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Amazon.com criticising new iPad on homepage

205 points by dutchbrit 14y ago

jemeshsu 14y ago
My first impression is that Amazon is displaying the possible margin they could get with Kindle Fire HD. Maybe someone in AMZ is regretting pricing it that low.
duiker101 14y ago
I believe that what Gizmodo says is actually true and something that Apple "forgot" to mention when comparing(highlight the "good" things while omitting all the other things) the Nexus 7 with their new iPad so I do not blame Amazon for pointing it out to a wider public. If Apple wants to play this game, they must be ready to get fought back. EDIT: also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina. I mean, they have putted it on everything, iPhone, iPad and Air, why not this? the Retina might be still the only great feature of iDevices and they have removed it? Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales? To make it cheaper? It is not. This things make me really dislike Apple.
- mbesto 14y ago
  I suspect Mini "2" will have Retina.
  - axx 14y ago
    yeah, so all the idiots ran to the next apple store to replace their one year old iPad mini FINALLY!!11 with a Retina one. I HUGE INNOVATION IN DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY! I was an Apple "Fanboy" for years, and all my computers are macs, but from time to time i get the feeling i need to switch to Unix or something else...
    - unimpressive 14y ago
      > I was an Apple "Fanboy" for years, and all my computers are macs, but from time to time i get the feeling i need to switch to Unix or something else... You're already using Unix. Mac OS X is a certified Unix system.
      - axx 14y ago
        yeah, i know that already. I meant a more Linux oriented OS. So to save time i wrote unix instead of mentioning all those popular unix distributions.
        sbuk 14y ago
        Linux isn't a UNIX distribution. It's Linux. Linux can be described as 'UNIX like'.
  - smackfu 14y ago
    OTOH, if you use the iPad as a model, that would mean it gets slower and thicker and heavier. Which was kind of OK in the iPad but probably wouldn't fly with the iPad mini.
- polshaw 14y ago
  > Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales? Yes, apple has a long history of only releasing the stuff it needs to (arguably favouring stuff like battery life over these features-- iPhone without 3G, 4S with no LTE, etc), and then release an 'amazing' new version later. All the retina items (which doesn't include MBA, fyi), all had a non-retina alternative on launch, too. > To make it cheaper? It is not. It is. For apple. There was no way they were going to compete on price in the 7" space. I'm confident the margins on the mini are no better than those on the regular one, too.
  - moystard 14y ago
    Apple are known to take much bigger margins than competitors on their hardware. The reason has actually been given by Jeff Bezos during the Kindle HD announcement: Amazon wants to sell their ecosystem, their ebooks, movies and music; the hardware is only a gateway to allow users to buy from their store. Apple makes money on hardware itself and needs a bigger cut (even if they have an ecosystem on their own, much bigger that is in some domains).
- jws 14y ago
  Best two reasons for not being retina: • panel availability at volume and price • power availability. Retina means about four times the power draw for rendering. Both of these will improve with time. Eventually retina will come.
  - DannyBee 14y ago
    Do you have any actual data to back up the second point? Don't get me wrong, I understand the fill rates necessary, but i keep hearing this with no real data. After spending the past 6-8 months working with all sorts of embedded GPU's (mainly as an HTPC hobby on embedded boards), I kinda have serious doubts that the power usage is the factor here, and would like to see real data, not assumptions. You are assuming that higher resolution requires linear scaling of number of cores/shaders/etc, and thus, 4 times the power. If it's displaying using 3D, it's definitely not true (it requires linear scaling of some hardware, but not all hardware, and thus, power usage is not necessarily going to be 4x). On the 2D side, 2D cores have been so fast for the past "whatever" that it's not clear it would require any more power than normal. In fact, the only articles i can find that did any real testing show the power usage is only increased about 30% (overall, including both panel and GPU) on a full sized laptop. Their methodology seemed very suspect, so I don't want to quote them here, just point out that there is some alternative claims. I'm not trying to pick on you in particular, it just seems the common refrain for why the ipad mini is not retina, and i haven't seen a single shred of evidence to back it up.
    - jws 14y ago
      In my 3D iOS and Mac OS work I'm working on now, I am essentially entirely fragment shader bound (per screen pixel work). Quadruple the pixels and I need quadruple the energy per frame to do the fragment shading. The vertex shading and main CPU work stays the same, and the backlight obviously stays the same, so the total energy required doesn't quadruple, and 30% sounds like a reasonable ballpark estimate for that. I don't think Apple would accept reducing the battery life from 10 hours to 7 hours in exchange for a retina display on the inaugural iPad mini. That gets the wrong story in the media. Not having a premium feature that most people haven't seen is very different from "can't get through a day without charging and you have to buy all new chargers". FWIW I have one on order, and I expect to be disappointed in the non-retina display. I moved my iPad 3 to my daughter and went back to my iPad 2 a while ago and it just looks like a bunch of fuzzy mosaic tiles to me now when I try to read on it.
- rahoulb 14y ago
  Re: Retina display ... I would guess it's battery. My iPad 3 is heavy yet the battery life is significantly lower than my iPad 1 (and it takes ages to charge).
  - robmcm 14y ago
    Mare sure you are using the supplied 2Amp charger, if you use an iPhone one or computer USB port it will take ages!!! Still takes longer though...
- joubert 14y ago
  * why isn't that thing Retina. I mean, they have putted it on everything, iPhone, iPad and Air, why not this? Air does not have Retina.
- danbee 14y ago
  It's probably battery life. The Retina iPad has a battery that's nearly twice as big as the iPad 2 and iPad mini and it's mostly to drive that screen. I believe that the power requirements are down to the number of pixels more than the size.
- jklp 14y ago
  > also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina I can't find the link, but I remember reading that if the Mini had the iPad's retina display shrunk down, it would have had an unbelievably high resolution display, which would have increased the price of the Mini significantly. Not something Apple would want when targeting the 7" tablet market.
