There's so much about this which is disingenuous. I'm not surprised by this, but it's worth pointing out some of the tricks Amazon are employing here:
1. Much More for Much Less. Much More is obviously the kindle fire HD, and Much Less is the iPad Mini. Heck, if you remove the 'f' of 'for' you get to the central point here which is to turn the choice into 'Much More or Much Less'.
2. Kindle Fire HD branding is used (sexy typeface, orange gradient), iPad mini has some weird typeface which a cynic might argue has been deliberately spaced to make it look antiquated and unprofessional.
3. The Kindle Fire is "stunning" and the iPad Mini is "standard".
4. Just because the iPad Mini display is high definition and has 30% more pixels than the iPad Mini, it doesn't mean that the iPad Mini is a "low resolution" display.
5. Because the iPad Mini has a bigger screen in the same overall form factor, they make the same point a different way ("30% more pixels than the Mini" => "216 pixels per inch"). If the Kindle had a bigger screen but lower PPI they'd put the screen size in here.
6. "Watch HD movies and TV" "No HD movies or TV". The phrasing here is very clever. To a technically competent individual it parses as "no HD content on iPad Mini, only standard definition". But the "and TV"/"or TV" phrasing means that an average consumer might assume that you can't get any TV shows on iPad Mini.
7. The screen of the Kindle Fire is odd looking. The iPad Mini behind it is on its default home screen. I'm guessing that the Kindle Fire has deliberately been shown all in black (with the bg the same colour as the bezel) because it makes it unclear where the bezel ends and the screen begins. (I don't know if this is the default setting of the Kindle Fire HD or not).
8. The iPad Mini has been photoshopped horribly. For a start I have no idea which iOS that is, but it's not the one which ships with the iPad Mini or the one which Apple are using in any of their promotional shots. If you overlay one of Apple's promotional shots on top and adjust the size and opacity, you'll see that the iPad Mini has been warped so that the icons seem slightly smaller and the positioning is off.
8. Ultra-fast MIMO Wi-Fi vs. A BLANK SPACE. Not even trashing the fact that there is Wifi in the iPad but it's not as fast. It looks like they just gave up at this point.
Again, I'm not blaming Amazon for any of this. It's just interesting to see how much thought has gone into basically attempting to deceive consumers.
I hope you are aware that apple does this too (and far better). I say this because I wouldn't see this type of post after an apple keynote. They are MASTERS of setting the conversation points.
Take the iPhone4 launch. A new phone with a slightly higher resolution screen, but significantly smaller than the existing competition. Their framing, with retina branding, switched the existing conversation from screen size, not to resolution even (where apple had a minor lead, that would be soon overtaken) to PPI! There was almost no discussion of PPI before this. Apple competitors were now framed as 'worse' if they included a screen with the same resolution but bigger! Insane!
Now fast-forward to 2012, and we have a new iPad marketed as 35% bigger screen (again they have found a metric that maximises the difference, which would normally be framed as the 7" vs 7.9"), no mention of resolution.
Apple would never even show a competitor on their site, because they are the market leader.. but see Mac vs PC for what happens when they are not.
I recently read an article on HN wherein a user posted asking all of us to be 'civil'. This is the reason why HN isn't so civil. You like a product, you try to support as if you created it and as if the company cares for you, while in reality the company doesn't care about you and you're just doing free marketing for them.
Not to say that you can't defend what you like, but most of what you've written here is very very subjective. One could argue otherwise too, and which is what is happening right here - You're adding subjectivity to your claims and provoking a 'fanboy' war. This is unacceptable.
For example, if I were to counter you, I would then say the entire of Apple's presentations and Marketing is just plain BS. For example they frequently market saying "The world's best Operating System (referring to Mac OS)" or "The fastest phone ever" etc. while these are not true. The iPhone for instance, still runs on a dual core processor. How the fuck can it be the 'fastest' while high-performance quadcore chips were long released even before this phone came into existence?
Where were you during Apple's presentations? I never saw you arguing "Hey that's not true, this is disingenuous" while they marketed their products in a similar fashion.
