Just two anonymous source familiar with the future plans of Apple, resource Bloomberg said information Company from Cupertino is planning to release before the end of the year, and a smaller cheaper model iPad mini. It is expected that the device will display with a diagonal from 7 to 8 inches, the sources believe.
Rumors that Apple plans to release iPad mini, walking ever since the release of the original model in 2010 and, quite possibly, they were under a real basis in the form of test specimens, which the company used to determine the most convenient way to work with the tablet. Later, Steve Jobs called 7-inch tablets of competitors ‘product stillborn”, noting that 9.7 inches – is the minimum allowed for easy implementation of the diagonal of the tablet interface in your applications. Nevertheless, the market changes, new competitors and is clearly the time has come to do something and change attitudes.
In particular, at the end of last year appeared on the market is very functional and inexpensive with a 7-inch tablet from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and this year the new game came has come in between Google and Microsoft. Although, in the latter case is unlikely to be particularly serious competition, as the price of the device would be very high, and in size they are comparable with the current model of iPad.
According to analyst firm Gartner, Apple remains the leader in the tablet market with a share of more than 60%, but the appearance of a large number of cheap and, most importantly, a very technically advanced device can be a serious and blow to the company’s business. For example, Nexus 7 is equipped with a 4-core SoC NVIDIA Tegra 3 and 7-inch IPS-display with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels. It is worth from $ 200 for a model with 8 GB of flash memory.
If Apple will hit the market with an inexpensive and compact alternative to the iPad at a price between $ 250-300, then the competitors will come hard times for several reasons, says Bloomberg. First, Apple has its own large retail network of 360 stores, where potential customers can experience the novelty alive. At the same time, Microsoft has only 20 of its stores, and Google will distribute the tablet only through Google Play. Second, the iPad is a huge library adapted to a number of applications in more than 225 thousand pieces. Third, the company has the opportunity to earn on the sale of each gadget by an established chain of suppliers of components and the best prices, because Apple is one of the largest customers for many Taiwanese and Chinese companies. Amazon loses on each tablet, suggesting earn content, that is, in effect, subsidizing the device. Google sells Nexus 7 is practically at cost, and the company’s goal is roughly the same – make money on the content and the expansion of the advertising audience.
On the hardware characteristics of the mini iPad springs almost did not apply. Only one of them said that Retina-display can be expected, although technically possible to install this is, for example, Sharp IGZO. According to sources, the screen resolution will be 1024×768 pixels.