- melling 14y ago
  Air's aren't Retina. Mac Books aren't Retina. iMacs aren't Retina. In short, what you have posted is completely wrong. As for Amazon's ad, it doesn't really matter to me. Apple can deal with it. I'm not going to spend my morning debating it on HN. The one good thing about it is that Amazon wants to compete strongly for the tablet market. As a consumer of any "faith", this is good because it will create a technology race where we all win.
  - esrauch 14y ago
    You can get Macbook Pros with retina displays now, which is what I assume you meant by Macbook since the Macbook-non-Pro line is discontinued. Pedantry aside, I agree with you.
    - melling 14y ago
      It seems that they still sell MacBook Pro's without Retina: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo... I guess they've moved these down into the price slot. Retina has only been out since June. It'll probably take another year before everything is Retina. Another thing to consider is that Apple just introduced AutoLayout in iOS. They will expect developers to have adopted that within a year or so, which will free them from the basic resolution doubling that they've been doing.
    - deleted 14y ago
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    - deleted 14y ago
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TillE 14y ago
Not a bad idea. The low dpi screen of the iPad mini really is a glaring flaw when you consider the price. And because of that price, there's going to be a long future for Android tablets in the sub-$250 range, now that Google and Amazon have proven you can make and sell a worthy device for that kind of money.
- zwily 14y ago
  They've proven that you can sell at that price, but not that you can make money at that price. Time will tell.
  - SquareWheel 14y ago
    Their profit isn't from the hardware sale, but from the media/apps thereafter.
    - bornhuetter 14y ago
      It's an interesting model that makes them a real threat to both Apple and Android/WinRT based manufacturers. Cheap high quality tablets sold at cost with a great ecosystem behind it. Of their competitors, only Apple both makes the hardware and has the ecosystem, and they will never beat Amazon on price. They aren't going to take over the whole market, but I can see them getting a good sized chunk of it.
    - admiralpumpkin 14y ago
      Their profit isn't. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/25/us-amazon-results-idUSBRE89O1IE20121025 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/25/us-amazon-results-...
  - TillE 14y ago
    As long as they're not losing money, I really don't see a problem with this. For Google, having a decent Android tablet available at that price clearly helps them in ways beyond immediate profit from hardware sales.
Jabbles 14y ago
Discussed previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710114 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710114
bornhuetter 14y ago
It's a shame that they have resorted to direct attacks, but given Apple's comments about "all 7" tablets" I can't really blame them. I do wish they would all just shut up and concentrate on the value of their own products though.
vitobcn 14y ago
And that is exactly the reason why vendors like to control the distribution / means of access to their products. e.g. Apple retail stores selling Apple products, Chrome as a browser to access Google products from desktop or Android from mobile, etc. The goal is not having other companies in a position in which they can significantly affect your business if they choose to do so (e.g. indie developers and the Apple app store).
ElliotH 14y ago
The Fire HD seems to have an easier to sell homescreen too. While the iPad has these small icons with flowers and such (even in their official marketing) the Kindle's homescreen presents a plethora of stuff to appeal to the mass market: feature films, popular books, popular magazines, angry birds (I'm not sure about the US, but Angry Birds seems to have quite a long lasting appeal especially among young teenagers), Facebook, Skype, TV. While the iPad can do all of this, the Kindle immediately demonstrates this to the consumer. I can see it doing really well against the iPad mini with that sort of imagery being shown to customers.
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eigenvector 14y ago
The iPad Mini's far from impressive DPI is no doubt the result of Apple not wanting to introduce another resolution into the iOS ecosystem (the Mini's resolution previously appeared on iPad 1 and 2). I don't think they were cutting costs with this panel, rather, you are seeing the non-resolution-independent iOS chickens coming home to roost as software limitations begin to hold back hardware innovation. Apple needs to bite the bullet and implement true resolution independence in iOS and OS X otherwise every new device form factor (or Retina display, in OS X's case) is going to make things more and more painful.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
  There are two other major reasons they'll have gone for the lower resolution: 1) Power consumption - the retina display drains a lot of power (and handling the higher resolution requires a better processor which contributes further). This means a bigger battery, which means a larger and heavier device which kind of goes against the point of the iPad mini. 2) Price - It seems that one of Apple's key business goals with the iPad mini is to bring the lowest entry point of the iPad down. Retina displays a going add cost which means Apple would have to go in at a higher price point - kind of undermining the whole thing. Apple have optimised for size and price and while I'm sure they'd have loved to have a retina display on the iPad mini, the trade offs they've made are consistent with the aims they have.
  - megablast 14y ago
    It also has the same DPI as the iPhone 3gs, so they can use the same screens, just cut to a bigger shape.
    - strager 14y ago
      Does display manufacturing really work that way? Can you take an existing screen spec and scale it up?
      - veidr 14y ago
Spearchucker 14y ago
When you're a Microsoft, an Apple or a Google you have the money to create something truly epic - and none of them have. The Surface has great design, as do all of Apple's products. However the Surface, while having the potential for great software, comes with something not quite finished. So while it's eminently usable as it is, it falls short of greatness. The iPad Mini, similarly, has the quality one expects from Apple, and yet the features, such as the display resolution and lack of GPS, give it a feel of mediocrity. And iOS itself feels a little long in the tooth these days. Not what you'd expect from Apple. Google of course have an OS that outsells any other. And yet that's plagued by patent infringements, operators and manufacturers that aren't incentivised to update the OS, and the subsequent slew of (real or perceived) security holes. Android could be truly open, but isn't. All three companies have the resources to create something earth-shatteringly innovative, usable and beautiful. And yet they don't. Nokia with the 920 is the only one that seems to get close. This really surprises me, given the importance we're placing on the mobile market.