So may I kindly request you to cut the crap and stop the bias and avoid provoking people into such techno-wars?
1. Much More for Much Less. Much More is obviously the kindle fire HD, and Much Less is the iPad Mini. Heck, if you remove the 'f' of 'for' you get to the central point here which is to turn the choice into 'Much More or Much Less'.
You are reading way too deeply into this. Unless you have some research to back up your assertion that people frequently misread "for" as "or", it's hard to believe.
5. Because the iPad Mini has a bigger screen in the same overall form factor, they make the same point a different way ("30% more pixels than the Mini" => "216 pixels per inch"). If the Kindle had a bigger screen but lower PPI they'd put the screen size in here.
To be fair, Apple started the density wars. Nobody knew what the acronym PPI meant until Apple started calling it a "Retina" display. It's strange that they can't continue to compete in this category, especially given the high price of their device.
7. The screen of the Kindle Fire is odd looking. The iPad Mini behind it is on its default home screen. I'm guessing that the Kindle Fire has deliberately been shown all in black (with the bg the same colour as the bezel) because it makes it unclear where the bezel ends and the screen begins. (I don't know if this is the default setting of the Kindle Fire HD or not).
The bezel and the UI are different colors, the bezel is shiny while the UI is pure black at the top and has a silverish-black gradient behind the content. I have no trouble seeing where the (large!) bezel ends and the screen begins.
8. Ultra-fast MIMO Wi-Fi vs. A BLANK SPACE. Not even trashing the fact that there is Wifi in the iPad but it's not as fast. It looks like they just gave up at this point.
What kind of Wi-Fi does the iPad have? If not MIMO, this seems to be a valid comparison point. (I would have preferred something more meaningful, like "3x3" or "450Mbps 802.11n", but I have an idea about what they mean.)
Don't tell us about "false marketing" on amazons side.
Did you notice how Phil Schiller showed the iMac on Stage? He always talked about how thin it is and how incredible but he never showed the thicker part of the iMac.
Also noticed that Apple ALWAYS showed every iMac from the side on there website? Since the new iMac, there is only a 20° angle to the iMac, so you can only see the thin border, but not the thicker part behind it.
Why such a great support to Apple even when it is so evident that the mini iPad is a first generation product? I think it has become fashionable to praise Apple even when it falls short and bash others even when they exceed expectations. This is analogous to transforming from fanboyism to fanaticism.
I hail from a place where the worth of 200$ or 300$ for a tablet cannot be justified, where we demand true value for money. So I guess I can look at these without any bias.
I am quite confident that Apple's iPad mini will have better resolution (more pixels, to be clear) in its next version. And you will find yourself saying "yes, more pixels is better".
Perhaps, Amazon is not the greatest competitor that Apple will face. Perhaps, it would be Samsung or Google. Amazon's products will not match Apple's perceived quality. Yet, these things do not change the fact that Amazon's price point would drive down the profitability of Apple products. And that, Amazon's price point will look attractive to certain segment of people (at least those like me, who believe in value for money).
> Again, I'm not blaming Amazon for any of this. It's just interesting to see how much thought has gone into basically attempting to deceive consumers.
It says things that are strictly true and presents the Fire in the best possible light, while leaving off anything that might balance out the comparison.
There's probably some weird parallel to Hacker News called Copywriting News where they're praising the people who created this promo.
You're overthinking it. Amazon is basically saying the iPad Mini is underpowered and more expensive. Yeah, what else is new? If Apple competed on tech specs and price, they wouldn't have sold a single Mac in the last 15 years. Price and specs is not why people will be buying the mini.
The iPad Mini's far from impressive DPI is no doubt the result of Apple not wanting to introduce another resolution into the iOS ecosystem (the Mini's resolution previously appeared on iPad 1 and 2). I don't think they were cutting costs with this panel, rather, you are seeing the non-resolution-independent iOS chickens coming home to roost as software limitations begin to hold back hardware innovation.
