Apple Announces iPad Mini

Apple iPad Mini

Apple’s Tim Cook took the stage Tuesday at the California Theatre in San Jose to announce their next major product release— an iPad Mini. The event was live broadcasted on Apple’s events website, marking a turn from the closed-off-to-the-public events of Apple’s past. The iPad Mini is expected to compete with tablets such as the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7, which have smaller displays for enhanced portability. It also allows Apple to tap in to a potentially unsaturated marketplace for cheaper Apple products. With a $399 price point for the cheapest original iPad, the Apple Mini is an attempt by Cupertino to move into another marketplace dominated by competitors— the cheap tablet one. Apple has sold 100 million iPad devices to date, outnumbering the PC sales of every other manufacturer in the second quarter of 2012. They claim 91% of the tablet web traffic for the iPad.

Apple’s iPad Mini features a 7.9-inch screen with a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution. It’s just 7.2-millimeters thick and 0.68 pounds heavy. The razor-thinness of the iPad Mini was achieved by Apple’s employment of the thinnest single cell battery ever in an Apple product. It runs iOS 6. The iPad Mini is available with matte-like white and black backs. There are smart covers available, like for the larger iPad. Due to its smaller bezel, the iPad Mini is only a smidge wider than the Google Nexus 7, but still maintains 35% more square inches of screen space.

Inside, the Apple iPad Mini is powered by an Apple A5 processor. It comes with (optional) LTE support, an HD FaceTime camera, a 5-megapixel iSight camera, Apple’s Lightning port, and a 10 hour battery life.

With 16GB of storage, the iPad Mini starts at $329 for the WiFi version, which will be available on November 2nd.