Posts tagged: iPad Mini

New iPads coming in 2019

Apple will reportedly be launching a new fifth-generation iPad mini model as well as a new entry-level iPad.

 

The new model – if real – is said to have an upgraded processor and a lower-cost display panel, whereas the entry-level iPad will  feature a 10-inch display within a narrower frame. There is also the possibility of two different versions of the entry level iPad.

 

The current entry level iPad supports Apple Pencil and is priced starting at $329.

 

By the way – How are we talking about 2019 already? Like it’s next week or something? Slow down, time.

 

 

New models all over the place! Here’s what happened in the Apple world today.

First things first! THE RED PHONE

 

AND now if you’re anything like us you have Hotline Bling stuck in your head for the rest of the day. You’re welcome?

 

 

Apple today announced a special edition (PRODUCT)RED iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus that will launch this coming Friday, March 24.

 

These swanky models will be available in 128GB and 256GB for the same $749/$849 and $869/$969 prices as the others.

 

 

The model is in recognition of more than 10 years of partnership between Apple and the Charity (RED). Every purchase contributes to the Global Fund to support HIV/AIDS programs and help deliver an AIDS-free generation

 

From the Primo Sauce, Mr Cook, CEO:

 

“Since we began working with (RED) 10 years ago, our customers have made a significant impact in fighting the spread of AIDS through the purchase of our products, from the original iPod nano (PRODUCT)RED Special Edition all the way to today’s lineup of Beats products and accessories for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. The introduction of this special edition iPhone in a gorgeous red finish is our biggest (PRODUCT)RED offering to date in celebration of our partnership with (RED), and we can’t wait to get it into customers’ hands.”

 

The new (PRODUCT)RED iPhone will be available to order on Apple’s website, at Apple Stores, and at select authorized resellers and carriers and will ship by the end of March in the US and more than 40 countries and regions around the world.

 

NEXT! New models, new prices and discontinuations!

 

 

Apple introduced a new low-cost 9.7-inch iPad, a newly priced iPad mini 4 is available now on Apple.com in Silver, Gold, and Space Gray and they’ve discontinued the iPad mini 2.

 

The iPad mini 4 now offers more capacity for the same price. The 128GB model with Wi-Fi now starts at $399, which was previously the price for the 32GB model with Wi-Fi, which has been discontinued. A cellular model with 128GB of storage is also available for $529.

 

The new 9.7-inch iPad, which Apple are just calling ‘iPad’ is equipped with an A9 chip and a brighter Retina display to replace the iPad Air 2, which has also been discontinued.  The 9.7-inch size will be Apple’s new entry-level model, starting at $329 for 32GB and $429 for 128GB.

 

The specs of the new 9.7-inch iPad are as follows:

 

9.7-inch screen with 2,048‑by‑1,536 resolution and 264 PPI.

8-megapixel rear-facing iSight camera.

1.2-megapixel front-facing FaceTime camera.

Two speakers, Lightning connector, 3.5mm headphone jack, Touch ID with Apple Pay, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, and Bluetooth 4.2.

 

From the Sauce,Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing:

 

“iPad is the world’s most popular tablet. Customers love the large, 9.7-inch display for everything from watching TV and movies, to surfing the web, making FaceTime calls, and enjoying photos, and now it is even more affordable. New customers and anyone looking to upgrade will love this new iPad for use at home, in school, and for work, with its gorgeous Retina display, our powerful A9 chip, and access to the more than 1.3 million apps designed specifically for it.”

 

The 9.7-inch iPad is available to order beginning Friday, March 24 from Apple.com.

 

 

Apple Special Media Event!

meda

 

So the Apple Special media event happened!  But! What actually happened?

 

 

Tim Cook began the event with a little spiel about how great Apple has been doing this year with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus being the fastest selling iPhones in history, rolled out now in 32 Countries, and rolling out in China today.

 

 

He went on to talk about how Apple Pay is cool, with 500 more banks signed up to partner with Apple on the payment system so far, and more retailers coming on board too. Apple pay is launching this Monday October 20th! 

 

 

The CEO then spoke about how proud they are of the Apple Watch, how it’s super rad and has been on the cover of Vogue China!  Watchkit (for the benefit of potential Apple Watch developers) will be available next month. Christmas time is App making time, yo!

 

 

Mr Craig Federighi came on stage then to talk about software, with iOS 8 get the first spotlight. He explained that 48% of Apple customers are using the new iOS so far and 94% are using either iOS 8 or iOS 7.  They have apparently been listening to customer feedback to improve the user experience. The example he makes for this is that they’re bringing back the camera roll.

 

iOS 8.1 will be available free on Monday!

