Well, I wasn't too far out in my guesses, admittedly inspired by a thousand other blogs and web articles. An hour or so ago Apple unveiled the iPad mini as expected. What wasn't expected was that Apple have taken a more liberal approach to pricing, in dollars anyway.
The basic iPad mini - 16GB, WiFi only - is being pitched at US$329. I suspect that the competition from Google and Amazon have caused a few sleepless nights over in Appletown and have influenced the price. In a fair world this price would translate to just over £200 UK given today's exchange rates, but I guess we may have to wait a bit longer to find out. It's often the case that US products are sold Pound for Dollar over here. If it is, then I think the mini will be well overpriced.
Doubling the capacity to 32GB increases the price by $100 and another ton of greenbacks doubles the capacity again to 64GB. Now, if the conversion is fair that puts the 64GB version at under £350, which would be a steal, hence it's likely to be nearer £499, which isn't.
As expected there's 4G versions, at about $130 more per version, and they should start shipping a couple of weeks after the WiFi versions ship. That'll be mid November, then, as the WiFi are scheduled to start shipping 2 November in the US.
As I suspected, there are two cameras so you can Skype and take photos. Cool. The screen is just sub 8 inch, as has been heavily rumoured. Like the iPhone 5, and again as expected, the device comes with the new smaller form factor connector. So a bit of Gnashing and Wailing going on.
Apple are believed to have ordered 10 million of the blighters and expect to sell 5 million between now and Christmas. It's not all sweetness and light in Appletown, though, as they expect to lose a million full sized iPad sales as part of the 5 million mini iPads. But I suspect they hope to dent a larger number of Amazon Fire and Google Nexus 7s in the process.
Maybe they will, but the UK pricing will be key.
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