Thread: iPad-Mini Rumor
View Single Post
psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2012-04-16, 11:48

Well that would be hard for anyone to do. And I think it would be way the hell more than six figures of users.

Keeping that resolution of the iPad 2 changes very little in usability, development, selling, etc. I realize it's in that odd no-man's land of "too big for pocket, not big enough for full immersion". But we're thinking about it from the savvy, follow-this-crap-24/7 geekster perspective. Regular people aren't thinking "full immersion" and phrases like that. They don't know what that means, nor do they give a rat's ass about pixels (and their density), etc.

All they know is "I love my sister-in-law's iPad, but it's heavier than I imagined. I'd like something more like my Kindle and not have to buy a dedicated bag/sleeve for it...".

I think the Kindle has a lot of fans and users, and a lot of people weaned on that smaller, easily held/gripped size. I think that's a huge potential market (the Fire isn't exactly setting the world on it, from all I've seen/read).

It's purse-friendly, that size. And lighter, smaller (for years that's all I've ever heard you guy talk about here...now that the possibility of it might exist, it's suddenly "10 inches or nothing! Hell no on the 7 inch iPad!" ).

And you cannot discount the growing kid/youth stuff (especially with that textbook stuff rolling out). I think about my little monkey niece and nephew, and how they've got another 4-5 years of "little hands" and sub-high school bodies. And, due to my sister's iPhone/iPad, they're already fully into this stuff. They know the App Store, how to download and update things, they know how to e-mail and FaceTime, etc. So they're "there" already. A lot of kids are. In fact, how many parents would pay a few hundred bucks, come Christmas or birthdays, to keep their kids off their shit (iPhones and iPads) and turn them loose with a little 7" version of their own if it means them never monkeying with your stuff ever again? Seeing all I've seen, some would gladly pay thousands.

And smallness/lightness obviously does count for something to many because I think that 11" Air is doing really, really well.

Steve didn't want it, true. But he's not around anymore. And Apple has the freedom/flexibility, if they think it's worth doing, to "go against him" (especially if some of his proclamations or wants were more of the 'petulant tyrant' variety...which, let's face it, a lot of them probably were. That Isaacson book should've shed plenty of light on all that. He was gifted, and a visionary. But he was something else too, at times.



And nobody is ever 100% right about everything. Not even him.