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Apple iPad Mini Could Complicate Things For Windows 8 Tablets
Nerval's Lobster writes "Current rumor suggests that Apple is gearing up to unveil its iPad Mini Oct. 17, with invitations to media arriving Oct. 10. That's according to Fortune, which obtained the information from an unnamed Apple investor who, in turn, heard those dates from other unnamed sources. While that attribution might prove a bit too vaporous for some people, it does align with earlier reports from AllThingsD that Apple is planning to reveal a smaller iPad sometime in October. If those rumors prove accurate, the unveiling of an iPad Mini in that timeframe could prove very bad news for the upcoming Windows 8 tablets. (Gizmodo offers a pretty complete rumor rundown on the iPad Mini's possible features here.) Unlike the traditional PC market, Microsoft doesn't dominate the market for mobile-device operating systems. Windows 7 tablets never gained much of a toehold among tablet users, who prefer iPads and Android-based devices by wide margins. When it comes to Windows 8 (and Windows RT, the version of next-generation Windows for ARM architecture), Microsoft is starting out as the underdog."
From what I've seen, Windows 8 tablets are focused on the 9-12 inch segment. I'd say the real threat posed by the iPad Mini is against the smaller stuff, like the small Kindle Fire (HD or not), Nexus 7 and similar hardware.
There is absolutely no story here. Nothing to even connect Microsoft and Apple.
"Competition from X could be bad for Y".
What a fucking wank fest this site is. Anyways, flame on, dopes.
Oh, wait...
I should be able to mod down the story so nobody has to read this garbage.
Would it be poor taste to sneak a large Steve Jobs poster onto the outside of Apple's release venue, with his quotes on 7 inch tablets?
"If you take an iPad and hold it upright in portrait view and draw an imaginary horizontal line halfway down the screen, the screens on the seven-inch tablets are a bit smaller than the bottom half of the iPad display. This size isn't sufficient to create great tablet apps in our opinion.
Well, one could increase the resolution of the display to make up for some of the difference. It is meaningless, unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of the present size. Apple's done extensive user-testing on touch interfaces over many years, and we really understand this stuff. There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touch screen before users cannot reliably tap, flick, or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps."
Well I, for one, think it's a pretty big deal.
After all, it's not every day that Apple releases a new product, especially one with amazing, unheard-of new features like a smaller screen and more pocket-friendly dimensions.
Apple's best in class innovation wins the day yet again!
If the rumours are true and judging by the lack of innovation with the iPhone 5 it seems likely that the iPad Mini won't be anything special. Gizmodo seems to be expecting a sub-HD screen, the same as the iPhone, and fairly pedestrian hardware specs. iOS 6 is already out so we know what to expect from that.
Their competitors are doing things like split screen multitasking at a price point it seems unlikely Apple will be able to match (the iPod Touch is $300).
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Where's my ~14" A4/Letter sized tablet? Give me a full sized page of text please.
The[sic] there's that name. Makes me think of urinate every time someone says it.
Probably best if I not tell you what I think when I hear the word 'pad'. -- Some woman
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I would argue that it does considerably more than simply complicate things. The iPad mini will show that Apple can create and expand upon a range of high quality devices on what is essentially a single platform. It's all about the ecosystem that you can buy today vs. Microsoft's ever persistent promises of a better tomorrow. While that may be an oversimplification, most end users just want something that works, looks great, and makes their lives easier. Currently, I don't see that with Windows outside of the traditional desktop experience.
Always nice to know that Apple plant's stories (or exposes the media bias). I love how everytime some big iPad killer is announced, *someone* posts a story about the iPad mini. Remember the Nexus 7 launch? One week later there was a iPad mini that proved to be vaporware. At least this time it's BEFORE the launch of Win 8, so we'll see it was just a plant story of vaporware.
I'm just waiting for Apple to claim that they invented the concept of a ~7" tablet and that all of the ones that have been on the market for years are actually copying their design...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
They won't, but they will have perfected it.
See tablets pre-iPad, and tablets post-iPad.
No, just the concept of 7.85" tablets. With a 2 minute-long movie in which Apple executives, on a white background, will describe the magic of those extra 0.85 inches.
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The point is that whether the iPad is any good or not, there was no market before the iPad. List all the Android tablets on the market prior to Spring of 2010.
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Every time there is a launch event, the share price jumps in the days between the announcement of the event and the event itself as rumors run rampant, and then the price tanks after the event when the newly announced product doesn't have all of the unrealistic features that the analysts and fanboys predicted. The price then goes up slowly but steadily afterwards when the average consumer realizes that it is a pretty good product despite not having all those impossible features and the product sells like hotcakes.