When Apple unveiled the iPad Mini a few weeks back, bloggers everywhere rolled their eyes and scoffed, “who would want an expensive 8-inch tablet with the internals of a 2 year old device?” It was an internet travesty that translated into hundreds of thousands of words and copy that could all be summed up as: The best device in your hands but we’re gonna hate it because it’s too expensive compared to a Kindle, doesn’t have a Retina display.
Fast forward past the first weekend of sales, and the iPad Mini has sold over 3 million units according to Apple. That’s 1 million units averaged over the 3 day period from 11/1-11/4; double what the 3rd generation iPad sold in its inaugural weekend. To say that after its first weekend, the iPad Mini is another launch day success is pretty much an understatement; and 3 million in 3 days can hardly be called fanboyism.
Just to backtrack a bit, when the iPad Mini was announced many folks who follow tech, myself included, thought that repackaging the iPad 2 and selling it at $350 dollars was Apple completely missing the point. And to a certain extent, we here at the Noisecast still do, but that is not to say that the iPad Mini is a failure. It’s not even to say that at $350 is too expensive either; had that been the case we’d be talking about the spectacular failure that was the launch of the iPad Mini. There’s a lot more to Apple’s success than just specs – always has been.
Maybe we, the tech reporting community, aren’t as in tune to the industry as we’d all like to think. Maybe it’s changed into something that no longer has us as the gatekeepers to setting consumer taste. All I know for sure is that a smaller rectangular slab with an outdated screen will outsell it’s competitors and that speaks to Apple’s ability to understand consumer’s needs and wants better than any spec-sheet can.
Source: Apple
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