- bornhuetter 14y ago
  I think they are all epic in their own way. Especially in the case of the Surface - it's the first version of the product! The original iOS and Android devices all had crappy or non-existant app stores when they were launched, and were plagued with problems and limitations. Similarly, for the right use-cases iPad Mini and the Nexus tablets are epic, and many people adore them.
  - mtgx 14y ago
    What's so great about Surface besides its design and build material? I don't mean to knock on those. I think they are great, but that doesn't equal that the product overall is great. Windows RT is performing very poorly on an high-end ARM chip (don't want to imagine how it would perform on an older dual core ARM chip, or god forbid a single core one) compared to the true mobile operating systems like Android and iOS, and its app store is virtually non-existent. Office on it is also an exercise in frustration. The price is also too high for what it offers. Even if the build of materials is exactly the same as the iPad 4 (I think it's lower), that doesn't mean it should cost exactly the same as an iPad 4. Because it offers lower value than an iPad (think ecosystem, brand, etc). I also don't think it's acceptable for a $500+ product to have such a low resolution anymore. And don't tell me it has an "extra 16 GB". It doesn't. It only has 17 free GB of storage.
georgespencer 14y ago
There's so much about this which is disingenuous. I'm not surprised by this, but it's worth pointing out some of the tricks Amazon are employing here: 1. Much More for Much Less. Much More is obviously the kindle fire HD, and Much Less is the iPad Mini. Heck, if you remove the 'f' of 'for' you get to the central point here which is to turn the choice into 'Much More or Much Less'. 2. Kindle Fire HD branding is used (sexy typeface, orange gradient), iPad mini has some weird typeface which a cynic might argue has been deliberately spaced to make it look antiquated and unprofessional. 3. The Kindle Fire is "stunning" and the iPad Mini is "standard". 4. Just because the iPad Mini display is high definition and has 30% more pixels than the iPad Mini, it doesn't mean that the iPad Mini is a "low resolution" display. 5. Because the iPad Mini has a bigger screen in the same overall form factor, they make the same point a different way ("30% more pixels than the Mini" => "216 pixels per inch"). If the Kindle had a bigger screen but lower PPI they'd put the screen size in here. 6. "Watch HD movies and TV" "No HD movies or TV". The phrasing here is very clever. To a technically competent individual it parses as "no HD content on iPad Mini, only standard definition". But the "and TV"/"or TV" phrasing means that an average consumer might assume that you can't get any TV shows on iPad Mini. 7. The screen of the Kindle Fire is odd looking. The iPad Mini behind it is on its default home screen. I'm guessing that the Kindle Fire has deliberately been shown all in black (with the bg the same colour as the bezel) because it makes it unclear where the bezel ends and the screen begins. (I don't know if this is the default setting of the Kindle Fire HD or not). 8. The iPad Mini has been photoshopped horribly. For a start I have no idea which iOS that is, but it's not the one which ships with the iPad Mini or the one which Apple are using in any of their promotional shots. If you overlay one of Apple's promotional shots on top and adjust the size and opacity, you'll see that the iPad Mini has been warped so that the icons seem slightly smaller and the positioning is off. 8. Ultra-fast MIMO Wi-Fi vs. A BLANK SPACE. Not even trashing the fact that there is Wifi in the iPad but it's not as fast. It looks like they just gave up at this point. Again, I'm not blaming Amazon for any of this. It's just interesting to see how much thought has gone into basically attempting to deceive consumers.
- axx 14y ago
  Don't tell us about "false marketing" on amazons side. Did you notice how Phil Schiller showed the iMac on Stage? He always talked about how thin it is and how incredible but he never showed the thicker part of the iMac. Also noticed that Apple ALWAYS showed every iMac from the side on there website? Since the new iMac, there is only a 20° angle to the iMac, so you can only see the thin border, but not the thicker part behind it. Oh, btw: have fun with your iPad mini.
digeridoo 14y ago
If only the kindle fire shipped to countries where most people live.
- goatforce5 14y ago
  The list of countries where Amazon has deals in place to distribute digital content (apart from eBooks) is pretty low: http://www.macstories.net/stories/mapping-the-entertainment-ecosystems-of-apple-microsoft-google-amazon/ http://www.macstories.net/stories/mapping-the-entertainment-...
MattRogish 14y ago
Amazon doth protest too much, methinks.
chj 14y ago
They forgot to mention app numbers..
deleted 14y ago
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taylorbuley 14y ago
So we're using the word "ballsy" now in promotional copy? Because it seems to me that the word could be construed by some to be sexist.
metatronscube 14y ago
Oh yeah, another pro Android/Amazon/Google anti-Apple comment/article/submission. This is not getting tired, not one little bit. This specific point has been covered recently as well. While this points out select bits where 'on paper' the Kindle HD is 'better' its not the entire story is it? Nothing there about build quality or durability for instance, or the ecosystem or UI/UX or that the user can most probably update the OS (compared to Android where updates are few and far between and tend to never come if you are talking about Samsung) I loved my Nexus 7, right up until it broke (for the 4th time). This time round the screen split from corner to corner previous times the screen developed faults and once the screen actually came loose from the body. It cost 209 quid in the UK (including delivery) and I wished to hell I waited off to get the iPad mini because apart from the beautiful responsive UI/UX, applications, app store and iTunes store its probably like most Apple devices in that its built like a tank. Sometimes its not just about figures.
- snupples 14y ago
  "Sometimes its not just about figures." Neither is it about your anecdotes. This isn't an anti-Apple submission so much as the news of Amazon's first real direct marketing attack on Apple.
denzil_correa 14y ago
Somehow Amazon have upped the ante against Apple ever since Steve Jobs passed away. The keynote slides in which Bezos revealed the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Fire HD were so Apple like.
f1nch3r 14y ago