 

 

Now on to OS X Yosemite. It’s cool. It has cool features.  AND it will be available free from the Mac App Store today!  Check out our rundown of the features of OS X Yosemite here.

 

 

ALSO: New iWork for iOS and Mac is available today, for free. 

 

 

Tim Cook came back on stage to talk about iPads. They’re cool, there’s 675,000 apps in the app store for them, a 100% customer satisfaction rating for the Retina Mini, they’re the best iPads ever, aaaaand he introduces a thinner iPad Air, now available in Gold. According to Phil Schiller, it’s pretty thin: ‘6.1mm thick, 18% thinner. Thinnest iPad ever. World’s thinnest tablet.’

 

And: two iPad Air’s  on top of one another are still thinner than an original iPad. Technology, you be silly.

 

 

It has a sharper image, an A8X chip, 2nd-gen 64-bit architecture, 3 billion transistors, 40% faster CPU, and 2.5x faster GPU.

 

 

New anti-reflective coating reduces reflection by 56% and it has a 10 hour battery life. Features include an 8MP iSight camera with 2.4 aperture, 1080p HD video, Apple-designed image signal processor and a M8 coprocessor.

 

 

It will be capable of taking panoramas up to 43 megapixels, burst mode photos , Slo-mo video at 720p FPS and Time-lapse photos.
It will come equipped with faster Wi-Fi, 80211ac with MIMO.  There’s a new FaceTime camera on the front with larger 2.2 aperture, 81% more light, improved face detection, burst selfies, Single-shot HDR photos and HDR videos.

 

 

AND it will come with Touch ID fingerprint scanner and be able to support Apple Pay.

 

 

We will now have Pixelmator for iPad Air as well as a new video editing app called Replay.

 

 

iPad Air 2 will retail for $499/599/699 for 16GB/64GB/128GB in Wi-Fi versions. Silver, Space Gray, Gold.

 

Cellular versions will be offered at $629/729/829.

 

 

The iPad Mini is getting a mini update too!  This third generation comes in Silver, Space Grey & Gold and comes equipped with the Touch ID.  Selling for $399/499/599 for 16GB/64GB/128GB Cellular for $529/629/729.

 

 

You can pre-order an iPad Air 2 or an iPad Mini 3 tomorrow, and shipping starts next week.

 

 

NOW. 30th birthday of the Mac y’all! Macs are cool.

 

 

Tim Cook introduced a new iMac with 5K retina display. How many K retina display? 5. 5K.

 

5120×2880, 67% more pixels than 4K. It’s got a 27″ display, with 14.7 million pixels which makes it the world’s highest resolution display. Retina 5K display.

 

 

The new iMac comes equipped with Thunderbolt 2, Fusion Drive, 3.5GHz quad-core i5, upgradable to 4.0GHz quad-core i7. AMD Radeon $9 M290x, upgradable to M295X.

 

 

New iMac with Retina 5K starts at $2499. Shipping today!

 

 

And finally, the Mac Mini , such a cute little fella, he gets an update too with a 4th-gen Intel Core processor, Intel Iris and HD Graphics, PCIe-based flash storage, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and 2 Thunderbolt 2 ports. 

 

 

New mini starts at $499. Starts shipping today! 

 

 

And that’s it folks! Tim Cook signed off with this:

 

 

“Designed to be incredible products individually. Also designed to work together seamlessly. Because we create both the hardware and the software, we can deliver something that no one else can do. A simple, intuitive and yes, magical experience for our customers.This is our vision of personal technology. And we are just getting started.”

 

 

What do you think? Pretty solid updates, but nothing super exciting? 5k is pretty exciting, and everything seems to be getting more cohesive as a group of products that can work beautifully together. We’ll need to get our hands on some iPad Air 2’s to see just how close they come to stacking up to an original, because 6.1mm thick is not thick and stacking iPads sounds like fun. We’re pretty excited to try out Apple Pay on Monday, and get OS X Yosemite too.

 

Not sure it was “Apple special Media event’ worthy, but there’s a pretty solid little set of updates for us.

 

 

 

Christmas Gift guide Part 3 – Tips & Tricks for buying tech this Christmas!

 

 

 

 

We told you we loved Christmas right? We also really like deals. Deals, tips, tricks, writlefifers, all of it. This is why we now proudly present the Christmas Gift Guide Part 3 – Tips & Tricks for buying Tech this Christmas!

 

( See our other Christmas Guides, Part 1 -Comprehensive Holiday Tech Gift Guide and Part 2 – The Really Really Expensive Gift Guide.)

 

 

According to Macrumors, Apple now has an official policy on price matching, which allows specialists to price match iPhones, iPads, and Macs, giving up to 10 percent off on products without authorization. Specialists are also allowed to give business customers up to 20% off a non-Apple accessory when purchased with an Apple product via special order.

