“Exclusive photos of an iPad Mini engineering sample provide a first look at the iPad Mini design and hints at possible iPad Mini features,” Shawn Ingram reports for Gotta Be Mobile. “The new iPad will be the thinnest Apple tablet yet, as one of the photos shows.”
“Photos of the iPad Mini engineering sample come from a trusted source inside the Apple supply chain, who also provided exclusive iPhone 5 engineering sample photos, which are more detailed,” Ingram reports. “The early design sample in the below photos is a plastic mold that may be used to hone the production process and test accessories.”
Ingram reports, “What we’ve found, using a pixel count, is that the iPad Mini should be around 213.36mm tall and about 143.67mm wide. This is approximately two-thirds of the size of the new third-generation iPad. The new iPad is 185.67mm wide, 241.3mm tall, and 9.39mm thick.”
Read more and see additional photos in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
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Bloomberg: Apple preps smaller iPad, sources say – July 5, 2012
WSJ: Apple’s ‘iPad mini’ launch nears – July 5, 2012
I’ll believe it when I see it but I have a hunch I’m gonna be a believer REAL soon…
ugh – stop with the name iPad mini; its not;
if anything a large iPod Touch.
The purpose of its rumored 7.85 inch, 4:3 screen running at 1024×768 is so that it can run iPad apps. It would literally be a miniaturized iPad. So until Apple unveils it and says it won’t run tablet apps, all signs point to it being an iPad mini, not a giant touch.
I thought an iPad was already a large iPod touch 😉
I agree and have thought this for some time. I imagine it will be a large iPod touch with a 16:9 screen and use iPhone/touch apps. I think the market for this sized device is more consumption than creation. I know that was said about the iPad but from how I have seen the few kindles used they read books, watch movies and play games. No one i know is is going to work all day using a 7″ device as can be done with an iPad.
The other thing this would do with the touch name is prevent competitors from directly comparing themselves to the iPad.
It will be a whole 1/3 smaller than the iPad. An 8 inch screen. What work can be done on an iPad that can’t be done on the iPad mini? Many people in schools and the work place would love to have the smaller, lighter device as an option. It’s a matter of choice. It should be no more a consumption device than its big brother.
Whatever the case, Apple would be smart to brand it as an iPad rather than an iPod. Think about it.
Okay, I thought about it, and it seems to me that calling it an iPod Touch would be smarter. It does two things: one, it diminishes everything smaller than the 7.85″ Touch as something less than an iPad; and two, it forces the NPDs, the IDCs, the Gartners and Forresters into rethinking about how they classify tablets. Currently, they include the 7″ category with the iPad, but exclude the iPod touch. By calling the 7.85″ tablet an iPod Touch, it makes you wonder why they exclude devices less than 7″ if they run the same apps, etc.
Apple has a iPod touch. Why not a iPod Touch?
Well given Gruber’s lengthy piece on the mini iPad, in which he says that it’s resolution will be 1024 x 768 making apps easier to display ie no changes necessary for iPhone apps, the photos seem to be of a 1280 x 800 screen. So not likely the real thing.
I hope not anyway – I don’t like the usual elongated 7″ form factor. Clumsy in portrait mode.
But…but…I know nothing
Fake.
Real-life production does not need that kind of prototypes, components are done via drilling, and the shapes for the drilling are transferred to the equipment electronically.
This is not an Apple engineering sample, it’s purportedly from a third party case maker. That’s what they’re using to make cases for the iPad mini ahead of launch (assuming it’s real).
They say it is from “Apple supply chain”. There are no third-party case makers among this group.
Why is all this pre-iPad mini snooping necessary? People go to such lengths to prove the existence of possibly just some prototype device that may or may not go into production. Pre-production samples of a small iPad mean absolutely nothing. Let’s just wait until Apple makes some announcement.
Apple should flood their component/accessory makers with all shapes and sizes of plastic “future devices”. No one will be able to tell if any one of them is real. Until the device gets announced.
Do you guys really think the case makers know more than we know? I think not. This article is a load of crap.
The 7/8″ market is small, unsuccessful and an ‘iPad mini’ would only be a competitor to the iPad.
It’s illogical, believers!
absolutely yes. They have a huge interest in being first to market with cases. They put out a quiet bounty among Chinese workers and after a few months have all they need. I would be shocked and awed if it was otherwise.