This evening the Apple company officially presented the iPad Mini, iPad 4, iMac, Mac Mini and MacBook Pro Retina Display 13 inches, surprising the entire audience by naming the iPad 4 as the fourth generation of iPad, this in the conditions where everyone expected see only a slightly modified version of the iPad 3. Apple had a surprise that the world didn't know about, but along with it came others related to the products launched now, and the biggest surprise for our country is related to the launch of the iPad Mini and iPad 4 right from the first wave of releases!
iPad Mini
If you were waiting for a tablet iPad Mini this evening, well I tell you that Apple presented its new tablet along with iPad 4. The new tablet iPad Mini it has a screen with a diagonal of 7.9 inches, it is 53% lighter than the current iPad tablets, it is only 7.2 mm thick (exactly like the iPod Touch 4G), it keeps the 1024 x 768 resolution of the iPad 1/2, so all your applications will work without being modified on the new tablet. Those from Apple say that the iPad Mini is as thin as a pencil and as light as a notebook, things that will be verified in the future.
A beautiful display, powerful A5 chip, FaceTime HD camera, iSight camera with 1080p HD video recording, ultrafast wireless, and over 275,000 apps ready to download from the App Store. iPad mini is an iPad in every way, shape, and slightly smaller form. iPad mini makes one thing clear: Its 7.9-inch display more than measures up to the complete iPad experience. View web pages in Safari. See where you are and what's around you using Maps.1 Flick through your photos and watch videos in vivid detail. And wave hello to the family on a FaceTime call.2 The iPad mini display uses the same LED backlight technology as the iPad to give you plenty of pop per square inch. And it's perfectly sized to work with hundreds of thousands of apps made for iPad.
Continuing the presentation of the iPad Mini, those from Apple made a comparison with the Google Nexus 7, saying that the larger screen offers 35% to 49% more space for viewing web pages or any kind of content. The iPad Mini is of course thinner and lighter than the products of Android competitors, and Apple did not forget to discuss the problems of Android applications that are not specially designed to run on tablets.
The iPad Mini has a dual-core A5 processor, the same as the iPad 2, it has a better FaceTime HD camera than the one in the iPad 2, it has a 5-megapixel iSight camera that allows it to film in 1080p format, just like the iPad 3 , it is compatible with the 4G LTE networks of the iPhone 5, it has a faster Wi-Fi chip, it has a Lightning port, it has 10 hours of autonomy and at the end we leave the personal assistant Siri who will answer your questions without problems. The tablet has a Smart Cover specially designed to work with it, and Apple will probably sell it for $29.
Regarding the prices, the Wi-Fi Only version of the iPad Mini will cost $329, and the 4G version is only $100 more expensive and will cost $429. Pre-orders for the iPad Mini will start on October 26, the Wi-Fi only version will be delivered on November 2, the 4G version will arrive in stores on November 16. In Romania, the tablet will be launched on November 2, our country entering the first wave of launches.
iPad 4
Contrary to the expectations of all users, the Apple company presented this evening the fourth generation of the iPad tablet, the changes thought by the company mainly having to do with its internal structure and not with the design. The new tablet contains an A6X processor that doubles both processing performance and graphic performance, it comes with a Lightning dock, a FaceTime HD camera, faster Wi-Fi chip, compatibility with several 4G LTE networks already supported by the iPhone 5, autonomy of 10 hours and the rest of the functions you already knew.
The new A6X chip inside iPad is our most powerful mobile chip yet. It delivers up to twice the CPU and graphics performance of the A5X chip. And it makes iPad feel faster and even more responsive. Apps launch instantly and run smoothly. Graphics-intensive games are fluid and lifelike on the gorgeous Retina display. And with improved image signal processing built into the A6X chip, the photos and videos you take with the 5-megapixel iSight camera look sharper and even more Retina worthy.
Regarding compatibility with 4G LTE networks, the iPad 3 will work under the same conditions as the iPhone 5, so also on Romanian networks. The changes implemented by Apple are mainly related to the inside of the tablet, so we can talk about the iPad 3S and not the iPad 4. The prices of the tablet remain the same, the new version will be available for pre-order from October 26, the Wi-Fi only version will be delivered on 2 November, the 4G one on November 16, Romania going to enter the first wave of launches.
MacBook Pro Retina Display 13 inches
In accordance with all the rumors presented so far, Apple presented this evening MacBook Pro Retina Display 13 inches, the lightest MacBook Pro produced by Apple. The laptop has a 13-inch Retina screen with a resolution of 2560 x 1600, it is 20% thinner than the previous model, it has a FaceTime HD camera, two microphones, USB 3.0, Magsafe 2, Thunderbolt port, but it is thinner and lighter than MacBook Pro Retina Display 15 inches. Inside, the new Mac comes with an Intel i5 or i7 processor with frequencies of at least 2.5 GHz, integrated Intel HD 4000 video card, up to 8 GB RAM, flash storage from 128 GB, up to 8 GB RAM, and an autonomy of up to at 7 o'clock.
