I don't like it. Getting a new android tablet each year would be cheaper and better.

@stonebat

You can get almost three 7" 1280x800 IPS tablets that have better CPUs and better graphics, plus all have ability to insert MicroSD :-)

This was not a "Steve Jobs"-type move here, major marketing fail...

I do not agree here.

They did that they must, this market soon will become very tough. Right now Apple has good protection from iTunes store and content. But situation in many countries is not good and becoming even worse.

It becomes absolutely clear that they'll lose specifications wars in early 2013.

@NickBen

I really do not care whom this guys trash.

As you can already get chinese Retina based tablets that are faster than most Apple offers and much cheaper.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev "Apple today introduced most outdated, underspecced and costly sub 8" tablet :-)"...

I agree with your statement, especially since the mini iPad is not Retina and not even 1080p when new 5" cell phone displays are 1080p...

I think we can expect a new iPad mini "Retina" with 1080p display and A6 chip in next 6-9 months along with iPhone 6 if we follow the same reasoning...

this is a bad trend for Apple, it means they are spec chasing as you stated previously and will easily lose that battle in 2013...

Apple will do just fine. Let’s face it their market are people that really would rather have what is cool than what is the better purchase. My wife and her family are those type of people. She absolutely swears her MacBook air is the greatest computer ever.

I bought it originally for my son to create iphone apps on since Apple won’t let you generate them on anything else without jumping through some major hoops. There simply wasn’t anything good about the computer and it cost 4 times as much as the much better computer that I bought my son when we gave the MacBook to my wife.

There are plenty of people out there that would buy apple products at ANY price. They simply don’t care what the price difference is because they think of buying an apple product vs. the competition like cross shopping a Ferrari vs. a Nissan. Sure the Nissan gives you the exact same specs for ¼ the price. However, when you are ready to buy a Ferrari you are ready to buy a Ferrari and not anything else.

Eventually, the people that buy exorbitantly expensive products will run out of money. However, enough of those people still exist so why would Apple change anything that they are doing?

I own exactly 1 Apple product. That is the original Ipod and I won it in a raffle. I use it for music in my car only. The reason that I use it instead of my phone is quite simple. The integration with my car was better for the iPhone 4 years ago when I got it and now I am so accustomed to it I don’t want to switch.

Apple is brilliant at sucking you into one of their products in order to try to sell you all of the rest of their proprietary devices. It didn’t work on me but I still enjoy my free iPod every day.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev which 7 inch android tablets are you talking about? havent been looking at tablets for a while but might get one for my wife. Macbook pro with intel hd graphics doesn't sound too "pro" to me, hopefully I'm wrong

I like iPhone. It blends phone and app features nicely.

Macbook family is nice for work. Rock stable. Run virtual Win/Linux if needed. No it's not easy to run OSX on Windows while keeping up with the latest patches.

Tablet. This is where Apple's shortcomings get amplified. No advantage over competitors. It's not a phone. It's not a development platform. Retina and multi touch are nice, but others are catching up quickly. For desktop, Windows win hands down.

best announcement was the new iMac

It is just necessary to understand why it is best :-)

Get cheap itx barabone with i5 or i7, attach it to VESA mount on cheap 27" IPS panel (same as on iMac) and you'll have same shit for fraction of a price and much better upgradability.

LOVE the new iMacs. I think most U.S. Apple fans will be happy with the new iPad as well. People just don't understand that Apple customers are multi-generational now. Parents grew up on Apple either in school or for work, they've also grown fond of the many successful Apple products and most of all the Apple Ecosystem is the thing that makes it all work for most customers. They pass that on to their kids.

Being a mostly Apple centric household, I can tell you that we've got YEARS invested in the system and we just keep adding on and it is so familiar and comfortable. Other companies have a hard time building such a solid foundation as Apple has across product lines. If it didn't all work so well chances are people would move away from Apple.

Tech savvy guys have never gotten Apple as they feel they can just build it cheaper and more powerful, but they miss the point entirely of the vast buying public who don't do any of those things. The ease of use and ergonomics of the Apple universe makes life simple for buyers. We've got 3 iPhones, 2 iPods, iPad2, MacBook Pro, MacPro, 2 iMacs, also a G5 and 2 G4's (for legacy stuff) all still working and will likely be adding to the list this year.

Definitely getting another iPad, 3 iPhone 5's, MacBook Pro and 27" iMac over the next year. That's a lot of money but for us it's worth it. We also have PC's by the way.

I'm still happy with my 4 year old Acer netbook with Windows XP. It's really good for writing scripts on the go with its tactile keyboard, light weight, and long battery life. But damn do I look uncool.

What is everyone complaining about? Hardware design of Apple is state of the art. The iPad for Apple is the new laptop/notebook. How many times a year do they update the internals of their MacBook's? Twice a year. So it makes complete sense to update the iPad as often too. I have heard nobody whining about the MacBooks update. It always sucks when a better version of something comes out. This is the pace of technology: it develops so fast that it makes sense to do these incremental updates instead of bigger annual updates.

And I don't think the 3rd gen iPad is so much worse compared to the 4th gen. And in 6 months their will be a 5th gen. Apple's pace of development is hard to keep up with. Their new iMac and MacBook Pro 13" are incredible. You may like Apple or hate them, but their R&D is still state of the art and I haven't seen any other manufacturer with comparable products (build quality, design). Period.

Other companies can match on specifications but only 1% of people really care about those.

@peaceonearth Marketing talk... a new MacPro will come next year. That's according to Tim Cook. My bet is that it will be modular like the mock-ups of some guy that are on the internet.

I am no Apple fanboy: I love Google products and believe that Apple's software and services are horrible. I just think that heir hardware designs are still cutting edge and that few other products deliver a better 'overall' experience (better specifications alone are worth nothing is the UE is crap).

The new iPad-mini, despite having a 1 inch larger screen, is lighter and (far) thiner than the Nexus 7 the only alternative I would consider since I like having updates and support.

I don't dislike the alternatives, having choices is good, but If I ever needed a sub 8" I'd go for the iPad-mini.