Apple also has free shipping now through December 22nd.

 

If you’re thinking of buying that special someone a Smartphone this holiday season, you should get yourself along to Whistleblower – a fantastic tool that you can use to compare cell phone plans online, and see which one is best for your needs and your budget!

 

If you use Amazon ( and you should)  you should be aware of a couple of things. Firstly, they will price match on cell phones and televisions within 14 days of shipment of the product.  Click here to see the details. 

 

Amazon also offers 3-months of Amazon Prime Membership for free for parents & caregivers. This includes Free 2-day shipping on qualifying items, 30% off Select Diapers & Wipes which qualify for subscribe & save (15% discount + 15% S&S discount, an additional month of Amazon Prime for each $25 you spend on a single order (up to 1 year total of free prime) and exclusive e-mail discounts and offers.

Click here to check it out.

 

 

If you’re a college student you can also get free Prime membership for 6 months and only $39/year after that as well as a $5 credit for each friend you refer.  Click here to sign up.

 

 

College students should also click here to apply for Best Buy’s student discounts, all you need is your student email address ( must end in .edu). With this, you’ll save $50 on MacBooks and receive similar discounts in your email.

 

 

College students also save up to $200 off a MacBook with Apple’s education pricing.

 

You guys should definitely check out the refurbished products on the Apple special deals page here. You can find deals like the iPad Mini Wifi 64 Gb with a 1 year warranty for $419, 13 inch MacBook air for $849, or Apple TV for $75.

 

Target’s markdown day is usually Monday for electronics. Markdowns usually take place every two weeks and items will continue to be marked down every two weeks until sold or the discount reaches 75 percent. Markdown schedule’s might vary from store to store, so it won’t hurt to check.

 

You can get a bunch of sweet Mac applications all in one go from MacUpdate in corroboration with Macrumors. For only $39.99, the bundle includes 10 applications such as iStopMotion 3, Anonymiser, and Backblaze. All up it’s worth a cool $360 clams.  Click here to check out the deal.

 

 

And here’s a couple of specific deals you should check out:

 

iPad Mini and iPad Mini with Retina Display Smart Cover by Apple – 19.99 for blue, 14.99 for all others including Red. Free Shipping. Click here to see the deal. 

 

Pioneer A4 WiFi Speaker w/ AirPlay Streaming $80 + Free Shipping save $120! Check it out here.

 

Get a Apple 15.4″ MacBook Pro for $1549.99 with a discount and rebate at MacMall.

 

 

Happy dealing and Writlefifing and Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy of Freechristmaswallpapers & Hqwallbase.com

iPad mini with Retina Display

 

 

 

 

 

Along with the iPad Air, Apple also gave us a shiny new iPad Mini. With Retina display. Yeah, we all knew this was coming, but it’s still awesome. Because Retina is Awesome. D’uh.

 

The new Mini has the same 7.9-inch display BUT with the retina display the screen now has four times the pixels, with a full 2048 x 1536 resolution.

 

It’s ever so slightly heavier and thicker to compensate, but the good guys out there who have held it say that it’s not really noticeable.

 

The other extra on the upgraded iPad Mini? It also comes with the new A7 chip seen in the iPhone 5S. The super fast & super powerful 64-bit A7 processor makes scrolling and everything else notably faster and smoother.

 

The Mini with Retina comes with an improved 5-megapixel camera and the front FaceTime camera comes in HD with larger pixels to help in low light, and duel microphones. It also comes with Multiple-input and Multiple-output tech that gives the device faster Wi-Fi capabilities. It maintains it’s 10 hour battery life.

 

HOW MUCH??

 

 

The Fancy Retina Screen comes at a price, beginning at $399. BUT it is now being offered at 16Gb, 32Gb, 64Gb AND 128Gb.

 

iPad Mini with Retina Display with Wi-Fi – $399 for the 16GB model, $499 for the 32GB model, $599 for the 64GB model and $699 for the 128GB model.

 

iPad Mini with Retina Display with Wi-Fi + Cellular – $529 for the 16GB model, $629 for the 32GB model, $729 for the 64GB model and $829 for the 128GB model.

 

You can still get the original iPad Mini at  LOWER price, with the 16Gb starting at $299 for Wi-Fi and $429 for Wi-Fi + Cellular.

 

They will be available in Space Grey and Silver.

 

WHEN?

 

 

 

It will be at some point in November.

 

 

Also: There are expert analysts who say that the iPad mini with Retina Display will be really hard to get your hands on until early next year (These guys don’t really have a lot to do with Apple themselves, except that they study them and have secret sources and stuff).

