Round-up: The best comment from around the web on Apple's big launch
iPad Mini earns mixed reviews, while Apple's entire business model is called into question
Mic Wright, The Daily Telegraph
"Apple's senior vice-president of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, actually joked about how quickly your expensive pride and joy becomes yesterday's news earlier in the event announcing a raft of updates to the company's MacBook and iMac lines: "Isn't it incredible how a new thing makes the old design look instantly old?" No, Phil, it's been your business model for years and it's that speedy obsolescence that's getting old... "[Apple CEO] Cook is a canny operator and a worthy successor to Steve Jobs but he lacks the charisma to make words like 'legendary' seem convincing rather than painfully hyperbolic."
Ashlee Vance, Bloomberg Business Week
"The iMac is one of the more striking products Apple has put out in a while. It has this super-thin edge, so that the computer seems to melt away when you look at it from the side. The innards have all been packed into a case that's slightly rounded in the back. It puts other All-in-Ones to shame. As for the iPad mini, well, it's very, very, very light. And the new covers are much better than the ones for the larger iPads. The mini covers do not have the metal bits hanging off the edge."
"One notable feature was that both the MacBook Pro and the new iMac came without a DVD/CD drive. Apple has decided that, in the days of pulling your content down from the cloud, physical media have had their day – whether you like it or not. There will be grumbling, but I suspect its instincts are correct."
"The 7.9-inch size is not the 7-inch size that Jobs pooh-poohed, and the use of the identical pixel count confirms his stated objections that a "tweener" was not what Apple wanted. Using the iPad Mini is more like using an 11.6-inch laptop versus a 13-inch laptop than it is using a Kindle Fire or Asus Nexus 7 versus a full-size Android tablet. The iPad Mini makes sense in the context of being an iTunes-to-go device, since Apple already makes more money from iTunes than its entire iPod lineup."
Round-up: The best comment from around the web on Apple's big launch
iPad Mini earns mixed reviews, while Apple's entire business model is called into question
Jessica Lessin and Ian Sherr, Wall Street Journal
"A person familiar with the matter says Apple believes consumers will pay for the whole ecosystem of apps and services Apple offers and that they didn't set out to make something at the $199 price. That premium pricing strategy on everything from Macs to iPhones has made it the most valuable company in the US."
"Just as Apple has dominated the market for 9.7-inch tablets with its iPad, iPad 2 and new iPad models, the company is poised to rule the market for 7.x-inch products, driving rapid growth of the segment in 2012 and 2013. The battle in the 7-inch space is highly spirited, with most of the other leading vendors already offering price-competitive products in this size range. IHS predicts Apple will successfully position the smaller iPad as a device that will be attractive and easy to adopt for both new and returning customers. This will spur rapid sales growth and provide tough competition for other companies contending in this size range."
"At the Gartner US Symposium, I did 20 one-on-one meetings with clients in the first two days. In 18 of the meetings, clients used iPads. In only two of the meetings did clients use laptops. I even used my own iPad to go over some decision frameworks using the Gartner iPad App... It's not a scientific survey, but it is very clear laptops will go the way of the old clunky mobile phones. That time may be sooner versus later."
Jeff Carlson, The Seattle Times
"For many people who have eyed the iPad but who don't want the weight or expense, the mini is a perfectly-sized alternative. The most important consideration is that the iPad mini is truly light and comfortable in the hand. It weighs 10.8 ounces (compared with the full-sized iPad's 23 ounces) and measures 7.87 inches tall by 5.3 inches wide. The depth, at 0.28 inch, makes the whole thing seem even less weighty."
Round-up: The best comment from around the web on Apple's big launch
iPad Mini earns mixed reviews, while Apple's entire business model is called into question
"Unlike the rest of Apple's stuff, March's upgrade made the iPad 3 thicker, heavier, and hotter than the iPad 2. It was a totally un-Apple progression, made even sillier by the cavalcade of coke-habit-thin gadgets that came after it. This new iPad is just as big (same dimensions), and actually ever so slightly heavier... But if the assembly of those products is anything to go by, there's zero reason to think this trend of fat iPads is going to continue."
Poornima Gupta and Noel Randewich, Reuters
"Analysts are concerned now about erosion of Apple's industry-leading margins as it takes on the Kindle Fire. It earned gross margins of 23 per cent to 32 per cent on US iPad sales between October 2010 and the end of March 2012... Amazon's first Kindle Fire just about breaks even... and Google has said its Nexus 7 is being sold at cost. 'The pricing may limit sales. From a profitability perspective though, I think at $330 Apple is still getting adequate gross margins on the sales,' said Morningstar analyst Brian Colello. 'But at that price point it may limit adoption and unit volumes.'"
"The only noticeable drawback I perceived in my short time using the iPad mini was processor power. It runs iOS 6 and has enough power to get the 3-D maps capability, but pinching and zooming was choppier and more stuttery than I've experienced on any other iOS device. App loading also took a few moments longer than on newer full-sized iPads. This certainly isn't a deal breaker, particularly if you plan on using this smaller iPad primarily for reading, web browsing, or watching videos. Avid gamers may be better off turning toward the more powerful fourth-generation iPad, though."
"Out of the box, a Fusion Drive-equipped Mac will have its core operating system components and pre-installed applications placed on the solid-state device (SSD) side of the house, while documents and applications live on the slower spinning disk. As you open files and documents and install applications, the operating system makes note of what you're doing and how often you do it, and the things you use most often are promoted up onto the SSD. This is done transparently, and you see the SSD and hard drives as a single volume."
Round-up: The best comment from around the web on Apple's big launch
iPad Mini earns mixed reviews, while Apple's entire business model is called into question
"Like most Apple products, the build of the smaller tablet is excellent, easily surpassing the competition on the market. By comparison, the Nexus 7 and Fire HD feel like toys. The thinness and sleekness of the casing cannot be overstated. It feels as high-end as the new iPhone, but even sharper in the hand - like a slice of solid aluminum. The chamfered edges present on the iPhone 5 have been continued here, as well as the all-black treatment seen on the latest phone. The display on the mini looks incredibly sharp, and even though the resolution is lower than the 3rd and 4th generation full-size iPad, it doesn't immediately seem like a 1024-by-768 display."