“Apple’s new, smaller iPad will reportedly be so thin and light that production of the device has posed a particular challenge to the company,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.
“Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo with KGI Securities said in a research note issued on Friday that the so-called ‘iPad mini’ will feature industry-leading ‘GF Ditto,’ otherwise known as GF2, touchscreen technology. He said that Apple will be the first company in the world to commercialize and mass produce GF Ditto technology,” Hughes reports. “The new method is apparently an improvement from the ‘G/G touch structure’ Apple currently utilizes in its third-generation iPad with Retina display. The switch will allow the new iPad to be not only thinner but significantly lighter.”
Hughes reports, “Production of a device so thin and light has become a particular challenge for Apple in the manufacturing process, he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Wafer thin?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Creosote
Please please PLEASE be brushed aluminum. Not the backing used for the iPod touch. Too many scratches!!! (sorry I forgot the metal that they use)
or liquid metal perhaps
Not another Liquid metal wet dreamer!
Aluminum, same as the iPad
Difference is, it is polished & coated rather than glass beaded and anodized like the iPad (& iMac).
I think that was because iPods historically had polished backs. I doubt they would polish any iPad model.
Please make it firm yet flexible black plastic and knock 50 bucks off the price.
You mean like the crap used in Samsung cases? I think not!
Oh please I hope that was sarcastic. Let me get this straight; You want them to take the one quality built tablet and turn it into a plastic, flexy, peice of crap, like the rest of the iPad knock off’s out there?
Again, I sincerely hope that was humor.
Can’t wait – I’m buying 2!
Here’s better info on the technology – ‘ditto’ should be DITO (dual indium-tin oxide film). I’m not sure how well the analyst knows what he’s talking about.
+1
Hurry, call Apple right away!
N8nMC, he’s an analyst, only he knows what he’s talking about.
And sometimes not even he knows.
No need to fret iSheeps as Samsung can build it. It’s all good.
Eat shit and die pat
iTrolls are funny! You funny!
iTroll! HAHAHAHA!
So when are you going to get off the anonymous coward trickery ‘Pat’ and become a real person? Never, I’m willing to bet. Trolls can’t stand the light of day.
Yep Shamsteal is good at copying but nothing else.
Your boss at Wal-Mart is calling you for a wet cleanup. Get back to work. You’re not paid to think , just mop.
Do you have something against all the hard-working people around the country qka?
You don’t actually think he has a job do you? More likely he sits in his parents basement playing FPS/MMO games on the “radical gamerz PeeCee” he built him self (like putting a motherboard a power supply and a couple drives in a case and plugging them in is actually “building” a computer, but I digress…)
No Pat is likely a slacker gamer, who hates Apple (why? even he, if he is being honest, is not quite sure) and the people who buy apple (because they have an “attitude”… like apple is the best (wake up and smell the coffee pat, Apple IS the best… how many companies carve their cases from a single billet of aluminum))
Of course we will copy it. What do you think Asia is known for?
Taiwan was known for its knock offs, then the Korean one-upped them and now this Korean bootlegger has control of the South Korean government and have access to thousands of factories! With our bootleg money we purchased and secured some patents, licensed some cheap technology from Sony and Motorola and the rest is history. Expect to see our carbon copies in a week. We dont have time for real R&D anyways. Btw Anyone know how to fix a Samsung Photocopier?
Pat you peasant, just go away
Peasant? Really is that the best you can do? Says a lot about behind the Ahole behind the words. Ba aaa aaa
he meant pissant- and you are one.
As long as the quest for thinness doesn’t shorten battery life considerably, I’m all for it. I do wonder if most consumers care about minor differences of weight and buik of these devices. Does a few grams actually make or break a product? How thin can a product be and still feel sturdy?
I wouldn’t doubt that Samsung can duplicate any hardware that Apple can have built but I wonder at what cost. Maybe Samsung isn’t that much of a stickler over profit margins that Apple is. In the long run I believe Apple can outlast them all.
Thinner is good, but Apple must be careful. Too thin could cause bending or breakage which would destroy Apple’s quality issues.
Yeah, and Apple would never think of that or notice, because they are so flippant about product design and never agonize over every last little detail.
Get real, if apple makes it wicked thin and light you can assume it will feel like a carbon fiber plate (don’t know if you have ever handled a “magazine sized” piece of CF composite but it is freakishly stiff.) rather than a piece of flexy plastic (like the samesung tablets do)
Well…
The early MacBook Pros were made out of titanium before aluminum… These turned out to be a big mistake.
Titanium apparently doesn’t have the tensile strength to deal with everyday use… It would bend and twist, and components inside broke faster. I have one laying around somewhere. They shipped millions of them
Apple is not infallible
Nonsense… Titanium (3.25, the most common US alloy) has a yield (ie “tensile strength” in your words) of >125,000 PSI making it considerably stronger than aluminum. (incidentally it is also stronger (higher tensile all but the most exotic (and somewhat brittle) chrome molybdenum vanadium steel alloys.)
In addition to that the (now 10+ years old) Ti Powerbook design was amazing (in its time) and considerably better than the laptops of the day. That a 10 year old apple design is not as good as what they produce today is somehow proof of anything is bewildering logic.
Lightest, thinest, most powerful, longest lasting, most versatile…
What more do you want, black bottommed whore of an intarwebs?
The hardest part isn’t making it thin, it’s trying to find a thin feeble excuse to build one. It will be too big to put in a pocket, too small to be a serious mobile computing device, and the existing market for similarly sized devices is very anemic. Apple already has products that cover this market very well; iPhone and iPod Touch. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
I think it will be for people who can carry it easily (I know, that sounds self evident);
Women (they have a problem with an iPad in a purse but would not a 7-8″ version)
Students (again an iPad is a large item in a backpack (though many do carry them))
People who wear lab coats… (and I am not being funny) many scientific, research and medical personnel wear lab coats, the pockets will not fit an iPad (yes they make a lab coat with a huge pocket specifically for an iPad but it looks as ridiculous as using one of samesungs “giant screen” phones)
iPad is too big to comfortably read books. I’ll get two of these.
This will be perfect for airplane panels.
Suuuuuuure it has. Apple has never made anything thin and light before.
is it challenge? then how did Apple build thin devices so far? they actually accumulate technology, and idea. i bet they will easily make this one. as a matter of fact, it is a large version of ipod touch. what is so fucking difficult? however, I highly doubt that apple will dominate 7 inch tablet market just like ipad did? its market situates totally different. even apple will hard time to get through. in my opinion, apple should just focus on normal ipad. it’s already enough. now, it is proved that apple is not only an evil to make money but also tries to bash all competitors in terms of lawsuit. so sad. nowadays, people suddenly turned themselves as anti apple. so I really want to see the profit coming winter.
Agree. The only point that I would add is that the actual manufacturer is no doubt involved in specs and testing hence one could presume that if thin is in then that is because it was deemed to be good too.