"Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad and they've failed miserably," said Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller. "These are not great experiences."
At a media event, he
unveiled the 7.9-inch tablet, which is 7.2 millimeters wide (the width
of a pencil, Schiller said) and weighs less than 7/10ths of a pound.
It will have the same
display-resolution specs as last year's iPad 2, not the high-definition
"retina display" of the newest iPad, which also got an update on
Tuesday.
The iPad Mini's display
will be nearly an inch bigger than those of competitors like Amazon's
Kindle Fire and Google's Nexus 7. It will also be somewhat more
expensive.
The smaller iPad will start at $329 for a 16GB, Wi-Fi only version, ranging up to $659
for a 64GB model with cellular capability. Those prices are at the high
end of what analysts had predicted. The new Kindle Fire HD and the
Nexus 7 sell for $199.
Pre-orders for the Wi-Fi-only device begin Friday, and the iPad Mini will go on sale in stores November 2.
Models that have Wi-Fi and can connect over cellular networks will go on sale in a few weeks.
The device's screen has
the same proportions as the larger iPads, meaning that apps designed for
the tablet should also look good on the Mini. Apple promises 10 hours
of battery life, and the Mini will have front- and rear-facing cameras
like its bigger cousins. It also will have the "lightning" connector
that came new on the iPhone 5 and new iPods.
"This isn't just a shrunken-down iPad," Schiller said. "It's an entirely new design."
As with other recent
Apple events, today's main announcement wasn't much of a secret. Leaks
ahead of the event sketched out most of the relevant details, from
dimensions of the smaller iPad to what sizes it would come in.
The Apple event started off with upgrades to the Mac lineup, and a joke about expectations for the day.
"You knew there would be something called 'mini' in this presentation, didn't you?"
said Schiller, while presenting an update of the company's smallest
desktop computer, the Mac mini. It starts at $599 for 4 GB of RAM.
Schiller opened by unveiling the new version of Apple's top-selling MacBook, the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
The new version has a
high-definition "retina display" screen for the first time and is 3/4 of
an inch thick -- 20 percent thinner than the current 13-inch MacBook
Pro. It weighs 3.5 pounds, making it the lightest MacBook Pro ever,
Schiller said. Its price starts at $1,699.
Both the Mac Mini and the new MacBook Pro begin shipping today.
Schiller also showed off a sleeker and more powerful version of Apple's iconic desktop, the iMac. It starts at $1,299 and begins shipping in November.
Released only six months
ago, Apple's newest full-sized iPad also got an update, getting a
faster A6X processing chip, an improved camera and, like the iPhone 5, 4G LTE capabilities.
Apple's full-sized iPad has been a huge success and still dominates the overall tablet market, so why go small now?
The biggest demand for
non-Apple tablets has been for less expensive 7-inch devices such as
Amazon's Kindle Fire, Samsung's Galaxy Tab, Google's Nexus 7 and Barnes
and Noble's Nook. A smaller iPad would challenge these competitors head
on, combining their popular size with Apple's killer features: the iOS
operating system, Apple's app and media ecosystem, and quality design.
The Kindle Fire is great
for buying books, movies and shows from Amazon, and the Nexus 7 has
Google's well-stocked Play store for media and apps. However, tablets
have proven they can do more than just entertain, and customers might be
drawn to the quality and quantity of Apple's App Store selection.
Developers have been creating top-notch apps for the iPad for more than
two years. The smaller iPad's screen is expected to have the same aspect
ratio, so those apps would work the same on the new device.
When the iPad came out,
it was intended to be a consumption device. Ads for the tablet showed
people reclining in various environments, clutching the iPad like a
book. The spacious 10-inch screen was ideal for watching movies and TV
shows, playing games, surfing the Web and otherwise consuming content.
That's how most tablet
owners use their devices. Tablets are homebodies, used most often in the
living room (30% of the time according to Nielsen) followed by the
bedroom (21% of the time).
"Fully half the time
they're using tablets, they don't leave the couch or the bed," said
Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps. "If you can do everything on the
smaller iPad you can on the larger iPad -- that plus the added
convenience of being able to take it with you more places could take the
wind out of the sales of Amazon."
A smaller, lighter
device is more portable, and people might not be as afraid of taking a
cheaper tablet out into the big bad world where it would be less
protected. That would also be a boost for Apple in the education market,
which it has been courting heavily.
Apple reveals new iPad mini
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