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Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

daringfireball.net

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Re: Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

#31

Post by ghshephard »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #16
tambourine_man wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad Gruber seems to be writing more of these long form pieces. Short and snarky is not as much of a strength for him as he thinks it is. My thoughts exactly. His recent talk with Siracusa must have helped. [edit] From the show, 1h24m23s: “You haven't done one of those in a while where you do like screen shots and stuff, you used to do that more…” He also changed his favicon soon after Siracusa remarked that it w…

He still manages to come up with gems like this: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/08/01/nokia-nail-polis... He and Siegler come off as partisan hacks and nothing else. Hence mostly only Apple fans seem to think he writes great. I do not know why they have to hate other competing platforms so immensely to love Apple.

It took me a few reads before I realized he was making a meta-joke about the (brown) Zune, another product that was strong on fundamentals - but just never got traction.

Gruber has made it clear he likes what Microsoft is trying to do with the WP7, and he has positively reviewed some of the Lumia devices. Agreed, he's partisan, but he's a witty partisan, which is why I still read him, while many of the other apple bloggers, like Dalrymple, who has good sources, just seems to frequently come off as just being mean without the cleverness.

Re: Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

#32

Post by r00fus »

akent wrote: post #19
zachwill wrote: post #15

After reading both this and the iMore article, I really feel like Q4 this year is going to be like nothing we've ever seen. There won't be a reason for the average consumer not to get an iOS device. I think we're heading into a time where Apple's dominance will pass the threshold of what Microsoft had in the 90's. And, if you consider a revamped TV is on the way in a couple years — man, we're talking about iOS in the…

> There won't be a reason for the average consumer not to get an iOS device. Wow, that's some hyperbole. Other than price I presume you mean.

Tired old saw is tired. Apple competes on price pretty well these days. How long did it take to get a 10" iPad competitor that was cheaper than the iPad itself?

Re: Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

#33

Post by tjmc »

css771 wrote: post #21

This was a very good piece from gruber and I say that as someone who has consistently hated his snarkiness and apple fanboyism in the past. He makes deep analyses of the ipad mini here and dare I say, sets himself apart as a key asset in the Apple tech press. There should be someone as capable of doing in-depth analyses in other tech fields too. I was thinking specifically about android device news. The folks at andr…

Anand Lal Shimpi of http://www.anandtech.com is of that calibre and far less partisan - particularly if you're looking to buy components like motherboards or an SSD.

Re: Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

#34

Post by r00fus »

bluthru wrote: post #17
jonknee wrote: post #6

As a Kindle Fire owner I have to say the form factor of tablets this size is great. I just wish there was a better fix to the resolution issues. Limiting to low PPI for app compatibility seems like a hack.

>Limiting to low PPI for app compatibility seems like a hack. What, and give developers another resolution to develop for? No. The iPad Mini will use the iPhone 3GS LCD pixel density. Then in a year, the iPad Mini will adopt the iPhone 4 pixel density. This means that every "retina" iPad app that currently exists will display natively on the device. So basically: wait a year and then you'll have that crazy-good iPhon…

So you're saying that the next-year Retina iPad Mini will effectively fit 2048x1536 pixels into a 7.85" screen?

That would indeed be amazing, but I doubt it will happen next year.

Re: Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

#35

Post by mcantelon »

>If you think these stories appearing within a day of each other in the two most-respected business publications in the U.S. — at the same time the Nexus 7 reviews began appearing and the device started shipping to customers — is merely coincidental and not a strategic competitive leak from Apple PR, then I would like to invite you to play in my poker game.

>The angle to these stories is not merely “Apple is set to release a smaller iPad”, but “Apple is set to release a smaller iPad and it could squelch the Nexus 7 and any other smaller tablets before they ever really get a chance to take off”.

Gruber will apparently even try to spin a "me too" response by Apple as genius.

Re: Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

#36

Post by hack_edu »

The thinness angle doesn't sound right to me and would be a bad decision to trade it for real features. Thinness is important, don't get me wrong, but nearly all iOS device users use cases.