Apple needs to bite the bullet and implement true resolution independence in iOS and OS X otherwise every new device form factor (or Retina display, in OS X's case) is going to make things more and more painful.
There are two other major reasons they'll have gone for the lower resolution:
1) Power consumption - the retina display drains a lot of power (and handling the higher resolution requires a better processor which contributes further). This means a bigger battery, which means a larger and heavier device which kind of goes against the point of the iPad mini.
2) Price - It seems that one of Apple's key business goals with the iPad mini is to bring the lowest entry point of the iPad down. Retina displays a going add cost which means Apple would have to go in at a higher price point - kind of undermining the whole thing.
Apple have optimised for size and price and while I'm sure they'd have loved to have a retina display on the iPad mini, the trade offs they've made are consistent with the aims they have.
If I had to guess, I would say that the resolution dependence has been a major contributing factor to the high UI/UX quality in iOS applications. Yes, there are other aspects to consider, but this single design decision has a lot of benefits to developers.
I knew this was going to be an issue when they decided on a fixed resolution as well as a fixed DPI - they are very limited in what size devices they can now produce.
It has been of great short term benefit to them though, as it has been much easier for people to develop great looking apps for it.
I'm really curious to see if they do eventually go for resolution independence and lose the advantages that comes with it, in order to gain the flexibility of making a broader (or even just different) set of devices.
I wonder if even they have decided with certainty which way they are going to go.
If that's the direction you go, how do they handle resolution independence of raster images? Sure, you can implement scaling, but you'll still need developers to provide a massive range of assets to satisfy every potential resolution, or suffer the consequences of blurry and/or jagged images as a result of their scaling artifacts.
When you're a Microsoft, an Apple or a Google you have the money to create something truly epic - and none of them have.
The Surface has great design, as do all of Apple's products. However the Surface, while having the potential for great software, comes with something not quite finished. So while it's eminently usable as it is, it falls short of greatness.
The iPad Mini, similarly, has the quality one expects from Apple, and yet the features, such as the display resolution and lack of GPS, give it a feel of mediocrity. And iOS itself feels a little long in the tooth these days. Not what you'd expect from Apple.
Google of course have an OS that outsells any other. And yet that's plagued by patent infringements, operators and manufacturers that aren't incentivised to update the OS, and the subsequent slew of (real or perceived) security holes. Android could be truly open, but isn't.
All three companies have the resources to create something earth-shatteringly innovative, usable and beautiful. And yet they don't. Nokia with the 920 is the only one that seems to get close. This really surprises me, given the importance we're placing on the mobile market.
Especially in the case of the Surface - it's the first version of the product! The original iOS and Android devices all had crappy or non-existant app stores when they were launched, and were plagued with problems and limitations.
Similarly, for the right use-cases iPad Mini and the Nexus tablets are epic, and many people adore them.
> However the Surface, while having the potential for great software, comes with something not quite finished. So while it's eminently usable as it is, it falls short of greatness.
It's like "kaizen" never happened. People really need to stop thinking about revolutionary change and remember what happens with good iterative design.
When I have a product that I'm supposed to interact with many times each day I really don't want change. I want something calming and familiar that gets better over time.
If we're comparing their latest tablet products, shouldn't Google's be the Nexus 7? (Or, probably within a week, the all-but-inevitable Nexus 10.)
The Nexus series represent the only devices that Google directly supports, after all. In which case I think we can strike out all the complaints you list, from the customer's perspective. The focus then turns to Android's perceived handicap in regards to tablet apps.
Sure, they have the money to create something epic. But to build something epic and sell it for under $300 is taking a loss just for the epic-ness of it.
That is not how Apple, MS or Google got to where they are.
I believe that what Gizmodo says is actually true and something that Apple "forgot" to mention when comparing(highlight the "good" things while omitting all the other things) the Nexus 7 with their new iPad so I do not blame Amazon for pointing it out to a wider public. If Apple wants to play this game, they must be ready to get fought back.