 

So, if you’re planning on getting one as a Christmas Present, you better get your best Christmas Present Getting Boots on early, and on well!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy of Apple, TodayIFoundOut, KnowYourMeme & Cactuscreekdaily.com

iPad mini for the WIN!

 

 

 

 

You guys remember a little while back, cloud streaming company Agawi released results from Touchmark benchmarking on Smartphones?

 

You know, when they test to see which smartphone had the best response time, starting from when your fingertip hit the screen to when the response happened?

 

The one that the iPhone 5 smashed like plates on anti-plate day?

 

 

This one. 

 

Yeah, that’s the one.

 

Well they’ve done it again- this time for tablets. And guess what?

 

The iPad mini and the fourth-generation iPad have the most responsive touch screens! Booya!

 

 

In the tests, Agawi tested both iPads, the Microsoft Surface RT, the Kindle Fire HD, the Nexus 7, the Galaxy Tab 3, and the Nvidia SHIELD.

Apple’s iPad mini was the most bestest and Samsung’s Galaxy tab 3 was the least bestest of them all. Sad Face Samsung!

 

There are the results, thanks to Agawi:

 

touchmarktablets

 

Seems like being the bestest at screen response time is becoming a thing for iOS devices. Kinda like wearing hypercolor in the 90’s. That was iPhone Antidote’s thing we were bestest at. Now our thing is buying stinky iPhones.  There’s a path there somewhere.

 

 

What do you guys think, have you used several tablets and experienced a difference in screen response time?

 

 

 

Image courtesy of macorg.com

MORE GOLD DEVICES?

 

Gold iPhone, Tick.

 

BLING SOPHISTICATION

 

 

 

 

Well, tick only for realllllly lucky people so far, but tick in general. There are even companies offering gold stickers for the rest of us shmoes… do you think it’ll have the same effect? huh? hmmm.

 

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

 

Could we be getting a gold iPad?? Some people think so! Chinese website DoNews recently posted photos of a golden colored iPad Mini 2nd Gen with a Touch ID!

 

 

 

As per usual, there’s going to be lots of rumors starting to swirl before the next Apple release.

 

NEXT APPLE RELEASE WHA?

 

Well, yeah. It’s coming. It won’t be as big as the iPhone 5C and 5S, but it will more than likely focus on the iPad slate of products, including a new retina screen iPad Mini and a 5th Gen iPad. AND MAYBE SOME GOLD STUFF TOO SORRY WE’RE IN A CAPILIZATIONY MOOD

 

 

The announcement regarding these product upgrades is suspected to be kinda sorta around October 15th.

 

And we wait!

 

 

 

Image courtesy of iMore.com

We might be able to do what on planes now?

 

 

There are three types of travelers in the world-

 

1, Those who turn their mobile devices off before they’re told to and place them neatly in their carry on bag with a smile.

 

2, Those who wait until the last minute to turn their devices off or (with a sneaky, guilty look) place them on airplane mode before ever so anxiously and reluctantly sliding them into their pocket.

 

AND

 

3, Those who smile as the flight attendant walks by, then checks their email whilst waiting to see when exactly during take off their phone will stop getting service, smiling calmly at anyone who looks in abject horror in their direction.

 

 

This, boys and girls, is because for, like, forever, everyone has had to turn off their phones and other devices capable of transmitting data during take-off and landing.

 

This is so that your device doesn’t interfere with the plane’s communication and navigation equipment.  These rules are, by all accounts, predominantly precautionary.

 

With the rise of portable devices and smartphone capabilities, there has been a similar rise in complaints from really busy business dudes and general everyday people that not being allowed to have their devices on is stupid and bad. Sometimes they even put it more eloquently.

 

Now some of the high up important people might have paid attention!

 

Smile! Because we might soon become one big happy flying family, friends! Except for the people who grab the top of your head from behind when they’re getting up or walking by. Or the people who steal your Apple juice AND blanket ( totally happened). God, those people. We’ll never be family.

 

Anyway.

 

 

By the end of next week, the FAA ( Federal Aviation Administration) will hear back from a panel of industry folk regarding the possible relaxation of the in-flight device rules. Um… AWESOME!

 

 

According to the FAA:

 

“The FAA recognizes consumers are intensely interested in the use of personal electronics aboard aircraft, that is why we tasked a government-industry group to examine the safety issues and the feasibility of changing the current restrictions. . . . We will wait for the group to finish its work before we determine next steps.”

 

( Statement was made to USA Today)

 

 

Well, independent panel of dudes from the flight industry, we eagerly await your results and suggestions!!

 

 

By the way, how awesome is this photo on a scale from 1-100?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy of designboom.com, thesavoia.com & smh.com.au