– New tablet to challenge Amazon.com, Google and other rivals
Apple Inc. lifted the wraps Tuesday on a new, smaller tablet device called the iPad mini that will ship on Nov. 2 at a starting price of $329.
Apple (US:AAPL) unveiled the new tablet at a media event in San Jose, Calif., in a move that had been anticipated for months. Most of the company’s competitors in the tablet market have been releasing devices that are smaller and cheaper than the 10-inch iPad that carries a starting price of $500.
Also unveiled at the event was a re-designed iMac and MacBook Pro line of laptops. Apple also updated its main 10-inch iPad with the latest chip that is also used in the iPhone 5.
The new iPad mini will compete directly against devices such as the Kindle Fire from Amazon.com Inc. (US:AMZN), the Nexus 7 from Google Inc. (US:GOOG) and the Nook tablet from Barnes & Noble Inc. (US:BKS), as well as the 7-inch Galaxy Tab from Samsung (KR:005930) — all of which feature roughly 7-inch screen sizes and cost around $200.
The launch of the iPad mini was seen by Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook as the culmination of a year of innovation for Apple, which already included a new iPad and the iPhone 5 earlier this year.
“We’re not taking our foot off the gas,” Cook remarked at the event, touting the success of the iPad line thus far.
Apple shares closed trading down 3.3% at $613.36, having accelerated losses during the event. Many had expected the iPad mini to come in at a price point in the $250-$300 range.
Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray called the iPad mini’s starting price “slightly higher than our expectation,” but added in a note to clients that the higher price “does not impact our thoughts on consumer demand for the iPad Mini.”
Stuart Jeffrey of Nomura wrote that the products announced Tuesday “are exciting on a standalone basis, but all could also be described as incremental improvements. We see limited impact on earnings estimates, as both the nature and price of the product announcements broadly met expectations.”
The iPad mini uses the A5 chip similar to the iPad 2. The screen is 7.9-inches measured diagonally, making it a little larger than rival 7-inch tablets like the Kindle Fire. The new tablet will come in three models: 16-gigabytes of storage fro $329. a 32GB device for $429 and a 64GB model for $529. Models that are capable of running on cellular networks as well as on Wi-Fi will cost an additional $129 each.
The 10-inch iPad already rules the overall tablet market; IHS iSuppli estimates that Apple accounts for roughly two-thirds of all tablet sales. But the next strongest competitors have been 7-inch devices from Amazon, Samsung and others, demonstrating there’s a sizable niche for a smaller tablet.
– MarketWatch