EDIT: also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina. I mean, they have putted it on everything, iPhone, iPad and Air, why not this? the Retina might be still the only great feature of iDevices and they have removed it? Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales? To make it cheaper? It is not. This things make me really dislike Apple.
Air's aren't Retina. Mac Books aren't Retina. iMacs aren't Retina. In short, what you have posted is completely wrong.
As for Amazon's ad, it doesn't really matter to me. Apple can deal with it. I'm not going to spend my morning debating it on HN.
The one good thing about it is that Amazon wants to compete strongly for the tablet market. As a consumer of any "faith", this is good because it will create a technology race where we all win.
> Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales?
Yes, apple has a long history of only releasing the stuff it needs to (arguably favouring stuff like battery life over these features-- iPhone without 3G, 4S with no LTE, etc), and then release an 'amazing' new version later. All the retina items (which doesn't include MBA, fyi), all had a non-retina alternative on launch, too.
> To make it cheaper? It is not.
It is. For apple. There was no way they were going to compete on price in the 7" space. I'm confident the margins on the mini are no better than those on the regular one, too.
> also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina
I can't find the link, but I remember reading that if the Mini had the iPad's retina display shrunk down, it would have had an unbelievably high resolution display, which would have increased the price of the Mini significantly.
Not something Apple would want when targeting the 7" tablet market.
Not a bad idea. The low dpi screen of the iPad mini really is a glaring flaw when you consider the price.
And because of that price, there's going to be a long future for Android tablets in the sub-$250 range, now that Google and Amazon have proven you can make and sell a worthy device for that kind of money.
Oh yeah, another pro Android/Amazon/Google anti-Apple comment/article/submission. This is not getting tired, not one little bit. This specific point has been covered recently as well. While this points out select bits where 'on paper' the Kindle HD is 'better' its not the entire story is it? Nothing there about build quality or durability for instance, or the ecosystem or UI/UX or that the user can most probably update the OS (compared to Android where updates are few and far between and tend to never come if you are talking about Samsung)
I loved my Nexus 7, right up until it broke (for the 4th time). This time round the screen split from corner to corner previous times the screen developed faults and once the screen actually came loose from the body. It cost 209 quid in the UK (including delivery) and I wished to hell I waited off to get the iPad mini because apart from the beautiful responsive UI/UX, applications, app store and iTunes store its probably like most Apple devices in that its built like a tank.
Ha, that's a good point! I'm curious, though: is it possible to do that on a Kindle Fire? I had thought that was only possible on a regular (Black and White) Kindle
My experience shopping on Amazon - a bit like browsing in a vast, chaotic and disorganized third-world marketplace - is not one I'd like extended to my computing platform.
Amazon and others can tout narrow features as much as they want, but I still prefer the better-managed end-to-end experience Apple provides in their ecosystems.
The Fire HD seems to have an easier to sell homescreen too. While the iPad has these small icons with flowers and such (even in their official marketing) the Kindle's homescreen presents a plethora of stuff to appeal to the mass market: feature films, popular books, popular magazines, angry birds (I'm not sure about the US, but Angry Birds seems to have quite a long lasting appeal especially among young teenagers), Facebook, Skype, TV.
While the iPad can do all of this, the Kindle immediately demonstrates this to the consumer. I can see it doing really well against the iPad mini with that sort of imagery being shown to customers.
Having owned both, I am sticking with the iPad. The Fire is good for the price but I constantly got the feeling that I was working to use the device. But that's just one man's opinion. I know others who swear by the Fire.
The first 2 lines (display, PPI) and the price line are why I did not buy an iPad mini, which would have been my first tablet had it been priced at $200 or maybe even $249. So marketing is dead on, in my view.
Instead I bought an Apple-refurbished iPad 3, for $379, which is $79 more than the soon-to-be-shipped Kindle HD 8.9".
For $50 more than the Mac Mini I get a bigger and better display. And for $79 more than the Kindle HD 8.9
I get better apps and user experience.
I'm becoming "that guy," it seems, but how is this relevant to Hacker News? This is little more than something which will stir up "fanboys" -- which by the way seems to have worked judging from the current top, and needlessly long, comment.