Having owned both, I am sticking with the iPad. The Fire is good for the price but I constantly got the feeling that I was working to use the device. But that's just one man's opinion. I know others who swear by the Fire.
davidjgraph 14y ago
So companies use marketing to spin their products? Selecting language and images that favours their stuff over the competition? Let me get a pen and paper and write this down.
scotty79 14y ago
Does anyone know why iPad has single speaker?
- jasonlotito 14y ago
  Just want to add that this is one of my biggest gripes with the iPad. I have to position things behind my iPad to hear things sometimes. It's by far the worst part of the iPad.
  - robmcm 14y ago
    I expect they will say it's because having two speakers so close together wouldn't give you a stereo experience (be distinguishable). <cynical> That is until the next version where it becomes a feature...</cynical>
    - scotty79 14y ago
      I think it should have one speaker at each of 3 corners at least. Also it would be nice if they invented some cleaver way of directing sound towards the user because now when I use iPad I have to user my hand as a makeshift reflector to hear anything.
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jjguy 14y ago
My experience shopping on Amazon - a bit like browsing in a vast, chaotic and disorganized third-world marketplace - is not one I'd like extended to my computing platform. Amazon and others can tout narrow features as much as they want, but I still prefer the better-managed end-to-end experience Apple provides in their ecosystems.
- hiddenstage 14y ago
  Ever use the app store?
philwelch 14y ago
They left out the bullet point about the remote wipe feature. I hear that's a Kindle specialty.
- pm90 14y ago
  Ha, that's a good point! I'm curious, though: is it possible to do that on a Kindle Fire? I had thought that was only possible on a regular (Black and White) Kindle
venus 14y ago
Here's their full comparison: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_366177422_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000846051&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-6-2&pf_rd_r=0SS0BG0JCHNJR5AMPVDE&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1409302382&pf_rd_i=B0083PWAPW http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_366177422... Tell you one thing, apple.com's got them beat on URLs ..
- prof_hobart 14y ago
  "Create custom profiles for each child". This is actually something that I do wish iOS would introduce. My daughter is not getting her own iPad any time soon, but I'd love to be able to lock down the apps/features that she's able to use on mine.
tsieling 14y ago
If they talk about the competition, they're scared of the competition, and the more they talk, the more scared they are. That goes for Apple, Google, Amazon and all the rest.
marban 14y ago
And [Special Offers] aren't available on the iPad either...
cageface 14y ago
In the long run I am in complete agreement with Bezos on this. Content is what matters. Devices come and go but my relationship with an album or a book means something to me.
mrcomment 14y ago
Sorry, only eink kindles are being sold to Canada, and if I bring one in, software portion of device de-activates after 30+ days of being outside of the US, So thus no comparison unfortunately.
ritratt 14y ago
ipad/iphone has never been the best device hardware-wise. but they deliver a good experience despite having inferior hardware with better OS, apps, content etc.
FilterJoe 14y ago
The first 2 lines (display, PPI) and the price line are why I did not buy an iPad mini, which would have been my first tablet had it been priced at $200 or maybe even $249. So marketing is dead on, in my view. Instead I bought an Apple-refurbished iPad 3, for $379, which is $79 more than the soon-to-be-shipped Kindle HD 8.9". For $50 more than the Mac Mini I get a bigger and better display. And for $79 more than the Kindle HD 8.9 I get better apps and user experience. EDIT: clarified what first 2 lines were
minton 14y ago
Doesn't matter how much better the specs on this device are. I'm uncomfortable using it to purchase content that can be revoked without warning or appeal[1] and nothing short of a popular article on Hacker News can reverse their decision (and only then as a PR issue). I realize you're also "renting" content from Apple but the company doesn't have a history of abusing this and Amazon does. 1 - http://digitaljournal.com/article/335484 http://digitaljournal.com/article/335484
chj 14y ago
Perhaps Apple will release an iPad mini with Retina Display sooner because of the peer pressure:)
Mordor 14y ago
Are Apple competing on hardware or software?
bitsoda 14y ago
This bothered me at first, but then I thought to myself: anyone naive enough to believe the Kindle Fire HD is better than the iPad mini deserves to own a Kindle Fire HD.
- IheartApplesDix 14y ago
  I was just thinking the same about iOS device customers.
sharpneli 14y ago
They forgot one feature: Your device can be locked at random and only by raising a major media storm you may regain access to your device and stuff you've bought. I do not know if Apple has done this, can someone enlighten me?
gulbrandr 14y ago
The URL for the "Shop now" link should have been: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ instead of: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ref=gw_c1_kf_ipad/184-2145246-1700130?ie=UTF8&nav_sdd=aps&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0KM1RNXMFDM1XNKE3J35&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1409304522&pf_rd_i=507846 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ref=gw_c1_kf_ipa...
lnanek2 14y ago
Have you seen their commercials? They have one where a whole family has Kindles for and drive home how much less it costs compared to a loner guy with an iPad. So not surprisingly they compare direct like this...
goostavos 14y ago
I'm becoming "that guy," it seems, but how is this relevant to Hacker News? This is little more than something which will stir up "fanboys" -- which by the way seems to have worked judging from the current top, and needlessly long, comment. Summed up, this 'news' story boils down to: "Amazon advertises product." Queue hundreds of comments arguing about why the add is accurate or not; why product X is the worst, and shameful, and product Y is the best and wholesome. Has anyone opened a news paper, magazine, turned on the radio or TV, or been on the internet? One company saying that it's product is better than the competition is kind of, well, completely normal -- Advertising 101, if I may be so bold. Why aren't we arguing to death about car commercials slamming their competition? Hell, what about Oxy-Clean, huh? Billy Mayes' talked a bunch of crap about Tide. Where is that discussion? Are people not ready to defend Tide's name as they are Apple/Amazon's? People get so emotionally invested in certain products. It's completely silly. Can we stop this inanity and go back to endlessly arguing about how worthless PHP is now?

