Lafiel said:
He said things like: "It is meaningless, unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of the present size. Apple's done extensive user-testing on touch interfaces over many years, and we really understand this stuff" "The 7-inch tablets are tweeners, too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad." "7-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 7-inch bandwagon with an orphan product. Sounds like lots of fun ahead." not insults?
Personally I'm picking up a 7 or 8'' tablet soon, because 10'' tablets are too big and heavy for me. |
From a user stand point he is right. What he under estimated though is that manufacturers would sell them at a much smaller price point than normal size tablets. The Ipod Touch costs more than the Kindle Fire and the Google Nexus tablets. Price is why a lot of people are purchasing those tablets. Steve Jobs and Apple normally don't follow these market trends because they know that chasing price points does nothing but reduce margins. Tim Cook is meeting in the middle, he is not chasing the price point because the Ipad mini will cost more, but he is making a smaller tablet incase there are people that actually do prefer a smaller tablet and also to possibly pull people to Apple that want the Ipad experience but can't afford $400-$600. The Ipad Mini is expected to retail for $250-$300.
It has also been said that Steve Jobs was internally much more receptive to a smaller Ipad before he died than he initially was with his public statements.
