“So now we know the date of Apple’s next launch, Tuesday October 23rd, and everything is pointing towards the announcement of the iPad Mini. Of course many in the Cupertino-watching industry were expecting an announcement last week. Why go for a date later in the month?” Ewan Spence writes for Forbes. “That could simply be a logistics issue, an area of the software or production that needed a few more days testing to sign off, or perhaps this the plan all along – to gain extra publicity from the earlier date and feed this into the increasing hype around the iPad Mini.”
“The 23rd of October is a very useful date for the success of Apple’s diminutive tablet,” Spence writes. “It’s going to occupy a lot of column inches, covering the launch, reporting on the first few journalists who get review units, discussions over the pricing and the strategy, and that is going to take a lot of the oxygen out of the tech circles. Apple would gain this coverage any point in October, so this isn’t a case of the PR team making sure there are no competing stories. In fact it’s the complete opposite. Apple has rolled up a very loud truck onto Microsoft’s media lawn.”
Spence writes, “Microsoft will be debuting Windows 8 that week, with the initial release schedule for October 26th. It’s fair to say that Microsoft is putting a lot of effort into marketing and getting the word out – and with Cupertino’s invite, they’re not going to be the focus of the story… While the clash with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 is intriguing, the biggest clash is going to be against Microsoft’s own hardware launch with the Surface RT Tablet… In the days after Microsoft’s announcements, it’s likely the iPad Mini will go on sale, with record numbers, huge queues, and the digital column inches flooded once more with glowing reviews of the latest Apple product.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
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