Apple has had a very busy day today, with an event that managed to offer us no less than 5 new hardware products. I’m talking about the long awaited and rumored iPad Mini, plus a surprising new iPad 3, a new Mac Mini, 13 inch Retina Display MacBook Pro and a new iMac. Apple even graced us with an online video stream of their event, available on Mac and iOS devices.
Tim Cook was on stage to do the showcasing and so was Phil Schiller, to let us know about the new gadgets. So first things first: Apple announced its usual figures, including 5 million iPhone 5 units sold over the first weekend, plus the performance of this being the best sold iPhone so far. The Cupertino company also sold 3 million iPod Touch and iPod nano units from the latest generation. Also, iOS 6.0 was installed on over 200 million iOS devices, a very big deal for Apple, considering how hard it is for Android to reach all devices in its latest version.
iBooks also got updated with continuous scrolling, while Author also got some math compatibility and more features. Finally, another piece of impressive figures: 35 billion downloads from the App Store, plus over 200k iPad only applications. And moving on to the hardware, Tim Cook and co unveiled a new Mac Mini, a compact desktop with new processors and an appealing design. There’s a dual core Intel Core i5 2.5 GHz chipset inside, 4 GB of RAM and a 500 GB HDD, all of that priced at $599.
That’s obviously the initial version, but there’s also a 1 TB version, or one with 256 GB SSD, HDMi, Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi. For those looking for a server, the new Mac Mini Server version packs a quad core Core i7 2.2 GHz CPU and gets priced from $999 upwards. Previously speculated, the 13 inch Retina Display MacBook Pro also made an appearance today, with a 2560 x 1600 pixel display, a USB 2.0 port, USB 3.0 one as well, HDMI out, Magsafe, SD card reader and a 7 ore battery life.
You also get either a dual core Core i5 or i7 CPU on board, HD 4000 graphics, WiFi, 8 GB of RAM and SSD storage, with the price starting at $1699 and shipment starting today. The most beautiful product of the event was the new iMac. This one has an edge to edge screen and comes in a 21.5 inch 1080p version and 25 inch 2560 x 1440 pixel version. This seventh generation of iMac features an IPS display with 178 degree viewing angles and 300 nits of brightness. Other specs include two USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ones and an Ethernet port.
The price starts from $1299 and hardware includes a Core i5 quad core 2.7 GHz CPU, 8 GB of RAM and 1 TB HDD. The 27 inch model of the new iMac costs $1799 and packs a quad core Core i5 2.9 GHz chipset. Moving on to slates, the surprise was the iPad 4 unveiling, or better said the iPad 3S, an upgraded iPad 3 with new and improved Apple A6X chipset. The rest is the same, since it keeps the 9.7 inch Retina Display, has LTE connectivity and also gets a Lightning port.
So, it’s basically an iPad 3 with better CPU and Lightning port, plus it keeps the $499 price tag for the 16 GB version. iPad Mini was today’s main product, being finally showcased, after being leaked A LOT lately. ITs design reminds me of a bigger iPod Touch, with a curved back and with a thickness of 7.2 mm. It’s 23% thinner than the iPad 3 and can actually be used decently with a single hand. The device comes in black or white and also adopts a color pattern at the back like the iPhone 5.
iPad Mini packs a 7.9 inch display with a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution and also has a dual core Apple A5 CPU. So, it’s an iPad Mini 2 with a small diagonal basically. It has a 5 megapixel camera at the back and a Facetime HD front camera for videocalls. Apple even dared to compare its new product to the Nexus 7, proving it can show 35% more content on its display compared to the Nexus tablet. iPad Mini’s price is $329 in the 16 GB WiFi version, and it can reach up to 64 GB of storage. It also has LTE and its preorders start from October 26th, with deliveries in early November.
So, the conclusion is that while the iPad Mini is everything we predicted, we’re quite stunned by the new iMac and iPad 4… quite a surprise. The question is: what happens to the iPad 3 now? Who will buy it?