A groundbreaking Retina display. All-flash architecture. The fastest mobile processors. Remarkably thin and light 13-inch and 15-inch designs. Together, these features take the notebook to a place it's never been. And they'll do the same for everything you create with it. We wanted a screen as vivid as your imagination. A screen where everything you see is vibrant, detailed, and sharp. With the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, we created the world's highest-resolution notebook display. The only thing that even comes close? The supercompact 13-inch model. They're two of a kind. And in a class all their own.
The new Retina Display of this Mac is assembled using a special process, so it reduces the sharpness effect by up to 75%, but improves the quality of the images displayed on the screen. It has a 29% better contrast than the screen of a normal mac, it has a visibility angle of 178 degrees, so the improvements are obvious. On the performance side, the processor and RAM can be helped by the flash storage system, which makes everything much faster.
The Retina display reduces glare up to 75 percent while maintaining incredible color and quality. In fact, it has a 29 percent higher contrast ratio than a standard MacBook Pro display. Blacks have blacker. Whites are whiter. And everything in between is rich and vibrant. IPS technology gives you a wide, 178-degree view of everything on the screen, so you'll see the difference at practically any angle. And you're going to love what you see. When your goal is to build the high-performance notebook of the future, you start at its foundation. For MacBook Pro with Retina display, that foundation is flash. Because when you build a notebook around an all-flash architecture, not only is everything more durable, reliable, and battery efficient — everything is fast. Really, really fast.
Finally, I will tell you that the new Mac also has an improved audio system, with a 40% lower volume, but offering sounds of a much better quality than those of the previous models. The new MacBook Pro Retina Display can be ordered from today on the Apple website.
You haven't heard it all until you've heard the speakers inside the MacBook Pro. For something so thin and light, the sound is huge. And with a wide dynamic range, optimal balance, and a crisp, expressive quality, these speakers might sound too good to be true. That's because we labored painstakingly over the design to maximize the quality of every decibel you hear.
iMac
The rumors about the new iMac were once again true, those from Apple presenting this evening a product with a rather modified design. The new iMac is 80% thinner than the previous model, it is only 5 mm thick and the people from Apple praise it from all points of view. To reduce the thickness, those from Apple laminated the screen to the front panel, reduced its thickness and now the entire screen is 45% thinner. In order to get everything they wanted, the people from Apple also gave up the optical drive, so you won't have anything like that in the iMac.
Sit down in front of the new iMac and something incredible happens: The world around you seems to disappear, and you lose yourself in the big, beautiful display. To create an experience this immersive, we pushed every limit, rethought every detail, and advanced iMac in the most astonishing ways. The first iMac was a revolution: An all-in-one computer that put everything — display, processor, graphics, storage, memory, and more — inside one simple, stylish enclosure. Countless innovations later, we've raised the bar yet again. The new iMac includes the most advanced, most brilliant desktop display we've ever built, and it's filled with the latest high-performance technologies. Yet it's just 5 mm thin at its edge with up to 40 percent less volume than the previous generation. To do all that required unprecedented feats of engineering — and imagination. We invented new technologies, pioneered new manufacturing techniques, and devised all-new ways to do more in less space.
The screen of the new iMac displays clearer images, reflections are reduced by 75% and all thanks to a technology called plasma deposition. The interesting part is that each screen is manually calibrated, which provides a very good quality for viewing any kind of content. The iMac comes with a Facetime HD camera, two microphones and an apparently better audio system than in the previous version, with a 40% lower volume. Regarding the internal structure, Apple says that we will have Intel Ivy Bridge i5/i7 processors, Nvidia Kepler graphics cards, up to 768 GB of flash storage/3 TB HDDs and up to 32 GB of RAM. If we are to talk about the storage capacity, Apple says that it uses the same Fusion Drive system, a new technology that offers 128 GB flash storage plus a 1/3 TB HDD, which offers users better read/write speeds, everything being specially designed for OS X. If you wonder what performance this storage system has, well Apple says that you should have speeds up to 3 times better than when using old storage media.
The new iMac display is not set behind the cover glass — it's right up against it. The LCD itself is 5 mm thinner than before, and we used an advanced process called full lamination to eliminate a 2-mm gap between the LCD and the glass, something that has never been done on a display this large. Although it may not seem like much, those few millimeters are enough to make images look as if they're leaping off the glass.
The standard version of the iMac with a 21.5-inch monitor costs $1300, and the standard version with a 27-inch screen has a starting price of $1799, the first version to be available from November and the second from December.
Mac Mini
Finally, there is the updated version of the Mac Mini, the smallest Mac sold through its own store. The new product comes with improved hardware, so you will have dual/quad-core Inte i5 processors of at least 2.5 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD, integrated Intel HD graphics card and Bluetooth 4.0. These products can be purchased starting today from Apple stores, and their starting price is $599 in the basic version.
