The iPhone 5 News Blog

A purported leaked imagine of the iPad Mini atop a traditional Pad 3.

With Apple, there’s always “a wait” for some newfangled, rumored device. After the achingly long wait for the iPhone 5, we’ve now set our focus on the iPad Mini, a rumored, conceptual product that really gained traction in the rumor mill in 2011. But even though it seems unlikely that Apple would release a new product like the iPad Mini right on the heels of the hugely popular iPhone 5, that’s what the rumors have been telling us.

But to this point, they’ve been wrong.

As of last week, the rumor mill believed that October 10th was going to be the day that invitations were passed out for an iPad Mini press event on the 17th or 18th of October. Now that the 10th has come and gone without any news from Cupertino, however, we’re now looking at a November release of the iPad Mini. Read More

It’s just one sentence in a short report from Digitimes, whose batting average as a prognosticator is better than its detractors assert, given the context of the rumors and industry insider scuttlebutt that it largely traffics in. However the Taiwanese cite does bat well below 1,000 in terms of predictive accuracy, and I’m of a mind that Digitimes reporters Daniel Shen and Steve Shen’s comment that “Apple is also expected to release its next-generation iPhone built on Samsung’s Exynos 4 quad-core processor in the second half, heating up competition in the segment” — attributed to the customary unnamed “sources” — is probably a bolder claim than the evidence so far supports.

The contextual argument, that Apple needs to compete with new quad-core powered smartphone competition, some of it already reaching customers and more to come when Qualcomm ramps up volume production of its quad-core integrated platform solutions in the second half of 2012, enabling more vendors to launch quad-core powered handsets.

A complicating factor for Apple will be whether to launch its quad-core A6 CPU in an iPhone, or hold it back as a marquee new feature of the iPad 4 that is widely anticipated for release around March, 2013. I had been persuaded that an iPad4 launch of the A6 CPU has the most logical probity. Read More

Apple’s fabled iTV still remains a mystery. But Microsoft has revealed plans to bust out an 80-inch Windows 8 tablet device that will hang on your wall, tv-style.

If only Apple was as forthcoming about their next-generation devices as Microsoft is. While Appledom is still tentatively anticipating a possible iTV release in 2012, Microsoft has revealed another kind of wall-mounted smart device that could do to the executive board room what iTV promises to do in the family room: revolutionize it.

According to an interesting piece from Wired, Steve Ballmer over at Microsoft rocks an 80-inch tablet. Before you cue the canned how does he fit that in his pocket? or is that an 80-inch tablet in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? jokes, understand that Ballmer’s tablet, which runs Windows 8, hangs on his wall in his office. Microsoft VP Frank Shaw explained in thusly:

“Steve Ballmer has an 80-inch Windows 8 tablet in his office. He’s got rid of his phone, he’s got rid of his note paper. It’s touch-enabled and it’s hung on his wall . . . It’s his whiteboard, his email machine, and it’s a device we’re going to sell.” Read More

New evidence that iOS 6 beta is on its way to WWDC 2012.

Doubtless you’ve heard that iOS 6 beta is all but a lock for the WWDC this year, as reported by a bit of iCloud code recently unearthed by some folks over a 9to5Mac. For as much as the finding is pretty cool, I don’t think that this news should come as a surprise to anyone: Apple has kept the release of new iOS versions pretty consistent. Even last year, when the iPhone release cycle got a bit topsy-turvy, they still at least got the beta version of iOS 5 out for developers to test, all in anticipation for the fall-release iPhone 4S.

In previous years, developers got their hands on beta versions of the new iOS with ample time to test and peruse it so that the alpha version was ready for the WWDC. Thus, the new iPhone was able to ship with the new operating system. There has obviously been no public release of iOS 6 beta prior to the WWDC this year — no one has really seen it, apparently, since it most likely would have leaked — so, this means that the only way the iPhone 5 is coming in June is if ships in late June-early July with iOS 5.1, or maybe a 5.2 build.

The big question is: is that plausible? However you answer it determines whether a June-released iPhone 5 is possible or impossible. Read More

A new rumor has surfaced that the 7-inch “Mini iPad” will indeed debut this year, and given an ultra-low price tag designed to destroy the competition — even at a loss for Apple.

Apple has never been known as a price leader for its consumer electronics products — their iPhone is competitively priced among other top-tier Android and Windows smartphones, and their Mac desktops and laptops are among the most expensive personal computers on the market today. When it comes to the iPad, however, Apple has dominated the tablet sector by keeping its prices steady , and offering price-to-features ratio that its competitors have not been able to match. The only gambit for competing devices like the Kindle and Nook has been to offer smaller, stripped-down tablets at a much lower price point.

