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Business News/ Technology / Tech-news/  Big day for Apple: iPad Mini launch likely
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Big day for Apple: iPad Mini launch likely

Expectations run high ahead of the likely launch of the low-cost iPad, along with 13-inch Macbook

Photo: AFP (AFP)Premium
Photo: AFP
(AFP)

We’ve been hearing about an iPad Mini since the launch of the new iPad in March, and experts have been calling it every time Apple makes an announcement. This time though, everyone is reasonably sure that Apple’s upcoming 23 October event will star the new, shrunken-down iPad. With just 24 hours to go, we rounded up the rumours we thought were most likely to come true in one place for you to see, to figure out what the “little more" is that Apple plans to show us.

iPad Mini, and other launches

The big rumour of course is that the iPad Mini will be launched. Aside from that, people are also expecting a 13-inch Macbook Pro with retina display; some reports even mention a refreshed iMac. The iPad Mini launch looks imminent—leaks have included inventory reports from different retailers, and orders from different component makers.

16 variants of the iPad Mini

One leak suggests that there will be Wi-Fi and cellular variants for the new device, starting at 8GB, then 16GB, 32GB and finally 64GB. The device will also be available in either black or white, leading to a total 16 variants. This seems a reasonable assumption -- the iPad already comes in black and white, and a Wi-Fi only iPad Mini would be a bad idea for many reasons. But why an 8GB iPad Mini, when the iPod Touch now starts at 32GB? Well, the competition for the Mini would be something like the Nexus 7, which starts at 8GB.

Costs Rs17,000?

The same screen shot that lists the different models shows that the 8GB, Wi-Fi only model would start at €249, or a little over Rs17,000. Of course, the price in India would be higher , as customs duty and other costs get factored in, but it’s significantly more than that $199 (approximately Rs10,675) price tag of Google’s Nexus 7 tablet. Still, the iPod Touch line starts at $399, so there is definitely room to think about his.

On sale from November 2

This is a fairly likely estimate, given that the device will be announced on October 23, and Apple’s history of launching products on Fridays. What this means for an Indian user isn’t clear, but Apple brought the new iPad to India a little over a month after it launched.

Similar in power to the iPad 2

One fairly persistent rumour is that the iPad Mini will have internal specifications very similar to the iPad 2. Since the A5 processor used there was already optimized for the iPod Touch, this looks very likely

No retina display

Most blogs agree that the iPad Mini will not have a retina display. This is most probably due to the costs involved, though considering that the company has started to offer retina display laptops, and of course iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad lines, not having the retina display here could be a downer.

New ‘new iPad’?

Some photos on Facebook have surfaced showing a full sized iPad, with a port for Apple’s new lightning connector—the connector was first shown for the iPhone 5— and if this happens we will have a fourth iPad. While some see this as a completely new iPad, there is a strong possibility that this will be an update of the current generation of iPads.

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Published: 22 Oct 2012, 03:22 PM IST
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