“Apple Inc.’s Mini is a big draw, for consumers and rivals,” Daisuke Wakabayashi and Ian Sherr report for The Wall Street Journal.
“The iPad Mini — a 7.9-inch version of its more-expensive sibling — is the world’s best-selling tablet computer, and is estimated to account for nearly two of every three iPads sold,” Wakabayashi and Sherr report. “The smaller-screen tablet that Steve Jobs once said would be ‘DOA, dead on arrival’ now plays a central role in the company’s strategy for the post-PC era.”
MacDailyNews Take: This is a lie. Steve Jobs said the Android tablets would be DOA. He never said an iOS tablet would. Furthermore, the clearly stated 7-inch tablets, not a 7.9-inch iPad which offers some 35% larger viewing area than 7-inch Android tablets.
“Apple is now readying a revamped iPad Mini with a high-resolution ‘retina’ display,” Wakabayashi and Sherr report. “It’s also working on a thinner, lighter version of its standard 9.7-inch iPad, using a thin film instead of the glass found in existing models, based on information from the company’s parts suppliers.”
Wakabayashi and Sherr report, “‘It will become harder to sell to new customers where price is important, and Apple doesn’t compete on price as much,’ said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc.”
MacDailyNews Take: It will become harder to sell to new customers where cargo space is important, and Ferrari doesn’t compete on cargo space as much (or, even more accurately, at all).
Wakabayashi and Sherr report, “The same day Apple holds its iPad event, Microsoft will introduce its second-generation Surface tablet. With Microsoft Office and Outlook email included in the new Surface, the software giant is hoping to appeal to corporate customers—a largely untapped customer base for tablets.”
MacDailyNews Take: Good luck with that, Microsloth:
Over 95% of custom apps developed by businesses are written for Apple iOS devices – October 17, 2013
Wakabayashi and Sherr report, “Apple lists more than 375,000 apps designated to work on the iPad, compared with the ‘low tens of thousands’ tablet apps in Google Play, according to research firm Canalys in August. Canalys said nearly half of the 50 most popular paid and free iPad apps weren’t available in Google Play or weren’t optimized for tablet use.”
Read more in the full article here.