Apple sells you three iPads in one year. o_0
Your honor, the dates please:
“The NEW iPad” March 2012
“The new NEW iPad 4” November 2012
“The things Steve Jobs swore would a waste of time iPad mini” November 2012.
Grab your pitch forks and matches, its time to get upset! But before I start hanging fruit out to dry, lets approach this from another angle, perhaps it could offer some sort of Band-Aid to the madness!
Microsoft’s Windows Vista was released January 2007. During this time, Apple still insisted on fooling the world into thinking they could produce a competitive desktop OS. Instead of letting the product speak for itself (and it couldn’t,) they decided to attack Vista with a brilliant marketing blitz known as “I’m a mac, I’m a PC.” Please, excuse the fact that you’ve never seen another silly commercial like it since the launch of Windows 7, but make no mistake, those ads did damage! The world over had something to say about Vista, and none of it was good.
Windows 7 was then released, a stronger, faster and more refined version of Windows Vista, but, it was Windows Vista at heart none the less. Windows 7 was introduced to the market October 2009. Windows 7 and all its brilliance was received with a cold shoulder, things like “sure its faster and better, but they rushed it to market to make use forget about Vista.” Interestingly enough, the same genius at large who could make a statement like that never really could understand how Windows 7 couldn’t be so great if Vista itself was great. Or even, Windows 7 was not rushed to market, it was right on development cycle schedule. See, vista was the turn of a cycle, a new kernel, a new core; Once that was done, knocking out the incremental iterations of that foundation would be easier, no, they couldn’t understand that. All they knew, was Windows Vista sucked, and Windows 7 was released “early” to make us forget about Vista.
Well then, today, I would like to apply this logic where it is best suited. Apple takes it upon themselves to release a new iteration of a full sized iPad only months after the previous version was released. They made a whole lot of noise about how fast “the new iPad” was and how much of a game changer it was. They even called it “the new iPad,” just so you could understand it was nothing like the old one (it was everything like the old one….) Could it be, Apple rushed the iPad 4 to market to make us forget just how bad “the new ipad” was? Humph, well, incremental as “the new iPad” was, it wasn’t that bad, in fact it was still ahead of everything considered to be in its category by far. Wait, now I’m confused. If it wasn’t rushed to your living room to make up for a previous mistake, then why is it here too soon?
But the iPad 4 did not arrive without company, it had a brother, a bastard child. See, good ol’ Steve Jobs told us a while back, that a 7 inch tablet was just silly, so I am going to represent the all knowing Jobs in his absence. See, a 7 inch tablet from Apple is just Silly! HA! This only adds to my theory that Steve Jobs was not the leader of Apple, Steve Jobs was the pleaser of Steve Jobs; And now that he is gone, Apple is free to act like Apple and stop pretending to have affiliations to the late great Jobs almighty.
Bashing the ipad mini is not my intent here, I just want to know how YOU feel about the situation. Apple beats Microsoft to death, triggers the pundit army and vicious rumors of erasing mythical mistakes; Then turns around and releases three iPads only months apart (not even the decency to let it be a full year…) and smiles in your face when you walk through the glass door. Nope, no band-aids here! How does that make you feel as a consumer? Do you feel taken advantage of? Are you feeling like less of a sheep and more like the victim being sold a brand new flood damaged BMW?
I would love to apologize if this little piece comes off as condescending, but three iPads in 7 months? I think Apple owes you an apology first.
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Yep. Any computing device released in a cycle of less than a year, wasn’t ready the first time. And the manufacturer owes the consumer an apology (and maybe a voucher).
Phones are the rare exception, and even those OEMs are learning that a new product launch every 2-3 months is counter productive and hits the bottom line. HTC is feeling that pain right now.
If you release a 1a to replace the six month old 1, it simply means you didn’t put the effort in the first, or second, time to get it as good as it can be. But some consumers will reward manufacturers for their follies and buy up every new model, knowing full well that they have just been duped. Common sense has gone the way of the Twinkie (just make that one up). Oh well.
Jim I could sort of hear what you were saying if this were a family car whose fan belts, airbags, carburetor would wear out just in time for the new version of the car to be sold to you half a year later, but you’re talking about a differently-sized version of a thing that you sort of screw around with, that you find it objectionable that Apple would put anyone in a position to want to buy it. You lose me there.
In its first weekend a few million people bought the iPad Mini and in that same weekend another few million people bought the regular iPad. So there’s obviously a market for these seven inch tablets, and it’s apparently not the same market as that of the >9″ tablets. To compete with the likes of the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7, Apple decided they’d have a better shot if they had a smaller iPad, so why not make and sell it? How is that ripping anyone off, screwing your customers? And how can you fault companies like Apple and Google for being aggressively competitively prolific?
> Like Jim that is admission that the first product wasn’t up to snuff in the first place.
The iPad (the 9.7″ one) is still selling quite well, people seem to like it, you’ve got to admit its hardware is quite impressive. Some like 10 inch tablets and some like 7.9 inch tablets (me, my phone gets the job done, no tablet). Some people like regular smokes and some like menthols, Why not sell your regular cigarettes and a menthol version as well?
Note also Jim that people are spending a whole lot less money on PCs. Companies like HP and Dell are really hurting. Companies like Lenovo are scrambling to make every kind of form-factored device you could dream of hoping to find one that sticks and sells.
As a result of formidable competition creeping up around it in this tablet market, Apple is no longer in the strongest position to have a bunch of newer and better versions of a product just sitting warehouses until they think the timing is just barely right to make people shell out another four to eight hundred bucks. They have to keep up with the competition to stay in the lead whether it’s a good mapping thing, screen resolution, weight, thickness, pixels, brightness, battery life, a better talking assistant, TV integration and so forth. My computer is older than my marriage and I have no interest in getting a new one (a new phone that is, or a new wife for that matter). I’d have the Nexus 4 right now but I am struggling to come up with a convincing argument as to why I need it when I already have my Galaxy Nexus, but I’ll figure something out, and I won’t be mad at Google for hitting me with a new Nexus every year instead of every two years or whatever you think is some sort of an acceptable self-retardation of the rate at which you start pushing something that’s a bit different and better.
I don’t own a tablet nor do I own a single Apple product (other than some Apple shares, Microsoft and Google too), but this Apple trash-talking, I don’t get you two, not in this case at least.
HTC is feeling the pain because they try to sell a lot of phones — is Samsung feeling that pain? They’re a bit more akin to HTC than Apple, no? You have a problem with people spending money when they don’t have to? Is that really a bad thing?
I think Apple stumbled upon their product of the future in the iPad Mini. In most ways its what the iPad should have always been because the iPad was always meant to be a companion device.
If you release an upgraded product six months or earlier you need to offer customers some kind of voucher or discount to upgrade. Like Jim that is admission that the first product wasn’t up to snuff in the first place.
couple of my friends were totally upset, because they bought this “new iPad” this September, and their investment already got “totaled” because they can’t return their “new iPad” to get “new new iPad”. that’s a bummer. Apple is not Nokia to give vouchers, and even they don’t apologize.
> Apple is not Nokia to give vouchers, and even they don’t apologize.
>
Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned.
We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.
Steve Jobs
Apple CEO