Tech tutorials, howtos and walkthroughs

This year’s Apple iPad launch held at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco was choc full of innovations under the hood and some great aesthetics typical of the Apple I’ve come to know and love. Apple has changed the name of the Apple iPad 5 to the Apple Air…..a name I thoroughly approve as its truly losing some serious weight. Check out Apple’s Official Press Release on the Launch of the Apple iPad Air and the Apple iPad Mini 2!

iPadAir-iPadMini

It Bezel is 43% slimmer and only 7.5mm thick, a 20% reduction that’s truly noticeable and thus deserving of the new name. Weighing in at 469 gm (478 for the 4G LTE/Wi-Fi version) it’s basically the lightest 9.7″ Tablet in the World. I hereby crown the Apple iPad King of Tablets at this point!

It’s also packing a few expected improvements borrowed from the Apple iPhone, mainly the 64-bit A7 Processor and the M7 Processor specifically to manage motion related computation. Combined, these Processor improvements have boosted the Processor and Graphics performance by four-fold and eight-fold respectively!

But undoubtedly the real star of the show was the Apple iPad Mini. Now dubbed the Apple iPad Mini 2, it’s also rocking the same specs along with an improved Retina display coming in at a very sharp 2048 x 1536 pixels, double last years’ model. Like it’s bigger brother, it didn’t get the Touch ID but rather just a regular Home Button.

As this diminutive 7.9” Tablet was already on a diet, making it thinner wasn’t really necessary, as it’s already outselling its older sibling by a margin of 3 to 1 [add the analysts name. More confirmation that my prediction of 7” Tablets holding their own against the bigger behemoths in the 10” class due their lower pricing point and more portable form factor as argued in The Two Towers of Tablets, 7” Amazon Kindle Fire and 7.9” Apple iPad are the Global Tablet size of Choice.

more on Geezam.com:  How Schneider Electric Modular Data Center herald 5G Adoption and VR Classrooms

Translation: More Console Gaming Apps and real-time computing are possible on BOTH the Apple iPad Air, especially the Apple iPad Mini 2 which is seriously looking more and more like a solid competitor to the Nintendo 3DS and Playstation Vita. The Apple iPad 2 as Desktop computer is now possible on the Apple iPad, making it easier to leave the Macbook Pro at home and just carry the Apple iPad with a Keyboard case to do ANY kind of computation on the road! Especially as it’s now officially packing the latest version of the Apple iOS with iWorks!

Battery life isn’t compromised; you’ll STILL get 10 hours of battery life before needing a recharge. And like the Apple iPhone 5S there also been a colour makeover: Silver, White and Space Grey will be the new colours for the Apple iPad. But here’s the excising part, if the new colour options weren’t enough. A new member has been added to the family. Apple has now added a 128 GB version of the newly-named Apple iPad Air, bringing the family to four.

Personally the only letdown for me it that the Apple iPads haven’t come in a Gold Colour like the Apple iPhone 5S, as I’d love to have my Apple iPad “bling-bling” as the Apple iPhone 5S is called. Oddly too no Touch ID for the Apple iPad but that’s not really surprising; apparently theft issues with Tablets aren’t as common, as the Touch ID was mainly a response by Apple to iPhone Theft. A Proximity App, though would be nice in case in a bout of Creativity I wander away too far from my Tablet, again forgetting to pack it into my rucksack!

more on Geezam.com:  JAMAICA DIGITAL EXCHANGE – JAM-DEX – Jamaica’s CBDC

The Apple iPad Air and its’ lil’ brother the Apple iPad Mini 2 goes on Pre-order in the US on all Major Carriers on Friday November 1st 2013 with the following prices:

Apple iPad Air Size (GB)

Wi-Fi (US$)

Wi-Fi + 4G LTE (US$)

16

499

629

32

599

729

64

699

829

128

799

929

Basically, for the same specs in a smaller package, the price difference is US$100, the same as the Apple iPhone 5S and the Apple iPhone 5C. Strangely enough, you can still get the older Apple iPad 2 for US$299 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and US $429 for the 16GB Wi-Fi + 4G LTE model for either AT&T, Sprint or Verizon.

Apple iPad Mini 2 Size (GB)

Wi-Fi (US$)

Wi-Fi + 4G LTE (US$)

16

399

529

32

499

629

64

599

729

128

699

829

Apple also has New custom-designed polyurethane Smart Covers for Apple iPad Air and Apple iPad Mini for US$39 in blue, green, pink, yellow, black and Red. Apple’s reserved the good stuff for last as usual with aniline-dyed leather Apple iPad Air Smart Cases and Apple iPad Mini 2 Smart Cases in yellow, beige, blue, brown, black and Red selling for US$79 for iPad Air and US$69 for Apple iPad Mini 2.

This launch is proof in my mind that the Apple iPad and it gun slinging brother the Apple iPad Mini are serial killers of not only the Netbook but also the Laptop, the mouse, the Printer and now the Portable Handheld Gaming Console as predicted in How the Apple iPad killed Ultrabooks, Printing and the Mouse as the World Rediscovers Tablets.

About the Author

Read more on Geezam.com