Summed up, this 'news' story boils down to: "Amazon advertises product." Queue hundreds of comments arguing about why the add is accurate or not; why product X is the worst, and shameful, and product Y is the best and wholesome.
Has anyone opened a news paper, magazine, turned on the radio or TV, or been on the internet? One company saying that it's product is better than the competition is kind of, well, completely normal -- Advertising 101, if I may be so bold. Why aren't we arguing to death about car commercials slamming their competition? Hell, what about Oxy-Clean, huh? Billy Mayes' talked a bunch of crap about Tide. Where is that discussion? Are people not ready to defend Tide's name as they are Apple/Amazon's?
People get so emotionally invested in certain products. It's completely silly.
Can we stop this inanity and go back to endlessly arguing about how worthless PHP is now?
And that is exactly the reason why vendors like to control the distribution / means of access to their products.
e.g. Apple retail stores selling Apple products, Chrome as a browser to access Google products from desktop or Android from mobile, etc.
The goal is not having other companies in a position in which they can significantly affect your business if they choose to do so (e.g. indie developers and the Apple app store).
[+] [-] georgespencer|13 years ago|reply
1. Much More for Much Less. Much More is obviously the kindle fire HD, and Much Less is the iPad Mini. Heck, if you remove the 'f' of 'for' you get to the central point here which is to turn the choice into 'Much More or Much Less'.
2. Kindle Fire HD branding is used (sexy typeface, orange gradient), iPad mini has some weird typeface which a cynic might argue has been deliberately spaced to make it look antiquated and unprofessional.
3. The Kindle Fire is "stunning" and the iPad Mini is "standard".
4. Just because the iPad Mini display is high definition and has 30% more pixels than the iPad Mini, it doesn't mean that the iPad Mini is a "low resolution" display.
5. Because the iPad Mini has a bigger screen in the same overall form factor, they make the same point a different way ("30% more pixels than the Mini" => "216 pixels per inch"). If the Kindle had a bigger screen but lower PPI they'd put the screen size in here.
6. "Watch HD movies and TV" "No HD movies or TV". The phrasing here is very clever. To a technically competent individual it parses as "no HD content on iPad Mini, only standard definition". But the "and TV"/"or TV" phrasing means that an average consumer might assume that you can't get any TV shows on iPad Mini.
7. The screen of the Kindle Fire is odd looking. The iPad Mini behind it is on its default home screen. I'm guessing that the Kindle Fire has deliberately been shown all in black (with the bg the same colour as the bezel) because it makes it unclear where the bezel ends and the screen begins. (I don't know if this is the default setting of the Kindle Fire HD or not).
8. The iPad Mini has been photoshopped horribly. For a start I have no idea which iOS that is, but it's not the one which ships with the iPad Mini or the one which Apple are using in any of their promotional shots. If you overlay one of Apple's promotional shots on top and adjust the size and opacity, you'll see that the iPad Mini has been warped so that the icons seem slightly smaller and the positioning is off.
8. Ultra-fast MIMO Wi-Fi vs. A BLANK SPACE. Not even trashing the fact that there is Wifi in the iPad but it's not as fast. It looks like they just gave up at this point.
Again, I'm not blaming Amazon for any of this. It's just interesting to see how much thought has gone into basically attempting to deceive consumers.
[+] [-] polshaw|13 years ago|reply
Take the iPhone4 launch. A new phone with a slightly higher resolution screen, but significantly smaller than the existing competition. Their framing, with retina branding, switched the existing conversation from screen size, not to resolution even (where apple had a minor lead, that would be soon overtaken) to PPI! There was almost no discussion of PPI before this. Apple competitors were now framed as 'worse' if they included a screen with the same resolution but bigger! Insane!
Now fast-forward to 2012, and we have a new iPad marketed as 35% bigger screen (again they have found a metric that maximises the difference, which would normally be framed as the 7" vs 7.9"), no mention of resolution.