The thickness of a case can often double overall size and weight in your hand. This that isn't going to change, probably ever.

Re: Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

#37

Post by zachrose »

fratis wrote: post #26
alanfalcon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen it suggested that the Nexus 7 isn't the Android iPad, it's the Android iPod Touch. This makes sense to me, and it makes sense to me that Apple could be moving in a similar direction with the iPod Touch itself, especially if it can hit those weight goals. This would also seem to open up some space for the iPod nano to gain functionality.

Alternatively, maybe soon – with the small iPad filling the $249 price gap – Apple will finally kill the iPod Classic and cut prices on the rest of the line. They've been manufacturing the lower quality retina display for the iPod Touch for two years, and costs must be down significantly. Combine that with falling costs for flash storage, and I could see them going down to $150-$250 for the Touch ($150 for 16GB up to…

I'm hoping they keep the iPod Classic around, regardless of how well they sell. In my mind, it's the seed of the Apple renaissance.

Re: Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

#38

Post by alphang »

tambourine_man wrote: post #4
twoodfin wrote: post #2

I'm glad Gruber seems to be writing more of these long form pieces. Short and snarky is not as much of a strength for him as he thinks it is. On the content: Right on. I will definitely be surprised if the words "thinner" and "lighter" do not feature prominently in Apple's keynote, both vs. the Retina iPad and the Google/Amazon competition.

I'm glad Gruber seems to be writing more of these long form pieces. Short and snarky is not as much of a strength for him as he thinks it is. My thoughts exactly. His recent talk with Siracusa must have helped. [edit] From the show, 1h24m23s: “You haven't done one of those in a while where you do like screen shots and stuff, you used to do that more…” He also changed his favicon soon after Siracusa remarked that it w…

He also expressed a slight desire to adjust his focus, in a post from earlier this year - http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/05/25/three-things

Slightly off topic: The Atlantic had an article yesterday about DF's 10th anniversary (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/12/08/happy-10...), and it had this bit of astute criticism:

The past year, DF hasn't been as enjoyable as its been in the past. Apple, Gruber's Beatrice, is engorged as a company, and seems now to be veering from interestingly complex to dully complicated. [...] But, in light of that victory, his renegade confidence has become an assured superiority. He hasn't written, for a long time, an engaging description of a laptop or an account of an anthropomorphized interface element.

To which Jason Kottke agreed: http://kottke.org/12/08/an-appreciation-of-10-years-of-darin...

So perhaps Gruber is consciously responding to these critiques and upping his game - which is nice, because this post was a great read.

Re: Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

#39

Post by beloch »

I'm not a regular reader of daringfireball, but that blog post is very long on speculation and decidedly short on facts. It's random chance whether any of the resolutions, dimensions, weights, or features he settles on wind up proving to the true. This is firmly in the "Bluray support will be native in the next version of OSX!" sort of speculation.

Re: Thinking This iPad Mini Thing Even Througher

#40

Post by csmeder »

hack_edu wrote: post #36

The thinness angle doesn't sound right to me and would be a bad decision to trade it for real features. Thinness is important, don't get me wrong, but nearly all iOS device users use cases. The thickness of a case can often double overall size and weight in your hand. This that isn't going to change, probably ever.

The extreme popularity of the mac book air and now pc clones of that form factor would indicate otherwise. I think Gruber hit the nail on the head with: Don't think of it as an iPad mini but an iPad air.

Once the early adopters flash their iPad airs around with no case (or an extremely thin mag cover), an ipad 3 is going to look fat and heavy. A nexus 7 is going to look bulky and old. Soon it will be a basic expectation that tablets are light as feather computers with no perceivable thickness. Tablets that don't come in this form factor will be seen as clunky relics of the past.

The best way to tell if an apple product will do well, is to ask your self: "Once this product gets wide spread adoption, will this product make its predecesor seem, old, clunky and/or unrefined". From a tactile and visual stand point a iPad air will do this.

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