Apple has gone and done it. It has just released its new iPad, – a mini one. Apple’s previous chief executive, the late Steve Jobs who died in 2011, said his company would never actually manufacture a tablet computer with a seven inch display as the screen size would be too small to properly express the software. It would seem however that someone at Apple disagreed. So what effect will the iPad mini have on the market?
Well first things first. The release of the iPad Mini certainly won’t sit well with rival technology giant Microsoft as the company has just launched its own tablet, the Surface. Of course, as far as consumers are concerned, having a wider choice of tablet computers to choose from is always going to be a bonus. But for manufacturers such as Microsoft, the presence of a new tablet from Apple, which is of course a major force in the market, is likely to affect sales.
The Kindle Fire from Amazon, with its seven inch, multi-touch, colour display screen is a direct competitor to the Apple iPad Mini and this is likely to be one of the main reasons behind Apple’s decision to go against Steve Jobs’ thinking and produce a smaller tablet. Apple and Amazon are fierce rivals and Apple would not want to lose any ground in the tablet market. Launching the iPad Mini may well make consumers who were going to purchase a Kindle Fire think again. By not having anything smaller than a 10” tablet, Apple was effectively leaving a huge segment of the market open for its rivals to dominate.
And remember, tablet computers these days are not all about hardware sales – far from it. By bringing a consumer on board via a hardware sale, companies then have the chance to make additional sales over a long period of time with items such as e-books, music, games and movies. It is in this area, content, where the real battle will be won and lost and millions of dollars will be raked in.
And of course, once a customer has bought an Apple iPad Mini, if they are satisfied with their purchase and become a fan of the brand, they’re going to be far more amenable to purchasing other goods from the company in the future. There are considerable opportunities for cross sales and so in this regard, the iPad Mini has the opportunity to have a profound impact on the technology market as a whole. As with the launch of any new Apple product, the amount of media interest generated is immense, and if nothing else, it can be guaranteed that the iPad mini will shake things up considerably and get the Apple name in a significant number of headlines around the world.
This article was contributed by Janice Lincoln, a freelance tech writer who is very keen I tracking down the best quality iPad 4 cases and iPad mini cases.
Janice Lincoln
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- What kind of threat does the iPad mini pose to the tablet market? - November 20, 2012