Now, it appears that Apple will leverage the rumored 7-inch “Mini iPad” to obliterate the smaller, inexpensive tablet market as well — even if it means taking a loss in order to do it. Read More

Production rumors out of Asia indicate that suppliers have received orders to produce components for 6 million Mini iPad units, to be released in the third quarter of 2012. But will a 7-inch Mini iPad’s top competitors in the marketplace be the New iPad and iPhone 5?  

Mini iPad rumors persist, with more whispering coming out of Asia that the tech manufacturing sector is receiving component orders for 6 million units, with a release window sometime in the third quarter. The Chinese-language tech blog Netease, which covers production-related news and rumors for consumer tech, had this to say (via Google Translate): “the appearance of the chassis are arranged by the Hon Hai Group, the new co-operation in some parts partners. In addition to the previous markets confirmed AUO and Shuo Following the New iPad this year, has re-received the iPad Mini Order,” going on to say that, “according to Taiwan media reports, the recent market came iPad Mini supply chain has been finalized, with the exception of David overseas, and the master also won the assembly order.”

Netease appears to be drawing from sources from within the tech manufacturing sector. But for as much as the article points out specific component suppliers purported to have received orders for Mini iPad parts, the sources remain unfounded.

But I found another quote from the Netease article that is worth thinking about:

They also had this to say about the viability of a 7-inch Mini iPad in the consumer tech marketplace: “However, foreign analysts pointed out that if Apple launched a low price the iPad Mini, most affected is probably the market share of more than 60 percent of the iPad, and may generate crowding out effect size similar to the iPhone.” Broken English and yet another unfounded source aside, this is an important consideration: what could the unintended consquences be of releasing the Mini iPad, and could it lead to reduced sales of this year’s New iPad and eventual iPhone 5?

Joanna Stern at ABC News is quick to point out that Steve Jobs was never a fan of the smaller iPad. she had this to say in a recent article:

Steve Jobs had been quite outspoken about smaller tablets; during one earnings call he even said that a 7-inch tablet would be “dead on arrival.” On that same call he said, “While one could increase the resolution of the display to make up for some of the difference, it is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size.”

Jobs’ explanation for why the smaller iPad would be a problem doesn’t include any discussion of how it could affect sales of other Apple devices, or if it could be profitable in an of itself. Though Jobs was also known to have said more than once that the smaller tablet (or large-screened smartphone) can be confounding to consumers, since it strattles both the smartphone and tablet design. As a result, Jobs seemed to be implicitly suggesting that a device like this could in fact hurt the iPhone and full-sized iPad.

In addition, there is even question as to whether or not a Mini iPad can in fact be a profitable product for Apple, based on what we know about the cost of components that go into the current iPads. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at ZDNET has an interesting cost breakdown estimate of the Mini iPad, which bears out questions as to how Apple would ever make any money selling it:

“[T]ake a look at the cost of a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2 [graphic above]. It’s down as a shade over $245. We can take this as a starting price for the mini iPad. A smaller iPad would have a smaller screen, smaller touch screen and, one would assume, a smaller battery. But how much realistically can these smaller items shave off the price? Even shaving $40 off the overall bill of materials (BOM) and manufacturing costs would mean that even at $299 the mini iPad would have the smallest gap between BOM plus manufacturing costs of any iPad. It just doesn’t make sense that Apple would release a mini iPad, a device that could potentially cannibalize sales of the more expensive models, at such a poor margins. A mini iPad might make sense if iPad sales were flagging, but there’s nothing to suggest that Apple is having a problem selling full-sized (and high-margin) iPads.

We already know that, thanks to Apple keeping the new iPad prices steady, it isn’t particularly profitable on its own — Apple’s profits from the iPad come mostly from brute sales numbers. Now, the Mini iPad appears to be even less profitable at the unit level. But as Kingsley-Hughes points out, it could end up cannibalizing sales of the iPhone 5 and New iPad. Of course, Kingsley-Hughes’ computations are based on the rumor that the Mini iPad would essentially be exactly like the iPad 3, only smaller. It remains to be seen if Apple would be willing to make the Mini iPad an el cheap-o model in order to make it more profitable. It is, after all, possible to make much lower-performance tablets than what Apple produces. But what would possibly come with it is a drop in quality and performance that Apple customers may not be comfortable with. As Apple enthusiasts, its much easier to imagine the viability of new products like the Mini iPad based on our own wants and wishes than to be sober enough to ask, “will it make Apple money?” If the answer to this question is “no,” then there is no way that we’ll ever see a Mini iPad. They might have a couple promotypes sitting around in the Cupertino labs, but that’s where they’ll be destined to stay.

By Michael Nace

A fresh rumor out of Asia outlining a lower price point and third quarter release for the fabled Mini iPad may further point to an iPhone 5 release sooner rather than later.