Apple would never even show a competitor on their site, because they are the market leader.. but see Mac vs PC for what happens when they are not.
[+] [-] neya|13 years ago|reply
Not to say that you can't defend what you like, but most of what you've written here is very very subjective. One could argue otherwise too, and which is what is happening right here - You're adding subjectivity to your claims and provoking a 'fanboy' war. This is unacceptable.
For example, if I were to counter you, I would then say the entire of Apple's presentations and Marketing is just plain BS. For example they frequently market saying "The world's best Operating System (referring to Mac OS)" or "The fastest phone ever" etc. while these are not true. The iPhone for instance, still runs on a dual core processor. How the fuck can it be the 'fastest' while high-performance quadcore chips were long released even before this phone came into existence?
Where were you during Apple's presentations? I never saw you arguing "Hey that's not true, this is disingenuous" while they marketed their products in a similar fashion.
So may I kindly request you to cut the crap and stop the bias and avoid provoking people into such techno-wars?
Thanks
[+] [-] jrockway|13 years ago|reply
You are reading way too deeply into this. Unless you have some research to back up your assertion that people frequently misread "for" as "or", it's hard to believe.
5. Because the iPad Mini has a bigger screen in the same overall form factor, they make the same point a different way ("30% more pixels than the Mini" => "216 pixels per inch"). If the Kindle had a bigger screen but lower PPI they'd put the screen size in here.
To be fair, Apple started the density wars. Nobody knew what the acronym PPI meant until Apple started calling it a "Retina" display. It's strange that they can't continue to compete in this category, especially given the high price of their device.
7. The screen of the Kindle Fire is odd looking. The iPad Mini behind it is on its default home screen. I'm guessing that the Kindle Fire has deliberately been shown all in black (with the bg the same colour as the bezel) because it makes it unclear where the bezel ends and the screen begins. (I don't know if this is the default setting of the Kindle Fire HD or not).
The bezel and the UI are different colors, the bezel is shiny while the UI is pure black at the top and has a silverish-black gradient behind the content. I have no trouble seeing where the (large!) bezel ends and the screen begins.
8. Ultra-fast MIMO Wi-Fi vs. A BLANK SPACE. Not even trashing the fact that there is Wifi in the iPad but it's not as fast. It looks like they just gave up at this point.
What kind of Wi-Fi does the iPad have? If not MIMO, this seems to be a valid comparison point. (I would have preferred something more meaningful, like "3x3" or "450Mbps 802.11n", but I have an idea about what they mean.)
[+] [-] axx|13 years ago|reply
Did you notice how Phil Schiller showed the iMac on Stage? He always talked about how thin it is and how incredible but he never showed the thicker part of the iMac.
Also noticed that Apple ALWAYS showed every iMac from the side on there website? Since the new iMac, there is only a 20° angle to the iMac, so you can only see the thin border, but not the thicker part behind it.
Oh, btw: have fun with your iPad mini.
[+] [-] pherk|13 years ago|reply
I hail from a place where the worth of 200$ or 300$ for a tablet cannot be justified, where we demand true value for money. So I guess I can look at these without any bias.
I am quite confident that Apple's iPad mini will have better resolution (more pixels, to be clear) in its next version. And you will find yourself saying "yes, more pixels is better".
Perhaps, Amazon is not the greatest competitor that Apple will face. Perhaps, it would be Samsung or Google. Amazon's products will not match Apple's perceived quality. Yet, these things do not change the fact that Amazon's price point would drive down the profitability of Apple products. And that, Amazon's price point will look attractive to certain segment of people (at least those like me, who believe in value for money).
[+] [-] goatforce5|13 years ago|reply
It says things that are strictly true and presents the Fire in the best possible light, while leaving off anything that might balance out the comparison.
There's probably some weird parallel to Hacker News called Copywriting News where they're praising the people who created this promo.
[+] [-] macspoofing|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TopTrix|13 years ago|reply
These are the marketing tactics and do you thing Apple have never done this before?
