$329

I’ve been thinking about all the hullabaloo over the price of the new iPad mini. Everybody feels that Apple blew it by not getting the price down to something competitive with Google and Amazon. Upon reflection, this really doesn’t surprise me. Both Google and Amazon have stated that they are selling their small plastic-based tablet products essentially at cost in order to get market share. They have a problem. Apple is beating their pants off in the tablet market and they need a toehold. Apple enthusiasts are eager for Apple to stifle the competition by making a superior iPad mini at roughly the same price. As they see it, Apple has its boot on Google and Amazon’s neck and needs only to push to own all aspects of the tablet market for the foreseeable future.

Apple however does not play that game. Apple likes to make money. I can’t really fault it for that. The iPad mini starts at $329. the Google Nexus device starts at $199. That Google device only has 8 GB of storage whereas the iPad mini has 16 GB. To get a Google Nexus tablet at 16 GB, you need to spend $250, $79 less than the iPad mini.

So a fair comparison is the $250 Google Nexus device versus the $329 iPad. What does that extra $79 get you? For starters, the iPad mini is better designed and built. I’ll take aluminum over plastic any day of the week. Additionally, the iPad mini is an iPad in all senses of the word. It runs, natively, all of the excellent iPad software. The Android tablet software is not there yet. (That thing I wrote about Android apps nearly a year ago still stands.)

When I was on the Mac Roundtable this week, I made the comment that this device isn’t necessarily aimed at us nerds. We all love our large-screen iPads with retina displays and a lot of us don’t see a good reason to go to the smaller device. That’s okay. Apple already has our money. I suspect that the market for the iPad mini is probably less nerd-inclined than that of the larger iPad. The iPad mini is aimed at people who want a quality smaller tablet device. Apple thinks there are a lot of people willing to shell out an extra few bucks for such a device and I suspect they are correct.
All of this said, I agree that if they were able to hit $299 instead of $329, a lot more people would have gotten past the price barrier but Apple is a very successful company and I’m sure people much smarter than I already did that math and the iPad mini will do just fine at $329.

The real interesting part of all of this discussion is the collective concern of Apple enthusiasts over Apple blowing it. All of us remember the times when Apple was nearly on the chopping block and there’s this sort of cultural fear that somehow our beloved company is to stop making our beloved products. As a result, we all wring our hands and rend our garments in fear every time Apple makes a big move. Moreover, when we see any other company being remotely successful in the same space as Apple, a small part of our brains think it is Microsoft Windows all over again. The good news, my brothers and sisters, is that those days are over. There is not going to be a single winner like there was for the Mac vs. Windows days this time. (Not even Apple.) Apple gets that and is more than happy to let others fight over the low margin end of the market and gobble up the high-end of the market where Apple can actually make a profit and, therefore, keep the lights on.

Jason Snell said it best in this week’s Macworld podcast, “Is there a cheap tablet market or is there a small tablet market?” I think the latter and so does Apple. I’ll also go out on a limb and say that, with the iPad mini’s sales starting tonight at midnight, they’ll be sold out before I wake tomorrow.

Date:Yesterday

Ever wake up in a Hangover like haze and need help figuring out what you did the day before? If you were sitting at your Mac, open Spotlight and type Date:Yesterday. This gives you a listing of all the apps, docs, and other related files accessed on your Mac yesterday.

When I’m returning to a big project, this is really helpful.

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Mac Roundtable Podcast

Want to hear me and some of my favorite podcasters yack about this week’s Apple announcements? Now’s your chance.

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Switching Screen Resolutions in Mountain Lion

Recently I bemoaned the ponderous way in which Mountain Lion switches screen resolutions. I often shoot screencasts in less than optimal resolution and the multiple clicks and keypresses required are vexing. David Kreindel heard my call and answered. David pointed me to this Display Menu, a handy app that brings back some old functionality. Does this look familiar.

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If that isn’t enough, David also put together a simple AppleScript to speed up the process. Copy the below into AppleScript editor and go nuts. Thanks David.

--This script only works on OS X 10.8; This is due to GUI changes from 10.7 to 10.8

--launches System Preferences to Displays pane

tell application "System Preferences"

activate

set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.displays"

end tell

tell application "System Events"

--Ensures window is on Display tab, not Color tab

click radio button "Display" of tab group 1 of window 1 of process "System Preferences"

--Ensures Resolution preference is "Scaled" to select resolutions

click radio button "Scaled" of tab group 1 of window 1 of process "System Preferences"

--Sets the resolution to whatever is in row 9 for the primary display; 1280 x 720

select row 9 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of tab group 1 of window 1 of process "System Preferences"

--Change "row 9" to whatever row corresponds to desired resolution

end tell

--Quits System Preferences

tell application "System Preferences"

quit

end tell

BusyCal 2

Today marks the release of BusyCal 2, the premier third-party calendar app on the Mac. This new version takes all that was good about version 1 and builds upon it. The new UI is more customizable. Do you want to show 12 days in weekview and reflect your week starting on Wednesday? BusyCal 2 has got you covered.

This new version also ups its game with respect to filtering and viewing calendar data with smart filters. Overall, the application got polish, Mountain Lion compatibility (including Notification Center), and several new features. Did I mention there is no torn paper?

You can download a demo from the developer and the app is available for a limited time at $29.99 from the Mac App Store.

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MPU 108: Mac Tips and Tricks

Brett Terpstra joins this week’s Mac Power Users episode as we talk about collaborating on the 60 tips book and some of our favorite Mac tips and tricks.

IFTTT ♥ Withings Scale

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IFTTT continues to automate my life. Now when I hit specific target weights, fun things happen. If you haven’t played with IFTTT yet, you should. The service is no more than a set of pipes hooked to increasingly useful web services. Spend 15 minutes setting up some recipes and you’ll be hooked.

Tweetbot for Mac

There is something about Tapbots’ apps that I can’t resist. They weild little sound effects and whimsey the same way Dr. Jones does that whip. Despite Tweetbot’s nightmare-inspiring icon, I use this app as my weapon of choice throughout iOS and am happy to be doing so now on my Mac as well.

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MPU 107: Workflows with Jean MacDonald

A recurring question we receive on the Mac Power Users is, “how do I get started programming?” We have tried to address this in past episodes when interviewing veteran programmers. I think we finally cracked this nut last week when we interviewed Jean MacDonald and she explained her journey on becoming an iOS programmer. Jean is just starting this journey and from that unique perspective she has a lot of good advice. She also talks about how she uses her marketing savvy to help Smile Software and scolds me about my lack of Facebook participation. Good times.

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