We’ve heard from some tech pundits, but now for the real question: What did the Wall Street analysts have to say about the iPad mini?
The stock market response to Tuesday’s announcements was “Totes not impressed” (or just “Totes taking some revenue”), but the analysts by and large seem to have their heads screwed on right for once.
Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu:
We continue to believe iPad mini is the competition’s worst nightmare and likely to drive incremental volume.
Wow! Strong words, Shaw. What say you, Baird’s William Power?
The starting price of $329 is slightly above our $299 expectations, though appears to be supported by the strong features and capabilities relative to 7 inch Android devices in the market.
Well put. Sure, we’d like it lower, but the best selling tablet on the market just got cheaper. That’s gravy everyone can enjoy. Let’s go to Topeka’s Brian White:
The iPad mini was the star of today’s show and we believe the product will be an absolute homerun for Apple with the 7.9 inch display, 23% thinner than the iPad fourth generation and 53% lighter.
Home. Run. A dinger. Out of the park. Touch ‘em all, Apple.
Well, this is all pretty positive. Let’s keep going. Hey, how about you, Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities?
Key take aways: Innovation at Apple is over…
[record scratch]
Buh-whaa? Come again, Trip?
Just incremental improvements, nothing ground breaking. The best is over for Apple. iPad mini is playing catch up to Google Android, probably will have a mediocre customer adoption.
Uh, hey, Trip, remind the Macalope how much tablet market share “Google Android” has. Admittedly, it’s hard to tell because Google’s so proud of how well the Nexus 7 is selling that the company won’t tell us how many it’s sold. Same thing with Amazon, which doesn’t report sales of the Kindle Fire. While the horny one is sure the Kindle Fire line is selling better than the Nexus 7, it’s also not “Google Android.” The most favorable estimates of tablet market share for “Google Android” have it at half the iPad’s share.
And “mediocre customer adoption”, huh? Then the 700 percent increase in iPad resales after the event must be from people fed up with Apple and switching to those innovative “Google Android” tablets, huh?
The Macalope supposes that getting your butt kicked in the 10-inch space, then reducing the size to 7 inches and the profit margin to non-existent is a kind of innovation, but it’s not exactly something to be bragging about.
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]