It’s always exciting to be able to present two exciting Apple rumors in one article here on the iPhone 5 News Blog. We begin with a new Mini iPad rumor out of Asia, which touches on the possible price point and release date window for the long-rumored little sibling to the industry-leading 9.7-inch iPad proper. Kotaku translates the Chinese report as such:

“Chinese net portal, NetEase, has a story on a rumored new mini Apple tablet. NetEase claimed that the device will be released around the third quarter of this year to “counter attack” the upcoming Windows tablets. The report further claims that the devices will cost anywhere from US$249 to $299 and that there will be an initial 6 million units ready for launch.”

9to5Mac, who has popularized the report here in the west, didn’t speak to the veracity of any rumor coming from NetEase, but they do imply a certain inevitability to the eventual appearance of the Mini iPad, stating, “The consensus is that Apple will use these to counter the mid-range tablet market that Amazon and others are now having some success in. The screen at 7.85 inches could hold the original iPad pixel dimensions and allow Apple to cut costs considerably.”

We’ve reported recently that a prototype of the Mini iPad does indeed exist, having been spotted in Cupertino’s labs, and that the design is essentially just a smaller version of the current iPad. It would stand to reason that Apple will reuse as many of the internal components as possible in order to streamline Mini iPad production to coincide with regular iPad production as well, though Cupertino will obviously have to devise a smaller chassis and display.

This is not the first time that we have heard the rumor that the Mini iPad will debut in the latter half of 2012. However, let’s segway into what this may mean for the iPhone 5 release.

It stands to reason that, should the Mini iPad debut in the third quarter of 2012, there is more chance of Apple looking to release the iPhone 5 several months before it, in order to keep their high-profile mobile products well-spaced from one another. If the iPhone 5 were to be announced in June, it will have been launched more than three months after the iPad 3. Similarly, if the Mini iPad is announced in October, it would enjoy a similarly spaced buffer. It’s just my opinion, but this release schedule theory seems more in keeping with what we’ve seen from Apple, rather than releasing two high-profile products close to one another.

And let’s not forget that they may also be looking to fit iTV into the 2012 release schedule as well.

Another thing to consider with the Mini iPad’s release is how it could affect the iPhone 5′s screen size. Steve Jobs is famously known for being skeptical of small-screened tablet computers, for fear that they encroach into an ambiguous no man’s land, somewhere between smartphone and tablet. Samsung has happily ventured into this no man’s land with the Galaxy Note, but Apple may be less apt to offer a big-screened iPhone 5. It will be interesting to see if Apple offers only a modest screen increase for the iPhone 5 in order to keep it dimensionally distant from the Mini iPad.

Regardless, if you’re an optimist, then you have to love the prospect of these rumors about the Mini iPad coming true, since, in my opinion, they most definitely have positive implications for an iPhone 5 release date coming sooner rather later.

By Michael Nace

An insider claims that the fabled 7.85-inch “Mini” iPad does indeed exist, and that Cupertino developers have been “noodling around” with it for some time now. But is the Mini iPad something we can expect this year, or is it still just a concept device?

Almost since the launch of the original iPad, users have anticipated that Apple would someday release a “Mini iPad” version as well. rumor and speculation for the fabled “Mini iPad” has only increased over the years, as new competitors in the marketplace, such as the Kindle Fire and Nook, have sought to undercut Apple’s bigger-screened, bigger-priced iPad with smaller, cheaper devices, in hopes of attracting newcomers to the tablet experience. The assumption has been that Apple will eventually have to take on  the sub-9.7-inch tablet market with a smaller, cheaper tablet of their own. but all of this has been pure conjecture until now.

Today, a new report has surfaced suggesting that the rumored 7.85-inch Mini iPad prototype does indeed exist. Mac Rumors reports: “DaringFireball‘s John Gruber offered up some additional confirmation of the existence of a 7.85″ iPad. Gruber reports that he has been told by ‘numerous’ people that this size iPad is something Apple has been ‘noodling with.’” In responding to a question as to whether or not this Mini is slated for release this year — or at any foreseeable point in the future — Gruber goes on to say:

“Well, I don’t know. What I do know is that they have one in the lab…a 7.85 inch iPad that runs at 1024×768… it’s just like the 9.7″ iPad shrunk down a little bit. Apps wouldn’t need to be recompiled or redesigned to work optimally on it. It’s just the iPad smaller.”

Gruber’s claim coincides with a smattering of Mini iPad production rumors that have persisted over the past few months. Mac Rumors points out that “It has been clear to us that a 7.85″ iPad has been in late prototyping stages. Reports have been coming from the Chinese supply chain about such a device for months,” while Apple Insider notes “Speculation on a smaller form factor iPad gained legitimacy in February when The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple officials have been showing off designs for a smaller iPad that has a similar screen resolution as the iPad 2.”

