Or another killer product? Or, on the pessimistic side, a loser defensive move showing
Apple's fear of competitors such as Amazon, with its Kindle Fire, and Google's 7in Nexus tablet?
Recent
leaks from purported sources inside Apple's traditional suppliers have
ignited a new frenzy of speculation. And not just from the usual
blogging suspects – often better informed and more insightful than the
official kommentariat.
BusinessWeek and the
Wall Street Journal both stuck their august necks out: the so-called
iPad Mini will be launched this coming September.
On this matter, my own biases are on the record.
In an August 2009 Note titled Apple's Jesus Tablet: What For?,
I went as far as measuring the pocket on men's jackets. As a result, I
posited a 10in (diagonal) tablet might not provide the same desirable
ubiquity as a 7in one that men could carry in a coat or jacket pocket,
and women in a purse.
(Apple once came to a similar conclusion:
the original Newton project started by Steve Sakoman in 1987 was a
letter-size tablet. After he and I left, the screen size was cut in half
and the actual
Newton came out as a pocketable product.)
Five months later, on 27 January 2010, Steve Jobs stood up and changed the personal
computing
world for the third time with the 9.7in (diagonal screen size) iPad.
The take-no-prisoners price ($499 for the entry model) was a big
surprise. Another one, much less obvious, was Dear Leader's unusually
tentative positioning statement:"'We'll see how the iPad finds its place
between the
iPhone and a MacBook." (I'm paraphrasing a bit but the tone was there.)
The
iPad surprised many, Apple included, and at the beginning was often
misunderstood. I recall my initial disappointment at not being able to
perform the same tasks as on my laptop. A huge number of normal humans
of all ages thought differently. As we know now, the iPad grew even
faster than the iPhone. Notwithstanding Microsoft's clinging to its
ossified PC-centric rhetoric, this turned out to be the true beginning
of the post-PC era.
This excited competitors around the world: you'll find here a list of 76 tablets announced at CES. By the end of 2011, few had accomplished anything.
One exception was Amazon's Kindle Fire; its Christmas season were
rumoured to reach more than 4m units, even 6m by some rumored estimates.
This rekindled, sorry, rumors of a smaller iPad.
In October 2010,
Jobs famously dismissed the idea: "7in tablets should come with
sandpaper so users can file down their fingers." None of the journalists
present at the time had the presence of mind to ask him about the
iPhone screen…
Tim Cook, Steve's disciple put it well at the
D10 conference
last June when he affectionately (and accurately) called Jobs a great
flip-flopper, citing examples of products features his then boss ended
up endorsing after repeatedly nixing them.
In an
April 2012 Monday Note, I discussed the possible end of Apple's One Size Fits All for iPhones and, in particular, iPads. There, I linked to an
A T Faust III post
lucidly explaining how the original 1024 x 768 resolution could easily
scale down to a 7.85in tablet and achieve a nice 163 ppi (pixels per
inch) resolution, the same as pre-Retina iPhones. This leads one to
believe there is abundant (and inexpensive) manufacturing capacity for
such pre-Retina displays.
A few questions.
First, developers. As
we saw with iOS apps for iPhone and iPad, size matters, apps don't
scale. That hasn't dampened the enthusiasm of developers for investing
in app versions that take advantage of each device unique
characteristics, as opposed to committing the cardinal sin of "it's like
the other one, only smaller/bigger''.
So, if developers believe a
7in iPad would sell in large numbers, they'll happily fire up Xcode,
adapt their existing app, or write a new one. As for the belief in large
unit volume for a 7in device, the initial reception accorded to
Google's Nexus tablet shows there is potentially a lot of life in a
smaller iPad.
(I ordered a Nexus tablet and will dutifully report. Last April, I bought a
Samsung Note phablet and
promised a report.
Here it is: I'll sell you mine for $50. A respectable product, I could
definitely live with it. But, IMO, too big for a phone, too small for a
tablet.)
Second, Apple was on the offensive. Now,
competition succeeded in putting it on the defensive. While initial
Kindle Fire sales were rumored to be huge, the same "sources", checking
on display supplier suppliers, now claim sales of Amazon's tablet
dropped precipitously
after the holidays. Amazon keeps mum, but is also rumored to prepare a
slew of not one but several tablets for this year's Xmas quarter.
As for the Nexus tablet, it isn't shipping yet.
Instead of a defensive move, I think a 7in iPad might be another
take-no-prisoners move:
From
the very beginning of the iPad and its surprising low $499 entry price,
it's been clear that Apple wants to conquer the tablet market and
maintain an iPod-like share for the iPad.
Now that Apple has become The Man, the company might have to adopt the
Not A Single Crack In The Wall strategy used by the previous occupant of
the hightech throne.
If this cannibalises 10in iPad sales, no problem, better do it yourself than let Google, Amazon or Samsung do it.
Lastly, the price/cost question. As you'll see on
this video, Todd Schoenberger, a Wall Street
haruspex
visibly off his meds, contends an iPad Mini is a terrible move for
Apple, it would be a break with its single product version focus. Like,
for the example, the one and only Macintosh, the one and only iPod.
Also, he continues, an iPad Mini wouldn't allow Apple achieve the 37%
gross margin it gets from the bigger sibling.
No. If we're to believe iSuppli, a saner authority on cost matters, the latest 32GB 4G iPad carries a Bill Of Materials of
about $364, for a retail price of $
729. Even with a bit of manufacturing overhead, we're far from 37% today.
And,
tomorrow, a smaller iPad, with a smaller display, a smaller battery, a
correspondingly smaller processor would nicely scale down in cost from
the "new" iPad and its expensive display/battery/processor combo.
To
where? I won't speculate, but Apple has shown an ability to be very cost
competitive when using previous generation parts and processes. See
today's iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 prices for an example.
I have no
inside knowledge and quite a few inclinations: I'd love a pocketable
iPad as much as I like small computers such as the defunct
Toshiba Libretto and the lively 11in MacBook Air.
If Apple comes up with a smaller iPad later this year, I think it'll be a killer product.
Source:
guardian.co.uk 
11:30:00 AM
valgeo
