On October 23 Apple launched its much talked about iPad Mini. The event also served to announce the new Retina MacBook, Mac Mini and the iMac. The star of the show was of course the 7.9-inch iPad Mini which weighed in at an impressively lean .68 pounds. The baby brother of the 10 inch mother of all tablets represents a side of Apple that many have never seen before. Apple is used to making products that are outside the norm. They relish launching devices that define the competition instead of following it. However, the iPad Mini may be the one exception where Apple has tried to please its stakeholders while also launching a product that will stop competitors from dominating a section of the tablet market that Apple singly and highhandedly created.
No one can be sure exactly why the original iPad had a 9.7-inch display with a 4:3 screen other than the fact that the late Steve Jobs and his designers believed that this was the best size to view and interact with media on a tablet. Jobs was very adamant about his size choice and in 2010 told investors that,”[W]e think the ten-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps . . . the current crop of seven-inch tablets are going to be DOA–dead on arrival. Their manufacturers will learn the painful lesson that their tablets are too small and increase the size next year, thereby abandoning both customers and developers who jumped on the seven-inch bandwagon with an orphaned product. Sounds like lots of fun ahead.”
The question now is why Apple decided to backtrack on its original position and develop a smaller tablet. Some may argue that Apple is being hypocritical in launching the smaller event while others would say that the California firm is just plain wrong. This may be true, but Apple did not get to be the world’s most valuable company because it rests on its laurels and watches the competition take over a sector that believes it should be dominating. Apple may have been on the offensive for the past decade with the introduction of many innovative products but there is little doubt that it is playing defense now with its new iPad Mini.
The iPad Mini can be held in one hand and has access to all the apps that are available for the larger iPad. Observers can point to this as Apple trying to copy the many Amazon and Google powered 7-inch tablets out there. It seems however, that Apple may have needed to launch the new iPad Mini to keep households from buying cheaper tablets that offers roughly the same capabilities as the much larger and more expensive iPad. With tablets becoming readily accepted into the mainstream, price was already becoming an issue as a $500 tablet was just not everyone’s cup of tea. A tablet that was half that price could do brisk business as Apple’s competitors have shown in the past.
With the launch of the iPad Mini, Apple has shown the market that it can move to make its board members happy. That does not necessarily mean that Apple is different. It simply means that the company is learning.
Source: Fast Company Design
Photo: Apple
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