By keeping the screen resolution at iPad 2 levels the display will require much less power, and Apple claims 10 hours in battery life for the iPad Mini
- iOS 6 (200 million devices are now running the new iOS 6! – Apple claims it is the largest upgrade in computing history, and the key reason Apple doesn’t care about the small issue with their map app)
- Redesigned Smart Cover
The Other Stuff
As hard as it is to believe, Apple has now – after only six months – delivered iPad 4th generation technology! Faster in every respect. We’ll come back to the new iPad 4th generation in another article. How many new iPad (iPad 3) users will be infuriated by this? All of them?
We’ll also take a detailed look at the education market efforts that Apple announced today elsewhere, but it is clear that one thing Apple is looking for is the right hardware to place into the education market not only at the college level but at every level of education, which means K – 12. iPad textbooks are now available for 80 percent of the United States high school curriculum. This market is enormous, and if Apple merely takes a small percentage of this critical buyers’ market up front, it will provide enormous new revenue.
The 8 inch size is also ideal for that bedside reading experience - $119 for Amazon’s new e-reader, or $329 for a hugely more powerful small iPad? It’s worth thinking more about.
Check back for more in-depth coverage of the other products Apple put out there today (the new big iPad, 13 inch MacBook Pro with retina display, Mac Mini, the super thin iMac!, new hybrid Flash/Hard Fusion drive, excellent text book authoring software that is a significant announcement) and for in-depth analysis of the new iPad and the competition.
With today’s news we can anticipate that small tablet sales overall are going to sky rocket as a result of the new smaller iPad. All boats rise in a rising tide. But we believe Apple sales will be the dominant story, and those sales will likely come at the significant expense of Google’s tablet, which does not have an answer to either iTunes or the Amazon ecosystem in hand.
"Now the competition gets only the most price-sensitive consumers, meaning less affluent customers, in their app, movie and music ecosystems," said TMC CEO Rich Tehrani.
Apple has played it smart to wait for the 7 inch tablet market to mature and define itself. Apple knows that the time is now right to jump in. Count on the Apple cachet to be the secret formula behind a large collection of iPhone users who have not jumped on the big iPad, but simply can’t bring themselves to buy a small Android tablet of any sort to now make the jump – possibly buying multiple devices (that is a statistic we’re very interested in tracking). This market segment will move the smaller iPad market.
As of two weeks ago Apple has sold 100 million iPads, and iPads currently deliver – so Apple claims - 91 percent of all tablet Web traffic.
To wrap up the mini Apple news, much has been made about Jobs having said that seven inch tablets “…are dead on arrival.” But let’s face it, Jobs was never 100 percent accurate, only 97.275 percent. Of course the iPad Mini screen isn’t 7 inches – it’s 7.85 inches – so Jobs is sort of safe. The 7 inch tablet competitors won’t be.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
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