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iPad mini, 13-inch retina MacBook Pro, razor thin iMac, and Mac Mini update
As expected, Apple announced a new, smaller, 7.9-inch iPad called the iPad mini in San Jose today, as well as a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with retina display and updates to both the Mac Mini and a new slimmed down version of the iMac.
Tim Cook also announced that 3 million iPods from the recently refreshed lineup have been sold and that 200 million iDevices have now been updated to iOS 6.
Here’s a summary of everything that was announced. Enjoy.
iPad mini — 7.9-inch display, starts at US$329
The new 7.9-inch iPad mini is just 7.2mm thin. That’s 23% thinner than the standard 9.7-inch version. It’s also 53% lighter.
Like its bigger brother, the mini has a dual-core A5 chip and a 1024 x 768 resolution display, but as it has a smaller surface area, it boasts a higher pixel density.
It comes in both LTE and W-Fi versions, and starts at US$329.
13-inch MacBook Pro — 2560 x 1600 Retina display
The 13-inch MacBook Pro is Apple’s number one selling computer and today, received the same treatment as the 15-inch version. It now features a 2560 x 1600 resolution display.
It’s also just 0.75-inches thin; that’s 20% thinner than the previous version.
The base model starts at US$1699.
iMac — 80% thinner, drop-dead gorgeous
A new iMac with an incredibly thin profile was also introduced today. Its edge is just 5mm thin; that’s 80% thinner than the previous generation iMac.
There are two models. The 27-inch version has a 2560 x 1440 resolution display, while the 21.5-inch version has a 1920 x 1080 display.
Apple also introduced the Fusion Drive, a 128GB flash storage + 1TB or 3TB HDD combination drive fused into single volume. The flash storage is used to store the operating system for fast writes and reads.
The 21.5-inch has a 2.7GHz quad-core i5 CPU and starts at US$1299 and the 27-inch 2.9 GHz quad-core i5 version, starts at US$1799.
The Mac Mini received a long awaited update.
There’s a new 2.5GHz dual-core i5 version with 4GB RAM and 500GB hard drive as well as a 2.3GHz quad-core i7 “server” edition with 4GB of RAM and two 1TB hard drives.
It starts at US$599.
4th generation iPad
The standard 9.7-inch iPad received a spec bump and now features an A6X chip which is double the speed of the previous version. Of course, it will now also ship with the new Lightning connector.
Other Updates
The new iPod lineup has sold 3 million to date.
200 million iOS devices have been updated to iOS 6
125 million documents have been uploaded to iCloud.
300 billion messages have been sent on iMessage. That’s 28 000 messages per second.
There are now 160 million Game Center accounts.
70 million photos have been shared on iOS 6 Photo Streams.
There are 700 000 apps (275 000 for iPad) in the App Store.
35 billion apps have been downloaded in total.
US$6.5-billion have been paid out to developers.
There are 1.5 million books available on iBooks and 400 million have been downloaded.
A new version of iBooks was introduced today and has continuous scrolling, sharing and iCloud syncing. It also has Chinese and Japanese character support.
Apple recorded 15% year-over-year growth for the Mac compared to 2% for the PC market.
The iMac is the #1 selling desktop in US and MacBook the #1 selling notebook in the US.
100 million iPads have been sold to date.
iPad is said to account for 91% of tablet web traffic.
