“The release of Apple’s new iPad Mini on Tuesday lacked the finesse of a typical Apple product release,” Brian X. Chen reports for The New York Times. “It also lacked a lot of the pomp.”
“The tablet went on sale on Apple’s online store early Tuesday morning,” Chen reports. “While customers can order the tablet online, they cannot walk into a store and pick one up. Customers must reserve the tablet online if they want to pick it up in an Apple retail store wherever it is available.”
“It has been evident that Apple was struggling to make enough iPad Mini tablets for the coming holiday season. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said on the company’s recent earnings call that it was ‘unclear if we will have enough’ of the devices this quarter,” Chen reports. “And some research firms that track components earlier predicted that the supply of the Mini would be constrained because of limited production of its Retina display.”
Read more in the full article here.
Apple’s press release, released hours after sales began:
Apple announced iPad mini with Retina display is available starting today. The new iPad mini brings all the pixels from the 9.7-inch iPad to its 7.9-inch screen, delivering razor sharp text and detail in an amazingly thin and light design. It features the powerful and power-efficient Apple-designed A7 chip with 64-bit desktop-class architecture, ultrafast wireless with faster built-in Wi-Fi and expanded LTE cellular connectivity, iOS 7 featuring hundreds of great new features and access to all 475,000 apps designed specifically for iPad.
“The response to iPad Air has been incredible, and we’re excited for customers to experience the new iPad mini with Retina display,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “We think customers will love both of these thin, light, powerful new iPads, and we’re working hard to get as many as we can in the hands of our customers.”
Pricing & Availability
iPad mini with Retina display will be available starting today in silver or space gray. iPad mini with Retina display Wi-Fi models will be available for a suggested retail price of $399 (US) for the 16GB model, $499 (US) for the 32GB model, $599 (US) for the 64GB model and $699 (US) for the 128GB model. iPad mini with Retina display Wi-Fi + Cellular models will be available for a suggested retail price of $529 (US) for the 16GB model, $629 (US) for the 32GB model, $729 (US) for the 64GB model and $829 (US) for the 128GB model. Additionally, the original iPad mini continues to be available at the more affordable price of $299 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and $429 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model for either AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon.
Custom-designed polyurethane Smart Covers for iPad mini with Retina display and iPad mini are available for $39 (US) in a range of vibrant colors, including blue, green, pink, yellow, black and (RED). Additionally, a beautiful aniline-dyed leather iPad mini Smart Case is available in six rich colors, including yellow, beige, blue, brown, black and (RED) for a suggested retail price of $69 (US) for both models of iPad mini. Smart Covers and Smart Cases are available through the Apple Online Store, Apple’s retail stores and select Authorized Apple Resellers.
iPad mini with Retina display is available to order through the Apple Online Store to ship or through Personal Pickup at Apple’s retail stores, and through AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and select Apple Authorized Resellers.
Source: Apple Inc.
Related articles:
Dalrymple reviews Retina iPad mini: ‘As much as I love the Air, I still find myself reaching for the iPad mini’ – November 12, 2013
Apple starts online sales of iPad mini with Retina display, no in-store pickup available – November 12, 2013
When exactly did they announce it? Why bother picking it up? Just have it shipped, easier.
I looked at the iPad Air & iPad mini home screen and was immediately struck by how close it hewed to the Android look and feel with flat featureless icons. I’ll stick with my Mac for now. At least OS X looks like a real operating system, not a dumbed down toy with flat ugly icons that are actually painful to look at and even more painful to use.
Troll and/or shill. Please delete this post. Note the language is identical to previous troll/shill posts on MDN. Claims to be a Mac/iOS user and slams iOS 7. User name gives it away immediately.
It’s not an “account”, just another unregistered user.
Yes I know, but the user name is consistent with paid shills/trolls.
But he is dead right. iOS 7 is full of a crappy UI and bad design and horrible colors (all white every, are you kidding??). I can only stand it on my ipad Air because its so fast light and thin. My mother who upgraded her iPad without realizing what she was doing can’t stand it and wants to go back. We are not alone !
Great headline “silently starts sales” — was Apple supposed to have a parade or something– plus everyone knows as of this morning, so not to sure about the silent suggestion– very very little is silent or secretive at Apple anymore !!
Gee, not so silently. I heard it on AM radio this morning.
Oh no! Apple is doomed or something. They didn’t hold a media event for this pundit.
128 Space Gray Verizon on order.
Boom!
me too……!!!
Me three
Me four!
Apple is determined to get available inventory into the hands of end consumers and not the Ebay scalpers and overseas resellers that typically clog the lines outside stores at product launches. Way to go.
Tim Cook era. Blundering right along. Announce new product then not have sufficient supply to meet the demand. Tim Cook era.
So you’re saying Apple should have not announced the mini this year, forcing them to avoid all the positive marketing hype of the holiday shopping season, avoid the chance to get mindshare, and force a lot of potential customers to buy competitor’s products?
Now people know they want the retina mini, and will ask for gift cards to be able to wait for when they become available, rather than accepting some also-ran.
And yeah, I get what you’re trying to say – but it doesn’t make sense. If it were humanly possible for Apple to have enough product for everyone who wants one right now, you think they wouldn’t have it already? Research and development calendars don’t always match the real world.
And as for Tim Cook, you’re forgetting that the same thing happened for each and every ‘wow’ product that came out under Steve Jobs. Be happy that demand for Apple product releases still exceeds supply. I haven’t heard that anyone else in the business has that problem.