iPad Mini predictions

Ever since the iPad came out I was wondered by how fantastic it was to do everything you were already able to do on an iPhone but with a bigger screen, eventually that same screen would become cumbersome for the way I tried to handle my device, so after having an iPad 2 for over a year I decided that I didn’t want to deal with the size of it anymore and the iPad Mini rumors came to save me from the lack of options that really interest me. So much has been written on the web regarding the alleged new kid on the block, so I guess one more note would not hurt… Let’s get started:

Size: everybody agrees that the screen size will be a 7.85″ according to a leak presented a long time ago, though recent rumors say that a last minute changes to the design have been made, this doesn’t seem to affect the screen size at all, being this one of the critical parts for production.

Materials: I would assume that in order to save some costs of production, apple would use the same materials they are already buying and molding for the iPhone 5 and the iPod family, therefore it will not fall far from the muse used by the company lately.

Display: Contrary to the rumor placing the iPad Mini as a smaller version of the iPad 2 instead of the New iPad, I think it will have a retina display, since otherwise would be like a step backwards and it would only make sense in order to compete with the recently released kindle Fire.

Processor: Just like the previous comment using a cheaper A5 chip would save costs to produce a lower priced tablet, but would also position the iPad Mini behind its competitors and also make it a direct rival to the new iPod touch, this leads to the next prediction and to assume they will definitively use an A6 chip to keep the Mini as a next generation device.

Price: This is rather the most controversial rumor so far, since the Nexus 7 and the Kindle fire are running for very low pricepoints and we all know apple has an initial tag that is usually higher than the rest, so I think starting at 299$ for the 16Gb version and going up in 100$ increments not to compete in price with the iPod touch marked at the same price.

Compatibility: Being LTE such a fantastic technology they will definitively want to include it on the iPad Mini, but I think that they will offer it only on the higher capacity model for a huge price, this way they will not have all this price tiers and also will make you want to go for the real golden package in order to stay connected everywhere.

All this might be just wishful thinking of course, or maybe some of it makes sense? We will not know until the final curtain is dropped by Tim Cook and his guys. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Follow me on Twitter @aranmor

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Apples & Oranges

Apple post full video of ‘Celebrating Steve’ Special Event on Apple Campus

Apple has posted the video of the even they held on the campus to celebrate Steve Jobs life. I didn’t think they were going to post this, but pretty cool that they decided to.

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Apples & Oranges, Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs photo replaced with iPhone 4S on Apple home page

It had to happen sometime. Nothing more fitting than his last product introduced, while he was still with us, replacing his photo.

(via @atul)

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Apples & Oranges

iCloud… what I think so far

It’s been two weeks since iOS 5 and iCloud became available for developers and to be honest I’ve been busy playing with iOS 5 and haven’t seen much of iCloud until now.

The first thing I remember was the setup, after installing iOS 5 it prompted me to enter my Apple ID and enable iCloud. After that, the only thing I tried was backing up my devices to the cloud, which still freaks me out a bit, since everything is in a hard drive in the sky. The process was very seamless, turned on the option and it just worked, or at least I think it worked. After the first backup, you can go deeper into the settings and select which app’s data you want to keep and which ones you don’t.

The second feature I noticed was the cloud icon in iTunes store which shows up on apps you have purchased on a different device, which brings me to the next point. Now both music and app store show a “purchased” category, where you can see your entire purchase history, it even has a “Not On This iDevice” tab to make it easy to see what your missing.  Tap the cloud icon next to the song or app and your iDevice immediately starts downloading. You can download previously purchased songs and apps, even if you bought them on another iDevice or iTunes. Yeah, it’s kind of a pain in the ass, which is what Stevie was saying “keeping all our devices in sync is driving us crazy.”

This next feature will make synchronizing a cinch. In the new iTunes 10.3 and the latest non beta iOS 4.3.3 devices, you can turn on Automatic Downloads for music, apps, and books. With this option on, anything you buy on one device, say your iPhone, will automatically appear on your other devices (Mac, iPad, etc.), keeping all devices in sync. The only problem I see is you might not want to have every app on all your devices, but that’s easily solved by deleting it from the device you don’t want it on.

What else is cool? Photo Stream, it just works. Take a picture with your iPad and it shows up on your iPhone, what else do I need to say? Well, actually I think it would be even cooler if it allowed me to share a stream or photo album with other users, now that would be awesome!

Things I haven’t been able to test: Documents in the cloud and calendar sharing. I can’t seem to find the way to share a calendar with another iCloud user. As for Documents in the cloud, Pages didn’t prompt me to use iCloud for storage like was seen during the Keynote and there’s no sign of the feature in the app. So I don’t know, maybe they haven’t enabled that feature yet?

In response to Lauren Carlson‘s Can Apple iCloud make it rain in the Enterprise? From what I’ve seen and what we know of the way iCloud is setup, my answer would have to be not yet. Unless you are, at the very least, able to share documents with other users through iCloud, it won’t be adopted in a business environment. This is something that undoubtedly will come, if not from Apple, from third party developers now that the iCloud APIs are available.

What do I think so far? Honestly, I’m still processing. It’s hard to asses something when I’ve only seen half of it, but what I’ve seen so far, I like…

Follow me on Twitter @chiyinng

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Apple Store, Apples & Oranges, iCloud, iOS 5, iPad, iPhone, iPod, iTunes, OSX

iOS 5 camera to take pictures with volume button

Not much else to write here, but Camera+ must be pissed!

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Apples & Oranges

not banned promo videos… just getting too cocky

Apple employees are just getting too cocky about the iPad 2…

Follow me on Twitter @chiyinng

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Apples & Oranges, Humor, iPad