iPad Mini rumors: To be or not to be

Tablet market is abuzz with excitement about the new Jelly Bean-powered Nexus 7 that Google has launched. This 7-inch tablet is another good entry in the scene of smaller 7-inch tabs and now rumors whether Apple would come out with its own iPad Mini is intensifying.

Analysts are hotly anticipating the arrival of the smaller version of the 9.7-inch iPad. However, there is also another opinion that just because now Google has come out with a small tab does not mean Apple has to follow suit.

Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst of Moor Insights & Strategy, is of the opinion that Apple needs to come out with a 7-inch iPad otherwise it might lose market share in the hustle for small tablet competition.

Moorhead states, “The Google Nexus 7 will sell well, which is good for Google, Android, ASUS and NVIDIA, but bad for Apple, unless they act before the holidays”.

Moorhead’s opinions sounds fair enough in the light that Amazon has done wonderfully well with its 7-inch Android-powered Kindle Fire. It even brought down the cost of tablets by introducing the Kindle Fire at $199. Within a remarkably short time it went on to capture 54% of the Android market share and treaded flat other competition.

Moorhead feels that Apple might profit similarly with a smaller iPad. He said, “Apple would be very profitable as well, as the most expensive piece-parts of a tablet are the display and touch-screen, which are priced somewhat linear with size. Apple may have redesigned some of the innards of the new iPad 2 as they lowered the price, but not nearly enough to offset the $100 price reduction, so a mini-iPad would be additive, not dilutive like the $399 iPad 2.”

Now there is another opinion in the market that Apple need not bother about a 7-inch tablet at all. The reasons are numerous.

The first reason is obviously the price for Apple. Apple can slash the price in a smaller tablet but given the cost of developing its high grade Retina Display, Apple cannot really afford to cut the price to match the current competitive price introduced by Amazon. While an iPad Mini at the cost of $199 would mean loss for the Cupertino firm, Amazon is going to make it even tougher.

It has recently come to news that the next Kindle Fire is already in the line and it would come in four flavours, at a whopping price cut. The four versions of Kindle Fire 2 would all cost $149. While cutting price in half was bad enough, this kind of price tag is not anything even a giant like Apple can manage for its high-end iPads.

And then there is this problem of what the consumers expect from Apple. A recent survey regarding an iPad Mini from Apple was conducted and the results speak clear.

When asked, ‘What would you make of a new iPad, that was smaller and less expensive, but perhaps not as good in quality?’, the answers were thus:
Biggest flop from Apple yet – 42%
Not at all necessary – 21%
Indifferent -13%
Much-needed – 9%
Good move by Apple – 6%
Other – 9%

Apple need not think twice after this opinion, unless of course if the Cupertino company can judge their preference better than themselves.

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Posted by admin on July 12, 2012. Filed under Life & Style. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry