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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."
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.
The speculated size is 7.85". Which puts it somewhere in-between. Microsoft's biggest tablet problem is that they haven't learned the HP TouchPad lesson... the only way to compete with Apple today is to massively undercut them on price. Microsoft hasn't even announced official Surface prices yet, but the early rumors suggested they might actually cost more than a full-size iPad.
I should be able to mod down the story so nobody has to read this garbage.
I think the concern is that the iPad mini will steal the Slate's thunder and may come in cheaper than an iPad 2 which is $399. It would be a black eye for Microsoft if the flagship Windows 8 tablet fails to gain any traction in the marketplace.
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
I'm sure Apple's working on it. It will be called the iPad Maxi.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
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.
So Apple must have planted these stories even though their official stance has been "We don't comment on upcoming products." All the while they are orchestrating some media campaign to discredit competing devices (which they don't really compete against anyways). Or the other plausible explanation is that in the vacuum of real information, many fans endlessly speculate on upcoming products? If you want FUD campaigns, see what MS was doing in the 80s and 90s. The problem for MS is that it doesn't work any more.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.