Hot off the heels of the iPhone 5 release comes the sudden activity of the Apple rumour mill, and this time it’s the iPad mini that’s causing all the fuss.
It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve heard about the iPad mini, rumours have been circulating since about 2010. At that time Steve Jobs slapped down the rumours by saying:
“One naturally thinks that a seven-inch screen would offer 70 percent of the benefits of a ten-inch screen. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. The reason we won’t make a seven-inch tablet isn’t because we don’t want to hit a lower price point, it’s because we think the screen is too small to express the software.”
But roll around 2012 and the tablet market is a changed place. Google and Amazon have both proven that people want high quality, budget priced 7” tablets and Apple must have been eyeing them jealously as we’re now in full-fledged rumour production, with the most recent being that we may see the mini as soon as the end of this month.
But just what will we be getting with the iPad mini?
Well, here’s a few of the strongest rumours so far:
Design
At the moment it’s seeming like the mini will look very similar to the iPad 3 in terms of visual design. The pictures (above) recently released by Chinese site Bolopad are apparently the first glimpse of a fully assembled iPad mini, and as you can see, it’s an incredibly familiar design. The main difference to note here are the new Lightning dock port, the 2 sets of speaker holes either side of it. The headphone jack appears to have remained on top of the device, despite the recent shakeup of that convention by the iPhone 5.
It also features, according to these pictures at least, the same aluminium backing as it’s larger sibling.
Other than that it’s a very comfortable design, something Apple seems to be liking at the moment.
A screen of 7.85 inches
Also from Bolopad is the news that the screen measures in at 7.85 inches, so a little larger than the Nexus or the Kindle Fire’s 7” screens but still a good couple of inches smaller than the 9.7 inches of the iPad, and even more so than say, Samsung’s 10.1 inch Note Pads.
Retina Display?
This one is still being debated right now. Some folks in the tech world are already certain that the mini will have a retina display as it’s now pretty much a staple of Apple devices. The other side of this is saying that to put a retina display in the mini would push the price too high for what is meant to be a “budget” tablet. This is supported by the fact that many think that it would be counterproductive of Apple to price the mini lower than the $300 they are charging for the iPod Touch. Time will tell on this one though.
iPad 2 power
Too keep costs in the “budget” area of pricing, it’s likely Apple will just import the now older A5 processor from the iPad 2 and put it into the mini. Whilst this makes good business sense, both in terms of keeping costs down and also extending the life of the A5 chipset, this could pose a couple of problems for the mini.
First, if it is indeed given a Retina display, the A5 may be pushed to keep up. Second, the Nexus 7, for example, has a 1.3 Ghz Quad Core Tegra 3 working away inside, whilst the A5 is running at 1Ghz Dual Core. The power difference is obvious, and in this world of “More, better, faster” it may hinder the mini’s adoption as it will be outstripped very quickly by the competition.
Release date?
Well, as of a dew days ago, it was strongly rumoured that Apple had started production of various components of the mini in Brazil and two dates are cropping up frequently in terms of an announcement or release date.
October 17th is being touted as the announcement day for the mini, with invites to the event being sent out on Oct 10th. So we don’t have long to wait for the yay or nay on whether the mini actually exists or not.
If it is announced though, the likelihood of a release date is being said to be November 2nd, just a couple weeks before the US Presidential election. Whether that’s savvy marketing or just Apple wanting to target the holiday season early, it’s likely to prove very effective.
At the moment all of this is rumour and hearsay, but like with the iPhone 5, the leaks are getting more and more trustworthy to do with Apple, so we at Kumulos (mobile Backend as a Service) will be eagerly waiting for Octtober 17th to roll around to see if we maybe will have another budget tablet entering the arena.
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