As expected, Apple used its anticipated Tuesday presentation to unveil its iPad Mini. Revolutionary or not, the Cupertino’s smaller version of its popular tablet computer is available for orders starting Friday. It will ship roughly a week later. The company also released news of other products, including its fourth generation iPad.
The iPad Mini features a 7.9-inch screen (measured diagonally), which makes it just a touch bigger than other mini-tablet offerings.
While most knew that the iPad Mini was coming, the real mystery was the price. With the iPad 2 priced at $399 and the iPod Touch sliding in at $199, it may surprise some that Apple will be pricing the iPad Mini at $329 for its 16GB version.
After Apple unveiled its iPad Mini, its shares fluctuated on the NASDAQ. It wound up falling 2.8 percent to settle at $616, a possible reflection of the higher-than-anticipated price range.
Consider that the 64GB iPad Mini, with cellular service, clocks in at $659 and the picture starts to emerge. There are reasons to be skittish about the Mini, even if it is “23 percent thinner” and “53 percent lighter” than the third-gen iPad.
Apple claims that its iPad Mini has faster wireless performance than the iPad and rocks about 10 hours of battery life, depending on usage of course.
While Steve Jobs was said to be generally against the wave of 7-inch tablets, it turns out that Apple has changed its tune and has entered the market. With products like the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 proving relatively successful, it was perhaps only a matter of time before the iPad Mini arrived – and with the customarily conceited flourish.
“Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad and they’ve failed miserably,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s marketing head, on Tuesday.
At Apple’s event, the company made no bones about zeroing in on Google’s Nexus tablet in particular. Apple’s rival is set to unveil a new set of Nexus tablets, giving Schiller and Co. the ideal opportunity to gun for Google. They tore into the Nexus’ “larger screen size,” touting the smaller iPad Mini size in what could be viewed by outsiders as a hilarious and childish race to translucence.
Apple also took the Tuesday opportunity to surprise many by revealing the fourth generation iPad. The new tablet will also take pre-orders Friday and will commence shipping Wi-Fi models on November 2. The 16GB iPad 4 sells for $499, while the 64GB iPad with LTE goes for $829. The tablet features the same 9.7-inch screen with Retina Display. It also features a A6X processor, which is twice the CPU of the March 2012-released third generation iPad.
News of the “new” iPad has predictably angered owners of the third-generation iPad, who apparently thought their “hip,” “new” product would be “hip” and “new” for a little longer than six months. Gee, if only someone could’ve warned them…
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Written by: Jordan Richardson. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.
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