[+] [-] eigenvector|13 years ago|reply
Apple needs to bite the bullet and implement true resolution independence in iOS and OS X otherwise every new device form factor (or Retina display, in OS X's case) is going to make things more and more painful.
[+] [-] Tyrannosaurs|13 years ago|reply
1) Power consumption - the retina display drains a lot of power (and handling the higher resolution requires a better processor which contributes further). This means a bigger battery, which means a larger and heavier device which kind of goes against the point of the iPad mini.
2) Price - It seems that one of Apple's key business goals with the iPad mini is to bring the lowest entry point of the iPad down. Retina displays a going add cost which means Apple would have to go in at a higher price point - kind of undermining the whole thing.
Apple have optimised for size and price and while I'm sure they'd have loved to have a retina display on the iPad mini, the trade offs they've made are consistent with the aims they have.
[+] [-] dabeeeenster|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bornhuetter|13 years ago|reply
It has been of great short term benefit to them though, as it has been much easier for people to develop great looking apps for it.
I'm really curious to see if they do eventually go for resolution independence and lose the advantages that comes with it, in order to gain the flexibility of making a broader (or even just different) set of devices.
I wonder if even they have decided with certainty which way they are going to go.
[+] [-] uptown|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philwelch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Spearchucker|13 years ago|reply
The Surface has great design, as do all of Apple's products. However the Surface, while having the potential for great software, comes with something not quite finished. So while it's eminently usable as it is, it falls short of greatness.
The iPad Mini, similarly, has the quality one expects from Apple, and yet the features, such as the display resolution and lack of GPS, give it a feel of mediocrity. And iOS itself feels a little long in the tooth these days. Not what you'd expect from Apple.
Google of course have an OS that outsells any other. And yet that's plagued by patent infringements, operators and manufacturers that aren't incentivised to update the OS, and the subsequent slew of (real or perceived) security holes. Android could be truly open, but isn't.
All three companies have the resources to create something earth-shatteringly innovative, usable and beautiful. And yet they don't. Nokia with the 920 is the only one that seems to get close. This really surprises me, given the importance we're placing on the mobile market.
[+] [-] bornhuetter|13 years ago|reply
Especially in the case of the Surface - it's the first version of the product! The original iOS and Android devices all had crappy or non-existant app stores when they were launched, and were plagued with problems and limitations.
Similarly, for the right use-cases iPad Mini and the Nexus tablets are epic, and many people adore them.
[+] [-] DanBC|13 years ago|reply
It's like "kaizen" never happened. People really need to stop thinking about revolutionary change and remember what happens with good iterative design.
When I have a product that I'm supposed to interact with many times each day I really don't want change. I want something calming and familiar that gets better over time.
[+] [-] yohui|13 years ago|reply
The Nexus series represent the only devices that Google directly supports, after all. In which case I think we can strike out all the complaints you list, from the customer's perspective. The focus then turns to Android's perceived handicap in regards to tablet apps.
[+] [-] frogpelt|13 years ago|reply
That is not how Apple, MS or Google got to where they are.
[+] [-] duiker101|13 years ago|reply
EDIT: also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina. I mean, they have putted it on everything, iPhone, iPad and Air, why not this? the Retina might be still the only great feature of iDevices and they have removed it? Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales? To make it cheaper? It is not. This things make me really dislike Apple.
[+] [-] melling|13 years ago|reply
As for Amazon's ad, it doesn't really matter to me. Apple can deal with it. I'm not going to spend my morning debating it on HN.
The one good thing about it is that Amazon wants to compete strongly for the tablet market. As a consumer of any "faith", this is good because it will create a technology race where we all win.
[+] [-] polshaw|13 years ago|reply
Yes, apple has a long history of only releasing the stuff it needs to (arguably favouring stuff like battery life over these features-- iPhone without 3G, 4S with no LTE, etc), and then release an 'amazing' new version later. All the retina items (which doesn't include MBA, fyi), all had a non-retina alternative on launch, too.
> To make it cheaper? It is not.
It is. For apple. There was no way they were going to compete on price in the 7" space. I'm confident the margins on the mini are no better than those on the regular one, too.
