True to form, Apple has just announced their new iPad mini at today’s Apple event in San Jose, California. Some say that it is more or less a bigger iPod touch, where the iPad mini treads on ground that Steve Jobs once deemed as an irrelevant market. You can say that it is pencil thin at 7.2mm, sporting a 0.68lbs weight and will come in black and white models, with the former sharing a similar anodization as the iphone 5. The iPad mini’s 7.9″ display will share a similar resolution as the iPad 2, which is 1024 x 768, so you can be sure that developers would have heaved a sigh of relief over that!
Some marketing propaganda includes the iPad mini being great for reading email, surfing the web, viewing photos, and using iLife applications. Hmmm, nothing that cannot be done on the current iPad, and before the iPad mini has even hit the market, Apple is so bold as to say that other smaller tablets do not provide great experiences. I suppose Apple might as well roll out an iPad macro at 32″ and say that other TVs do not provide such a great experience, either, if one were to walk along that train of logic.
As for the iPad mini’s hardware under the hood, we have a dual-core A5 processor, a FaceTime HD camera, and a 5-megapixel iSight camera at the back that does 1080p recording. The new Lightning connector, is of course included, alongside LTE and dual-band WiFi connectivity. A 10 hour battery life remains, and it does remain to be seen whether existing Retina display iPad owners would want to pick up the iPad mini or not, although I suspect this is more a stab at the 7″ tablet market which was once anathema to Steve Jobs. Will LTE connectivity be the pull factor for the iPad mini?
As for pricing details, the 16GB WiFi model is going for $329, with the 32GB WiFi model costing you $429. Those who want the 64GB WiFi model will have to fork out $519, and top up $130 more for each model that will come with LTE connectivity. The iPad mini will be available for pre-order from the 26th onward, with WiFi models shipping on November 2nd while cellular versions arriving a fortnight later – definitely in time for Christmas.