205 points by dutchbrit 14y ago

My first impression is that Amazon is displaying the possible margin they could get with Kindle Fire HD. Maybe someone in AMZ is regretting pricing it that low.

duiker101 14y ago

I believe that what Gizmodo says is actually true and something that Apple "forgot" to mention when comparing(highlight the "good" things while omitting all the other things) the Nexus 7 with their new iPad so I do not blame Amazon for pointing it out to a wider public. If Apple wants to play this game, they must be ready to get fought back. EDIT: also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina. I mean, they have putted it on everything, iPhone, iPad and Air, why not this? the Retina might be still the only great feature of iDevices and they have removed it? Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales? To make it cheaper? It is not. This things make me really dislike Apple.

mbesto 14y ago
I suspect Mini "2" will have Retina.
- axx 14y ago
  yeah, so all the idiots ran to the next apple store to replace their one year old iPad mini FINALLY!!11 with a Retina one. I HUGE INNOVATION IN DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY! I was an Apple "Fanboy" for years, and all my computers are macs, but from time to time i get the feeling i need to switch to Unix or something else...
  - unimpressive 14y ago
    > I was an Apple "Fanboy" for years, and all my computers are macs, but from time to time i get the feeling i need to switch to Unix or something else... You're already using Unix. Mac OS X is a certified Unix system.
    - axx 14y ago
      yeah, i know that already. I meant a more Linux oriented OS. So to save time i wrote unix instead of mentioning all those popular unix distributions.
      - sbuk 14y ago
        Linux isn't a UNIX distribution. It's Linux. Linux can be described as 'UNIX like'.
- smackfu 14y ago
  OTOH, if you use the iPad as a model, that would mean it gets slower and thicker and heavier. Which was kind of OK in the iPad but probably wouldn't fly with the iPad mini.
polshaw 14y ago
> Why ? to put it in the next model to double the sales? Yes, apple has a long history of only releasing the stuff it needs to (arguably favouring stuff like battery life over these features-- iPhone without 3G, 4S with no LTE, etc), and then release an 'amazing' new version later. All the retina items (which doesn't include MBA, fyi), all had a non-retina alternative on launch, too. > To make it cheaper? It is not. It is. For apple. There was no way they were going to compete on price in the 7" space. I'm confident the margins on the mini are no better than those on the regular one, too.
- moystard 14y ago
  Apple are known to take much bigger margins than competitors on their hardware. The reason has actually been given by Jeff Bezos during the Kindle HD announcement: Amazon wants to sell their ecosystem, their ebooks, movies and music; the hardware is only a gateway to allow users to buy from their store. Apple makes money on hardware itself and needs a bigger cut (even if they have an ecosystem on their own, much bigger that is in some domains).
jws 14y ago
Best two reasons for not being retina: • panel availability at volume and price • power availability. Retina means about four times the power draw for rendering. Both of these will improve with time. Eventually retina will come.
- DannyBee 14y ago
  Do you have any actual data to back up the second point? Don't get me wrong, I understand the fill rates necessary, but i keep hearing this with no real data. After spending the past 6-8 months working with all sorts of embedded GPU's (mainly as an HTPC hobby on embedded boards), I kinda have serious doubts that the power usage is the factor here, and would like to see real data, not assumptions. You are assuming that higher resolution requires linear scaling of number of cores/shaders/etc, and thus, 4 times the power. If it's displaying using 3D, it's definitely not true (it requires linear scaling of some hardware, but not all hardware, and thus, power usage is not necessarily going to be 4x). On the 2D side, 2D cores have been so fast for the past "whatever" that it's not clear it would require any more power than normal. In fact, the only articles i can find that did any real testing show the power usage is only increased about 30% (overall, including both panel and GPU) on a full sized laptop. Their methodology seemed very suspect, so I don't want to quote them here, just point out that there is some alternative claims. I'm not trying to pick on you in particular, it just seems the common refrain for why the ipad mini is not retina, and i haven't seen a single shred of evidence to back it up.
  - jws 14y ago
    In my 3D iOS and Mac OS work I'm working on now, I am essentially entirely fragment shader bound (per screen pixel work). Quadruple the pixels and I need quadruple the energy per frame to do the fragment shading. The vertex shading and main CPU work stays the same, and the backlight obviously stays the same, so the total energy required doesn't quadruple, and 30% sounds like a reasonable ballpark estimate for that. I don't think Apple would accept reducing the battery life from 10 hours to 7 hours in exchange for a retina display on the inaugural iPad mini. That gets the wrong story in the media. Not having a premium feature that most people haven't seen is very different from "can't get through a day without charging and you have to buy all new chargers". FWIW I have one on order, and I expect to be disappointed in the non-retina display. I moved my iPad 3 to my daughter and went back to my iPad 2 a while ago and it just looks like a bunch of fuzzy mosaic tiles to me now when I try to read on it.
rahoulb 14y ago
Re: Retina display ... I would guess it's battery. My iPad 3 is heavy yet the battery life is significantly lower than my iPad 1 (and it takes ages to charge).
- robmcm 14y ago
  Mare sure you are using the supplied 2Amp charger, if you use an iPhone one or computer USB port it will take ages!!! Still takes longer though...
joubert 14y ago
* why isn't that thing Retina. I mean, they have putted it on everything, iPhone, iPad and Air, why not this? Air does not have Retina.
danbee 14y ago
It's probably battery life. The Retina iPad has a battery that's nearly twice as big as the iPad 2 and iPad mini and it's mostly to drive that screen. I believe that the power requirements are down to the number of pixels more than the size.
jklp 14y ago
> also, I still have no idea why isn't that thing Retina I can't find the link, but I remember reading that if the Mini had the iPad's retina display shrunk down, it would have had an unbelievably high resolution display, which would have increased the price of the Mini significantly. Not something Apple would want when targeting the 7" tablet market.
melling 14y ago
Air's aren't Retina. Mac Books aren't Retina. iMacs aren't Retina. In short, what you have posted is completely wrong. As for Amazon's ad, it doesn't really matter to me. Apple can deal with it. I'm not going to spend my morning debating it on HN. The one good thing about it is that Amazon wants to compete strongly for the tablet market. As a consumer of any "faith", this is good because it will create a technology race where we all win.
- esrauch 14y ago
  You can get Macbook Pros with retina displays now, which is what I assume you meant by Macbook since the Macbook-non-Pro line is discontinued. Pedantry aside, I agree with you.
  - melling 14y ago
    It seems that they still sell MacBook Pro's without Retina: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo... I guess they've moved these down into the price slot. Retina has only been out since June. It'll probably take another year before everything is Retina. Another thing to consider is that Apple just introduced AutoLayout in iOS. They will expect developers to have adopted that within a year or so, which will free them from the basic resolution doubling that they've been doing.
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TillE 14y ago

