Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iPad mini

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 358 posts

Re: iPad mini

#231

Post by binarycrusader »

larsberg wrote: post #73
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. I really like my iPad for a lot of things, but it has been disappointing for pleasure reading of books because it is just too heavy. Given that my primary use case will be reading, I now have to decide between a Kindle Paperwhite or the iPad Mini, with the one additional input that my kids would love to have another iPad in the house.

Get the Paperwhite. It's wonderful to read on, in any light. I've had a Kindle Keyboard, Kindle DX, iPad, Nexus 7, and Kindle Fire (original and HD), and the Paperwhite is far and away the best device. It also fixes a ton of the refresh-related issues with the recent Touch generation. The only downside is PDF viewing, which you should still leave to device with more serious CPU and some auto-crop and fancy scrolling…

Wonderful to read on -- unless you're reading kindle books that involve mathematical symbols. In which case, forget about it.

I wonder how well PDFs render on it.

Re: iPad mini

#232

Post by solnyshok »

nirvana wrote: post #54
akavi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say this with absolutely no judgement regarding the value of the iPad Mini, but I'm struck by the similarity between this criticism and the criticism leveled against the original iPad ("it's just a giant iPod Touch!").

This is what apple haters say about every Apple product. They said the iPhone would be a total flop and never sell the 10 million units Steve Jobs said they hoped to sell-- because it didn't have a hardware keyboard. They said it about the iPod too- claiming that having less capacity than the creative nomad and no built in radio made it "lame" (CmdrTaco famously said this.) They said it about the iMac as well, callin…

Could you enlighten us about how apple products aren't expensive?

Re: iPad mini

#233

Post by hkmurakami »

jpxxx wrote: post #138

There is no obvious reason this product isn't going to sell in huge quantities. Less conceptually fragile, less expensive, more portable, same software stack, same media stack, same OS, same UX, same premium experience, same monstrous manufacturing and distribution reach, same monstrous advertising and product awareness engine. Every single one of the children you see in restaurants working an iPad so mommy and daddy…

With respect to digital textbooks, as someone who had to haul many American sized (read: Oversized) textbooks from class to class, from school to home, every day for 6 years during Junior High and High School, carrying around 1 iPad would have relieved my spine of great gravitational burden.

For this reason alone, I truly hope that digital textbooks become viable.

Re: iPad mini

#234

Post by disappointment »

'tis a fine product but $190 for an extra 48Gb of storage? Can we not kill this practice already? I was pretty pissed that Google pulled the same stunt with the Nexus 7. It's 2012. Flash storage is cheap and widely available but Google and Apple (and probably Microsoft) don't want us to have it. It's very irritating behaviour.

Re: iPad mini

#235

Post by supercanuck »

AlexMuir wrote: post #19

How underwhelming. At 7.9 inches, it’s perfectly sized to deliver an experience every bit as big as iPad What does that even mean? Either it's perfectly sized, and the iPad is the wrong size. Or it's not. There can surely only be one perfect size to deliver an iPad experience??? Either it's 10" or it's 7.9". I think Apple's marketing has always been the same - it's just that for a while they were ahead of the curve a…

>What does that even mean?

it is saying you are too cheap to buy an bigger iPad, so you should buy this instead.

Re: iPad mini

#236

Post by ableal »

Apple are exploiting one obvious flaw of the current "accepted wisdom" - that 16:9 movie-oriented wide-screens are to be foisted on all devices in sight.

Personally, I'm grateful someone is sticking to the 4:3 aspect ratio. If that made a comeback on laptops and monitors, so much better.

Re: iPad mini

#237

Post by digisign »

spot wrote: post #195
grecy wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't. It's exactly the same resolution as the original iPad and iPad 2

same resolution, scaled down by 20%. so if you designed a button to be as small as a finger for the ipad, it's now too small.

Or not if you are a woman or child, the likely majority of users for such a device.

Re: iPad mini

#238

Post by mikeash »

xxbondsxx wrote: post #172
quux wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPad mini has the same dpi as the non retina iPhones, and nobody had trouble tapping on things.

DPI has no effect on the size of a thumb relative to the size of an icon on the screen. Smaller ipad -> smaller icons -> harder to tap

Of course DPI has an effect. An icon is a certain number of pixels in size, and DPI determines how that translates into physical size.

Re: iPad mini

#239

Post by robotresearcher »

bobsy wrote: post #229

I don't really understand the point. Don't Apple now have 4 devices which do the same thing? iPod + iPhone.. as far as I can tell are identical apart from the iPod cannot make calls. iPad is a giant version of the iPod... which I really like to use to browse the web on the sofa. We now have the iPad Mini which is that awkward size which is too big put in your pocket and yet you don't want to put it in your backpack a…

> iPod + iPhone.. as far as I can tell are identical apart from the iPod cannot make calls.

Neither does the iPod have a data modem. It's not an always-connected communicator like the iPhone. There's a big difference in utility between always-online and mostly-online.

Re: iPad mini

#240

Post by stbtrax »

mikeryan wrote: post #150
cstross wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I have an iPad 3. I found it too damn heavy for comfortable reading. So I bought a Google Nexus 7. Which is exactly the right size, and a delight ... except that most (not all) Android apps look like they were beaten with the ugly stick. The aesthetics are terrible . I read on the thing for 4-20 hours a week and it's just increasingly grating. I'll be buying an iPad Mini. I won't be ditching the Nexus 7 -- if…

I have to admit a similar sentiment, I'm pretty Apple based for most uses, but had to get a Nexus 7 for some dev work and its quickly become my main reader for its size and weight. Still like the Nexus 7 price point too. At $200 I'm cool travelling with it and if it got away from me it wouldn't be the end of the world. (just finished The Fuller Memorandum on it btw...)

I think the Nexus 7 is also a better travel tablet because it has GPS and google maps.
Post reply on HN