iPad mini component leak suggests iPhone 5-like design

“Components purporting to belong to the forthcoming iPad mini have leaked online. If genuine, they suggest that Apple may be borrowing some design cues from the new iPhone 5,” Jon Mundy reports for Trusted Reviews.

“The pictures come courtesy of a Ukranian blog (appropriately titled UkranianiPhone), and seem to show the final rear panel component of a smaller iPad device – dubbed the iPad mini,” Mundy reports. “Previously we’ve only seen mock-ups.”

Mundy reports, “While the form factor revealed by these components is nothing new, they do reveal that Apple is using the same black anodised aluminium finish as can be found on the iPhone 5.”

Read more and see the photo in the full article here.

19 Comments

  1. I don’t think Apple will split the iPad line into an iPhone mimic, in terms of screen aspect ratios. This is because there is already an iPhone mimic in exactly the same ratio, and that is the iPod touch.

    And so for apps to be usable in the smaller and larger forms of the iPad, the screen aspect ratio will be maintained, as the UI elements suitable for a bigger screen should remain attached to that screen size.

      1. Not! While Apple ridiculed both the 16:9 aspect ratio and the 7″ tab form factor in the past, Apple is learning to play along with what consumers want as they are running short on innovations that moves people.

        Apple is in the same pickle as Sony was 4 years ago. Play along or be left to the curb.

  2. Disagree. Watch a movie on an iPad and you lose a lot of real estate with the letterbox format. Having a longer screen allows more space for controls in portrait format.
    The main difficulty is having 2 screen formats for the iPad and iPad mini for the 6 months until the iPad is updated. Will be a bit wired but that’s how apple rolls sometimes.

    1. Movies are letterboxed on the screen of an iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Apple Thunderbolt display. I don’t see any problems in having the screen mirrored on a 50″ plasma television.

      The larger form factor of the iPad & iPad mini makes letterboxing moot as you can increase the display size which will fill up the whole screen, leaving the edges cut off. I often watch movies this way on my iPad and find that the loss of edges not at all disturbing.

      But reading books, documents, emails, etc is much more comfortable in a 4:3 screen aspect ratio. Besides, Apple has tested the 4:3 ratio exhaustively on the iPad and apps will have to be resized when there is no need for that.

  3. I’m hoping Apple sticks with the 4:3 ratio. It is much more versatile for both horizontal and vertical orientations.

    Apple only moved away from it on the iPhone 5 because they wanted you to be able to use it with 1 hand, so they couldn’t go wider.

    Although I may have preferred a slightly wider iPhone that kept the 4:3 ratio.

  4. It will be the same ratio as iPad, but I do believe the thinner side bezels rumor. About the same physical size as the 7 inch tablets, but with noticibly larger display at 7.85 inches. It will also be 1024 X 768 to be fully compatible with almost all iPad apps out of the box, and to keep costs down so it can be priced at $299.

  5. We have already seen that back plate in an image from Chinese digi.163.com. It does indeed have the headphone socket at the top. So where does the large assembly with the socket beside the Lightning socket belong? In the next iPad 4 perhaps?

    Apple does not make the iPad for movie buffs. The iPad is for school children, airline pilots, car salesmen, and all the rest of us. Forget the naive idea that the iPhone 5 has a larger screen to accommodate 16:9 movies, that is just a design feature caused by the longer case which is a functional demand to prevent the hand from covering the antennas.

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