Not a bad idea. The low dpi screen of the iPad mini really is a glaring flaw when you consider the price. And because of that price, there's going to be a long future for Android tablets in the sub-$250 range, now that Google and Amazon have proven you can make and sell a worthy device for that kind of money.

zwily 14y ago
They've proven that you can sell at that price, but not that you can make money at that price. Time will tell.
- SquareWheel 14y ago
  Their profit isn't from the hardware sale, but from the media/apps thereafter.
  - bornhuetter 14y ago
    It's an interesting model that makes them a real threat to both Apple and Android/WinRT based manufacturers. Cheap high quality tablets sold at cost with a great ecosystem behind it. Of their competitors, only Apple both makes the hardware and has the ecosystem, and they will never beat Amazon on price. They aren't going to take over the whole market, but I can see them getting a good sized chunk of it.
  - admiralpumpkin 14y ago
    Their profit isn't. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/25/us-amazon-results-idUSBRE89O1IE20121025 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/25/us-amazon-results-...
- TillE 14y ago
  As long as they're not losing money, I really don't see a problem with this. For Google, having a decent Android tablet available at that price clearly helps them in ways beyond immediate profit from hardware sales.

Jabbles 14y ago

Discussed previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710114 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710114

bornhuetter 14y ago

It's a shame that they have resorted to direct attacks, but given Apple's comments about "all 7" tablets" I can't really blame them. I do wish they would all just shut up and concentrate on the value of their own products though.

vitobcn 14y ago

And that is exactly the reason why vendors like to control the distribution / means of access to their products. e.g. Apple retail stores selling Apple products, Chrome as a browser to access Google products from desktop or Android from mobile, etc. The goal is not having other companies in a position in which they can significantly affect your business if they choose to do so (e.g. indie developers and the Apple app store).

ElliotH 14y ago

The Fire HD seems to have an easier to sell homescreen too. While the iPad has these small icons with flowers and such (even in their official marketing) the Kindle's homescreen presents a plethora of stuff to appeal to the mass market: feature films, popular books, popular magazines, angry birds (I'm not sure about the US, but Angry Birds seems to have quite a long lasting appeal especially among young teenagers), Facebook, Skype, TV. While the iPad can do all of this, the Kindle immediately demonstrates this to the consumer. I can see it doing really well against the iPad mini with that sort of imagery being shown to customers.

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eigenvector 14y ago

The iPad Mini's far from impressive DPI is no doubt the result of Apple not wanting to introduce another resolution into the iOS ecosystem (the Mini's resolution previously appeared on iPad 1 and 2). I don't think they were cutting costs with this panel, rather, you are seeing the non-resolution-independent iOS chickens coming home to roost as software limitations begin to hold back hardware innovation. Apple needs to bite the bullet and implement true resolution independence in iOS and OS X otherwise every new device form factor (or Retina display, in OS X's case) is going to make things more and more painful.

Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
There are two other major reasons they'll have gone for the lower resolution: 1) Power consumption - the retina display drains a lot of power (and handling the higher resolution requires a better processor which contributes further). This means a bigger battery, which means a larger and heavier device which kind of goes against the point of the iPad mini. 2) Price - It seems that one of Apple's key business goals with the iPad mini is to bring the lowest entry point of the iPad down. Retina displays a going add cost which means Apple would have to go in at a higher price point - kind of undermining the whole thing. Apple have optimised for size and price and while I'm sure they'd have loved to have a retina display on the iPad mini, the trade offs they've made are consistent with the aims they have.
- megablast 14y ago
  It also has the same DPI as the iPhone 3gs, so they can use the same screens, just cut to a bigger shape.
  - strager 14y ago
    Does display manufacturing really work that way? Can you take an existing screen spec and scale it up?
    - veidr 14y ago

Spearchucker 14y ago

When you're a Microsoft, an Apple or a Google you have the money to create something truly epic - and none of them have. The Surface has great design, as do all of Apple's products. However the Surface, while having the potential for great software, comes with something not quite finished. So while it's eminently usable as it is, it falls short of greatness. The iPad Mini, similarly, has the quality one expects from Apple, and yet the features, such as the display resolution and lack of GPS, give it a feel of mediocrity. And iOS itself feels a little long in the tooth these days. Not what you'd expect from Apple. Google of course have an OS that outsells any other. And yet that's plagued by patent infringements, operators and manufacturers that aren't incentivised to update the OS, and the subsequent slew of (real or perceived) security holes. Android could be truly open, but isn't. All three companies have the resources to create something earth-shatteringly innovative, usable and beautiful. And yet they don't. Nokia with the 920 is the only one that seems to get close. This really surprises me, given the importance we're placing on the mobile market.

