Thread: iPad-Mini Rumor
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hmurchison
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2012-04-16, 13:56

Quote:
Originally Posted by zippy View Post
And why exactly are we to assume that Apple can't maintain worthwhile margins on a 7.85" iPad? Just because Amazon reportedly isn't? I'd very strongly suggest that Apple is leaps and bounds ahead of everybody in the manufacturing/profiting business - especially Amazon.

It's not really hard to see this unfolding. The ones getting caught up are the Jobsian clones (prattling about sandpaper, fingertips and 7" screens" and those that have a ideal of what an iPad should be and have a hard time seeing beyond.

I work with a couple of happy Kindle owners. Not the Fire but the eInk smaller units. They LOVE them..battery lasts a long time...it's small and light. Perhaps i'm just a weakling but an iPad at 9.7 inches is fatiguing to read on if I'm holding it. It's not just a good form factor for reading handheld IMO.

One size rarely fits all.

Just piece together what you know for a fact and the possibility of a mini at acceptable margins becomes likely.

1. Manufacturing...Brazil is online along with Foxconn
2. New battery density (42 mAh in the new iPad)
3. Anobit purchase
4. Smaller A5 processor used in the Apple TV and lower cost iPad 2

We know also that the new iPad still contains plenty of 45nm parts. A tablet slated to ship latter half of this year would have time to use newer products. Smaller and more efficient broadband and baseband chips have been announced and are undergoing volume production.

Margins are a factor of cost of goods and final selling price. If you can deliver a highly integrated solution it often costs less. I've done a bit of chip sleuthing and many of the component suppliers that delivered multi chip solutions just a couple of years ago for tablets are now delivering single IC that handle the function that took 3 chips a while ago. Intel is attempting to add LTE support right into the silicon for future devices. This is where cost reduction without sacrificing margin will come from. Integration.

So it's not a matter of "should it be done?" but rather "is it the right time to deliver the right product?"

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