The iPhone 5 News Blog has covered the Mini iPad rumors consistently, though the reports over the course of the past year are inconclusive and do little to shed any light on what — or if — we may expect in a production model Mini iPad. you’ll recall that the most recent rumor has suggested that 5-inch displays are currently in production for either a larger-screened iPhone 5 or even “minnier” Mini iPad. That rumor seems unlikely.

However, perhaps a more reasonable rumor is that the Mini iPad could see a release date in the fall or winter, with the iPhone 5 being released in June. This release date schedule would give both the iPhone 5 and the rumored Mini iPad an ample buffer between releases. In addition, a smaller, cheaper Mini iPad released in the fall could end up become a hit-selling Christmas present.

What remains to be seen is the viability of a Mini iPad that is essentially the same as the iPad 3, but with a smaller screen. Given the New iPad’s astounding popularity — even among Kindle and Nook users who has upgraded to the iPad this year — the case has not been made that a 7.85-inch Mini iPad would fulfill a need in the tablet marketplace. But if Apple can manage to make the Mini iPad considerably cheaper than its larger-screened cousin, the Mini iPad’s most attractive selling feature could be not its small screen, but rather its small price tag.

By Michael Nace

The news of Apple’s troubles down under over the New iPad and its 4G claims in an advert has grown even more serious, with the company offering a wide-ranging refund to all Australian customers. Could this snafu turn into a widespread disaster for Cupertino?

Today it has been widely reported that Apple will be offering full refunds to all Australian buyers of the new iPad 3. This wide-ranging recall comes as a result of a rapidly escalating disaster for Apple in Australia, after a consumer watchdog group there took legal steps to force Cupertino to change the way it is marketing its new tablet — namely, its popular 4G LTE connectivity.

The problem is that Australia is not yet equipped with a wide-ranging 4G network, and so the watchdog group is claiming that Apple’s iPad 3 adverts are misleading and constitute false advertising. According to the Mail, “The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has taken legal action to ensure Apple makes consumers aware its third-generation iPad cannot connect to a 4G mobile data network in Australia due to technical incompatibility. Apple promoted its third-generation tablet as the iPad with Wifi+4G, but Australia has only one 4G network, operated by Telstra Corp, which operates on a different frequency to the 4G on Apple’s new iPad.”

In order to stem the tide of rising criticism in Australia, Apple will move to offer anyone refunds who feel as though they were misled by advertisements that highlighted the tablet’s 4G LTE capabilities.

There is also concern that this situation could spread to other countries where 4G networks are still not fully implemented, such as in the UK. Given the significant 4G LTE investments made by Apple’s mobile carrier partners in the U.S., however, it is not believed that any sort of lawsuit or refund would extend to American iPad 3 customers.

By Michael Nace

When the iPad 3′s battery meter indicates a full charge, it’s usually only charged at 90%, cheating users of over an hour’s worth of usage.

Ever since the launch of the iPhone 4S in the fall of 2011, battery life has taken center stage in Apple discussion. While many pinned hopes to iOS 5.1 that it would deliver a more optimized software solution for managing battery longevity, others fretted over whether or not the iPad 3′s impressive, new Retina display and 4G LTE connectivity would lead to similar battery issues with Apple’s newest-generation tablet.

Today, an article in the Mail is claiming that the iPad 3′s battery underperforms by as much as 10%. They explain that the reason is because “the formula used to calculate when the device is ‘full’ is slightly off – a safety mechanism used by Apple to prevent people overcharging their gadgets.” Because overcharging rechargeable batteries can significantly reduce their capacity, the battery charger stops charging the battery before its reaches a true 100% charge — and the battery indicator indicates a full charge once the charger turns on this failsafe.

Believe it or not, this feature has been used on all of the other most popular Apple devices, including the latest iPhones, iPods, and iPads. Typically, however, the battery charger failsafe on these other devices have stopped charging the battery once it reaches around 97% capacity. With the New iPad, the charger is cutting off at 90%. This, together with the fact that the New iPad’s battery cell is 1.7 times larger than the battery pack on the iPad 2, leads to a significant loss of use time for users, losing up to 1.2 hours of use.

In addition, the larger battery pack on the iPad 3 takes a significantly longer time to charge while in use. According to the Mail article, “users who attempt to charge new iPad while using it could be in for a surprise – it can take up to 20 hours,” thanks to the power consumption of the screen, which is 2.5 times higher than that of the iPad 2.

Fortunately, some of these battery issues might be fixable with software updates down the road. iOS 5.1 was met with mixed reviews on how well it improved the battery life of the iPhone 4S. It is likely that iOS 6 — or even an iOS 5.1.1 or iOS 5.2 patch — could usher in even further software tweaks to improve the longevity of the iPad 3.

By Michael Nace