bornhuetter 14y ago
I think they are all epic in their own way. Especially in the case of the Surface - it's the first version of the product! The original iOS and Android devices all had crappy or non-existant app stores when they were launched, and were plagued with problems and limitations. Similarly, for the right use-cases iPad Mini and the Nexus tablets are epic, and many people adore them.
- mtgx 14y ago
  What's so great about Surface besides its design and build material? I don't mean to knock on those. I think they are great, but that doesn't equal that the product overall is great. Windows RT is performing very poorly on an high-end ARM chip (don't want to imagine how it would perform on an older dual core ARM chip, or god forbid a single core one) compared to the true mobile operating systems like Android and iOS, and its app store is virtually non-existent. Office on it is also an exercise in frustration. The price is also too high for what it offers. Even if the build of materials is exactly the same as the iPad 4 (I think it's lower), that doesn't mean it should cost exactly the same as an iPad 4. Because it offers lower value than an iPad (think ecosystem, brand, etc). I also don't think it's acceptable for a $500+ product to have such a low resolution anymore. And don't tell me it has an "extra 16 GB". It doesn't. It only has 17 free GB of storage.

georgespencer 14y ago

There's so much about this which is disingenuous. I'm not surprised by this, but it's worth pointing out some of the tricks Amazon are employing here: 1. Much More for Much Less. Much More is obviously the kindle fire HD, and Much Less is the iPad Mini. Heck, if you remove the 'f' of 'for' you get to the central point here which is to turn the choice into 'Much More or Much Less'. 2. Kindle Fire HD branding is used (sexy typeface, orange gradient), iPad mini has some weird typeface which a cynic might argue has been deliberately spaced to make it look antiquated and unprofessional. 3. The Kindle Fire is "stunning" and the iPad Mini is "standard". 4. Just because the iPad Mini display is high definition and has 30% more pixels than the iPad Mini, it doesn't mean that the iPad Mini is a "low resolution" display. 5. Because the iPad Mini has a bigger screen in the same overall form factor, they make the same point a different way ("30% more pixels than the Mini" => "216 pixels per inch"). If the Kindle had a bigger screen but lower PPI they'd put the screen size in here. 6. "Watch HD movies and TV" "No HD movies or TV". The phrasing here is very clever. To a technically competent individual it parses as "no HD content on iPad Mini, only standard definition". But the "and TV"/"or TV" phrasing means that an average consumer might assume that you can't get any TV shows on iPad Mini. 7. The screen of the Kindle Fire is odd looking. The iPad Mini behind it is on its default home screen. I'm guessing that the Kindle Fire has deliberately been shown all in black (with the bg the same colour as the bezel) because it makes it unclear where the bezel ends and the screen begins. (I don't know if this is the default setting of the Kindle Fire HD or not). 8. The iPad Mini has been photoshopped horribly. For a start I have no idea which iOS that is, but it's not the one which ships with the iPad Mini or the one which Apple are using in any of their promotional shots. If you overlay one of Apple's promotional shots on top and adjust the size and opacity, you'll see that the iPad Mini has been warped so that the icons seem slightly smaller and the positioning is off. 8. Ultra-fast MIMO Wi-Fi vs. A BLANK SPACE. Not even trashing the fact that there is Wifi in the iPad but it's not as fast. It looks like they just gave up at this point. Again, I'm not blaming Amazon for any of this. It's just interesting to see how much thought has gone into basically attempting to deceive consumers.

axx 14y ago
Don't tell us about "false marketing" on amazons side. Did you notice how Phil Schiller showed the iMac on Stage? He always talked about how thin it is and how incredible but he never showed the thicker part of the iMac. Also noticed that Apple ALWAYS showed every iMac from the side on there website? Since the new iMac, there is only a 20° angle to the iMac, so you can only see the thin border, but not the thicker part behind it. Oh, btw: have fun with your iPad mini.

digeridoo 14y ago

If only the kindle fire shipped to countries where most people live.

goatforce5 14y ago
The list of countries where Amazon has deals in place to distribute digital content (apart from eBooks) is pretty low: http://www.macstories.net/stories/mapping-the-entertainment-ecosystems-of-apple-microsoft-google-amazon/ http://www.macstories.net/stories/mapping-the-entertainment-...

MattRogish 14y ago

Amazon doth protest too much, methinks.

chj 14y ago

They forgot to mention app numbers..

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taylorbuley 14y ago

So we're using the word "ballsy" now in promotional copy? Because it seems to me that the word could be construed by some to be sexist.

metatronscube 14y ago

Oh yeah, another pro Android/Amazon/Google anti-Apple comment/article/submission. This is not getting tired, not one little bit. This specific point has been covered recently as well. While this points out select bits where 'on paper' the Kindle HD is 'better' its not the entire story is it? Nothing there about build quality or durability for instance, or the ecosystem or UI/UX or that the user can most probably update the OS (compared to Android where updates are few and far between and tend to never come if you are talking about Samsung) I loved my Nexus 7, right up until it broke (for the 4th time). This time round the screen split from corner to corner previous times the screen developed faults and once the screen actually came loose from the body. It cost 209 quid in the UK (including delivery) and I wished to hell I waited off to get the iPad mini because apart from the beautiful responsive UI/UX, applications, app store and iTunes store its probably like most Apple devices in that its built like a tank. Sometimes its not just about figures.

snupples 14y ago
"Sometimes its not just about figures." Neither is it about your anecdotes. This isn't an anti-Apple submission so much as the news of Amazon's first real direct marketing attack on Apple.

denzil_correa 14y ago

Somehow Amazon have upped the ante against Apple ever since Steve Jobs passed away. The keynote slides in which Bezos revealed the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Fire HD were so Apple like.

f1nch3r 14y ago

Having owned both, I am sticking with the iPad. The Fire is good for the price but I constantly got the feeling that I was working to use the device. But that's just one man's opinion. I know others who swear by the Fire.