[+] [-] joubert|13 years ago|reply
Air does not have Retina.
[+] [-] jws|13 years ago|reply
• panel availability at volume and price
• power availability. Retina means about four times the power draw for rendering.
Both of these will improve with time. Eventually retina will come.
[+] [-] rahoulb|13 years ago|reply
I would guess it's battery. My iPad 3 is heavy yet the battery life is significantly lower than my iPad 1 (and it takes ages to charge).
[+] [-] jklp|13 years ago|reply
I can't find the link, but I remember reading that if the Mini had the iPad's retina display shrunk down, it would have had an unbelievably high resolution display, which would have increased the price of the Mini significantly.
Not something Apple would want when targeting the 7" tablet market.
[+] [-] mbesto|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danbee|13 years ago|reply
I believe that the power requirements are down to the number of pixels more than the size.
[+] [-] TillE|13 years ago|reply
And because of that price, there's going to be a long future for Android tablets in the sub-$250 range, now that Google and Amazon have proven you can make and sell a worthy device for that kind of money.
[+] [-] zwily|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] metatronscube|13 years ago|reply
I loved my Nexus 7, right up until it broke (for the 4th time). This time round the screen split from corner to corner previous times the screen developed faults and once the screen actually came loose from the body. It cost 209 quid in the UK (including delivery) and I wished to hell I waited off to get the iPad mini because apart from the beautiful responsive UI/UX, applications, app store and iTunes store its probably like most Apple devices in that its built like a tank.
Sometimes its not just about figures.
[+] [-] snupples|13 years ago|reply
Neither is it about your anecdotes. This isn't an anti-Apple submission so much as the news of Amazon's first real direct marketing attack on Apple.
[+] [-] philwelch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pm90|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bornhuetter|13 years ago|reply
I do wish they would all just shut up and concentrate on the value of their own products though.
[+] [-] Jabbles|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjguy|13 years ago|reply
Amazon and others can tout narrow features as much as they want, but I still prefer the better-managed end-to-end experience Apple provides in their ecosystems.
[+] [-] hiddenstage|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ElliotH|13 years ago|reply
While the iPad can do all of this, the Kindle immediately demonstrates this to the consumer. I can see it doing really well against the iPad mini with that sort of imagery being shown to customers.
[+] [-] f1nch3r|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FilterJoe|13 years ago|reply
Instead I bought an Apple-refurbished iPad 3, for $379, which is $79 more than the soon-to-be-shipped Kindle HD 8.9".
For $50 more than the Mac Mini I get a bigger and better display. And for $79 more than the Kindle HD 8.9 I get better apps and user experience.
EDIT: clarified what first 2 lines were
[+] [-] davidjgraph|13 years ago|reply
Let me get a pen and paper and write this down.
[+] [-] goostavos|13 years ago|reply
Summed up, this 'news' story boils down to: "Amazon advertises product." Queue hundreds of comments arguing about why the add is accurate or not; why product X is the worst, and shameful, and product Y is the best and wholesome.
Has anyone opened a news paper, magazine, turned on the radio or TV, or been on the internet? One company saying that it's product is better than the competition is kind of, well, completely normal -- Advertising 101, if I may be so bold. Why aren't we arguing to death about car commercials slamming their competition? Hell, what about Oxy-Clean, huh? Billy Mayes' talked a bunch of crap about Tide. Where is that discussion? Are people not ready to defend Tide's name as they are Apple/Amazon's?
People get so emotionally invested in certain products. It's completely silly.
Can we stop this inanity and go back to endlessly arguing about how worthless PHP is now?
[+] [-] venus|13 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_366177422...
Tell you one thing, apple.com's got them beat on URLs ..
[+] [-] scotty79|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gulbrandr|13 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/
instead of:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ref=gw_c1_kf_ipa...
[+] [-] chj|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vitobcn|13 years ago|reply
The goal is not having other companies in a position in which they can significantly affect your business if they choose to do so (e.g. indie developers and the Apple app store).