As everyone expected, Apple has released the iPad Mini to compete with the range of 7″ Android tablets available like the Google’s Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD.
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook may have taken time out of Apple’s rather mixed Apple earnings report to say “we would not make’ 7-inch tablet, iPad mini in ‘a whole different league”, but such claims are more bluster than anything else. In reality, Apple has made a 7″ tablet, and whilst at 7.9″ and with a very thin bezel the iPad Mini may have a display one third bigger than that offered by the Nexus 7, it is very much in the same league and after the same market.
Problematically for Apple, whilst they created the market for tablets with the launch of the iPad and few 9″ tablets can compete there, manufacturers have been competing heavily on price in the 7″ space and for Apple to charge basically double than its competitors when joining late to the party – it has a rather uphill battle to fight.
The pixel count of the iPad Mini is actually the same as the original iPad, so all current iPad apps will work perfectly on the smaller screen from the start, and the Apple ecosystem has many more and many better tablet apps than its competitors at the moment, but Android is catching up and Microsoft is pushing Windows 8 very heavily already.
The real question, however, is why would someone buy a £369 iPad Mini rather than a £429 iPad 2? The internals are basically the same, and that extra £50 gives you the full iPad experience rather thn a half-way house between an iPhone and an iPad. People have flocked to the Android 7″ tablets because they are cheap at £199 for the Nexus 7 and £159 for the Kindle Fire HD – and at that price these cheap tablets are perfect for an additional device for watching videos and checking the web, email, and social media. The iPad experience may be slightly better, but is it twice as good? Not really. The iPad 2 is only a little more expensive than its Android competitors, and the Apple experience is worth the extra money, but it is not twice as good.
The real problem for Apple in the tablet space, just like with smartphones, is that Android (and now Windows 8) manufacturers are in a race to the bottom in terms of price, and there is less than ever to differentiate between them and the Apple products that are so much more expensive. Apple have joined the 7″ tablet party to try and ward off its main competitors, but in doing so they have forgotten to compete on the main reason that these tablets have become so popular – price.