davidjgraph 14y ago

So companies use marketing to spin their products? Selecting language and images that favours their stuff over the competition? Let me get a pen and paper and write this down.

scotty79 14y ago

Does anyone know why iPad has single speaker?

jasonlotito 14y ago
Just want to add that this is one of my biggest gripes with the iPad. I have to position things behind my iPad to hear things sometimes. It's by far the worst part of the iPad.
- robmcm 14y ago
  I expect they will say it's because having two speakers so close together wouldn't give you a stereo experience (be distinguishable). <cynical> That is until the next version where it becomes a feature...</cynical>
  - scotty79 14y ago
    I think it should have one speaker at each of 3 corners at least. Also it would be nice if they invented some cleaver way of directing sound towards the user because now when I use iPad I have to user my hand as a makeshift reflector to hear anything.

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jjguy 14y ago

My experience shopping on Amazon - a bit like browsing in a vast, chaotic and disorganized third-world marketplace - is not one I'd like extended to my computing platform. Amazon and others can tout narrow features as much as they want, but I still prefer the better-managed end-to-end experience Apple provides in their ecosystems.

hiddenstage 14y ago
Ever use the app store?

philwelch 14y ago

They left out the bullet point about the remote wipe feature. I hear that's a Kindle specialty.

pm90 14y ago
Ha, that's a good point! I'm curious, though: is it possible to do that on a Kindle Fire? I had thought that was only possible on a regular (Black and White) Kindle

venus 14y ago

Here's their full comparison: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_366177422_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000846051&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-6-2&pf_rd_r=0SS0BG0JCHNJR5AMPVDE&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1409302382&pf_rd_i=B0083PWAPW http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_366177422... Tell you one thing, apple.com's got them beat on URLs ..

prof_hobart 14y ago
"Create custom profiles for each child". This is actually something that I do wish iOS would introduce. My daughter is not getting her own iPad any time soon, but I'd love to be able to lock down the apps/features that she's able to use on mine.

tsieling 14y ago

If they talk about the competition, they're scared of the competition, and the more they talk, the more scared they are. That goes for Apple, Google, Amazon and all the rest.

marban 14y ago

And [Special Offers] aren't available on the iPad either...

cageface 14y ago

In the long run I am in complete agreement with Bezos on this. Content is what matters. Devices come and go but my relationship with an album or a book means something to me.

mrcomment 14y ago

Sorry, only eink kindles are being sold to Canada, and if I bring one in, software portion of device de-activates after 30+ days of being outside of the US, So thus no comparison unfortunately.

ritratt 14y ago

ipad/iphone has never been the best device hardware-wise. but they deliver a good experience despite having inferior hardware with better OS, apps, content etc.

FilterJoe 14y ago

The first 2 lines (display, PPI) and the price line are why I did not buy an iPad mini, which would have been my first tablet had it been priced at $200 or maybe even $249. So marketing is dead on, in my view. Instead I bought an Apple-refurbished iPad 3, for $379, which is $79 more than the soon-to-be-shipped Kindle HD 8.9". For $50 more than the Mac Mini I get a bigger and better display. And for $79 more than the Kindle HD 8.9 I get better apps and user experience. EDIT: clarified what first 2 lines were

minton 14y ago

Doesn't matter how much better the specs on this device are. I'm uncomfortable using it to purchase content that can be revoked without warning or appeal[1] and nothing short of a popular article on Hacker News can reverse their decision (and only then as a PR issue). I realize you're also "renting" content from Apple but the company doesn't have a history of abusing this and Amazon does. 1 - http://digitaljournal.com/article/335484 http://digitaljournal.com/article/335484

chj 14y ago

Perhaps Apple will release an iPad mini with Retina Display sooner because of the peer pressure:)

Mordor 14y ago

Are Apple competing on hardware or software?

bitsoda 14y ago

This bothered me at first, but then I thought to myself: anyone naive enough to believe the Kindle Fire HD is better than the iPad mini deserves to own a Kindle Fire HD.

IheartApplesDix 14y ago
I was just thinking the same about iOS device customers.

sharpneli 14y ago

They forgot one feature: Your device can be locked at random and only by raising a major media storm you may regain access to your device and stuff you've bought. I do not know if Apple has done this, can someone enlighten me?

gulbrandr 14y ago

The URL for the "Shop now" link should have been: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ instead of: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ref=gw_c1_kf_ipad/184-2145246-1700130?ie=UTF8&nav_sdd=aps&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0KM1RNXMFDM1XNKE3J35&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1409304522&pf_rd_i=507846 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ref=gw_c1_kf_ipa...

lnanek2 14y ago

Have you seen their commercials? They have one where a whole family has Kindles for and drive home how much less it costs compared to a loner guy with an iPad. So not surprisingly they compare direct like this...

goostavos 14y ago

I'm becoming "that guy," it seems, but how is this relevant to Hacker News? This is little more than something which will stir up "fanboys" -- which by the way seems to have worked judging from the current top, and needlessly long, comment. Summed up, this 'news' story boils down to: "Amazon advertises product." Queue hundreds of comments arguing about why the add is accurate or not; why product X is the worst, and shameful, and product Y is the best and wholesome. Has anyone opened a news paper, magazine, turned on the radio or TV, or been on the internet? One company saying that it's product is better than the competition is kind of, well, completely normal -- Advertising 101, if I may be so bold. Why aren't we arguing to death about car commercials slamming their competition? Hell, what about Oxy-Clean, huh? Billy Mayes' talked a bunch of crap about Tide. Where is that discussion? Are people not ready to defend Tide's name as they are Apple/Amazon's? People get so emotionally invested in certain products. It's completely silly. Can we stop this inanity and go back to endlessly arguing about how worthless PHP is now?