AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
Our Twitter feed was on fire with the Apple presentation, which wrapped up just a short time ago. Everyone had been anticipating the iPad Mini and — Behold! — the image above is that of Phil Schiller, Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing holding one aloft for all the world to see.
It’s 7.2 millimeters thick (!), 23 percent thinner than the current iPad, and weighs .68 of a pound. According to USA Today‘s live blog of the event, “Among the iPad Mini nuts and bolts: an A5 dual-core chip, 5 megapixel iSight camera on the rear of the tablet which can shoot 1080p HD video, 4G LTE and Wi-Fi support as well as the new Lightning connector available on the iPhone 5.” But, the 16GB version starts at $329; 4G starts at $459. It’s already up on the Apple website. It’ll ship on November 2.
Business Insider notes that Apple’s stock dropped immediately after the announcement of the Mini’s price. The New York Times live blog of the event says the price tag is a mere $30 more than the recently released iPod Touch (so why would you buy that?) and more expensive than the Google Nexus 7 Tablet ($200) and the Amazon Fire ($160). For more on that, check out this article on Ars Tecnica, which lays out all of the seven-inch tablet options and their specs.
The company also introduced the 13-inch MacBook Pro, which is 3/4 of an inch thick, weighs 3.5 pounds and costs $1,699. And there’s a brand new iMac desktop priced at $1,299, shipping next month.
We tweeted some of the trivia that CEO Tim Cook dropped during the presentation as well. A few of the highlights:
-100 million iPads were sold in the summer quarter, more than all of the PC-maker competition combined.
-35 billion apps have been downloaded from the Apple Store.
-And separately, from the Times live blog, iBooks, digital textbooks, are available to 80 percent of American high schools.
So, will you be getting an iPad Mini? Maybe adding it to your holiday wish list?
