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Apple unveils the iPad mini
The new iPad mini is displayed after its unveiling at an Apple special event at the historic California Theater on October 23, 2012 in San Jose, California. The iPad mini is Apple's smaller 7.9 inch version of the iPad tablet.
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The big news today was supposed to be about the iPad Mini, but it was almost upstaged by the new, faster iPad 4. The surprise announcement left some techies who bought the iPad 3 six months ago a little upset.
But they can take some comfort at least the iPad 4 looks the same, said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester.
“So there isn’t that status marker of, ‘Oh, this iPad is thinner than yours or mine,'” Rotman Epps said.
And now to the Mini. Roger Kay said while Apple dominates the tablet market, it’s late on the game in getting its mini-tablet out.
“Apple is coming out with a product that I think is as being defensive,” Kay said. “There are other competitors Samsung with its Galaxy and Amazon with its Fire in that space already.”
And Kay said the competition is taking some market share from the iPad. The iPad Mini has a bigger screen than its competitors. But at $329, it’s $100 more than the Galaxy and nearly $200 more than the 7-inch Kindle.
And that’s left some people wondering, who is Apple competing with? The other tablets or itself?
Epps said consumers have shown they’re willing to pay more for Apple products and so, while it’s relatively expensive, the Mini is still competitive. At the same time, Epps said she expects the Mini to eat into full-size tablet sales. But she said that’s not a bad thing.
“Apple deserves a lot of credit for being willing to cannibalize its own products before somebody else does,” Epps said. And it’s this willingness to compete against itself that has in part, made Apple a success.
Roger Kay is quite ignorant if he thinks that Apple is releasing a new iPad this week because of Android tablets. 10 inch Android tablets haven't threatened iPad sales at all. Apple is releasing a new iPad this week to compete with the Microsoft surface and any other Windows RT device that might become a hit.
Isn't cannibalizing their own product line new territory for Apple, and therefore not really contributing to their success?
At least in recent memory, Jobs was often very publicly against over complicating the product line. Compare the one iPhone per generation to the 3-4 Samsung/HTC/LG android phones per carrier.
I'm not criticizing the move, but it does seem very uncharacteristic for Apple.
There's a quote from Steve Jobs about the launch of the iPhone. One of his reports expressed concern about launching the iPhone because it will eat into iPod sales. Jobs responded "Better us than somebody else." Apple proved that it's possible to successfully cannibalize your own product. MBAs just can't wrap their minds around that one.
"MBAs just can't wrap their minds around that one."
At least in my experience (my old roommate was an MBA student) MBA's are taught early on that cannibalizing your own product line is good. Apple management used to stand out because they did this nowhere near to the extent of other companies (just look at the number of marquees owned by each auto manufacturer). The example of the iPhone is on the conservative end of a company eating into it's own product line (different primary functionality and very different method of distribution and pricing).
Compare the multiple sizes of ipad to what Apple did with the iphone. When android phones first hit the market, all the android manufacturers each brought out 2-3 different phones that could be considered "top of the line up" with different form factors and different feature sets catering to different demographics. On the other hand there was one iphone per generation and it had all the features the previous models had and more. It didn't matter that other manufacturers had models with bigger screens, Apple stood by its form factor with fans citing its "proper design".
Again, I'm not saying this is a bad decision (in fact I think the mini will fare pretty well). It's just I think describing Apple as pushing the envelope on willingness to cannabilize its own product is a bit off the mark.
