iPad – The Daily Opinion

Apple iPad Mini Event – Do We Really Need That?

On the 23rd of October, Apple held an event as usual telling the world that they’ve got “a little more” to show you. Now Apple is never very subtle regarding these things and from the rumors before, it was beyond all reasonable doubt that the Cupertino giant was going to release a smaller iPad.

The event started in usual Apple fashion with a whole bunch of statistics pertaining to why their company is the greatest. Three million iPod sales, 200 million devices running iOS 6 (not mine) and over three billion iMessages sent. Awesome.

A more significant statistic was the fact that Apple has sold over 100 million iPads in two-and-a-half years. Apple revealed that Apple sold more in the June quarter (Q3) more iPads than any PC maker has actually sold units.

So up came Phil Schiller, and the moment everyone was waiting for: the iPad Mini. The device has a screen measuring 7.9 inches and has a resolution of 1024×768. No retina here. However, having the same resolution as the iPad 1 and 2 means that most apps will work fine. The iPad Mini also has virtually the same specifications as the iPad 2 with the same A5 CPU, same GPU, same RAM and storage options. In fact it would probably be easier to highlight the things that aren’t the same such as the cameras, whereas the iPad 2 has VGA front facing and 720p rear facing, the iPad Mini has 720p front facing and 5 megapixel rear with 1080p video, which I suspect is the same hardware found in the 4S. Another feature the Mini has over the iPad 2 is 4G LTE.

The great question is, why would you buy a iPad Mini? If your iPhone 4S/5 is too small and your iPad is too big then you have problems. The way I see it, most people buying this will be the iSheep who will buy an iPoo without question because it was made by Apple. The other customers will probably include those who want to have an eReader sized tablet that has a bit more functionality than your everyday Kindle. I have serious suspicions over the lack of retina level resolution and I think that Apple may be gearing up themselves for a refresh that brings the higher resolution display. Hey, what can I say apart from ‘mo’ money’. The evolution of Apple mobile products is humourously demonstrated in this photo:

From that track record, these devices much mean in the middle so I predict a Apple iPod Touch Note (Samsung reference totally intentional) measuring in with a 5.5 inch display.

The event was not just about the Mini but also about Apple’s other products. The regular iPad got a minor spec bump to the 4th generation. The newer New iPad has a quicker A6X chip with an updated front facing camera, LTE improved WiFi and 10 hours of battery life whilst maintaining the same price as the original New iPad that it replaces. Now you can buy either the iPad 2 or the better specced iPad Mini for less or the 4th gen iPad. That’s the amazing kind of logic that sees the 6th iPhone named as the iPhone 5.

After the 15 inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, it was only a matter of time before we saw the same design and features to grace the smaller versions. In the same event, Apple unveiled the 13 inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. This new iteration has the same slimmer body structure as it is void of any disc drive and with a very high resolution display of 2560 x 1600. The same amount of pixels as was in the once popular Apple 30″ Cinema Display. Apple’s decision of maintaining the same 16:10 aspect ratio will always be constant topic of debate. This will always be confusing for many new customers as the 11″ MacBook Air is 16:9, any of the 13″ or 15″ MacBook Air/Pros are 16:10 and the iMacs are 16:9. Totally logical, I know.

Finally, the Apple iMac was given a much awaited refresh. The 21.5 and 27 inch models have received a complete redesign. The back of these All-In-One’s have a surface that tapers so much that it gives the illusion that the iMac is much thinner than it actually is. The very sides of the new iMacs are a mere 5mm thick but much thicker in the middle. The new iMacs also introduce new graphics cards from nVidia with the top end one being the GTX 680MX, effectively a slightly downclocked desktop GTX 680 which is decent to say the least. However that particular GPU is still a mobile GPU and I expect modern gaming laptops will start shipping with those soon. The new iMacs also introduce some new storage technology called Fusion Drive that seeks to use SSDs and HDDs in tandem to increase performance while maintaining drive size…wait isn’t that what Seagate had as their Hybrid Drive? I seem to remember that Fusion io had something similar, oh and what about Intel Caching technology? Hmm…

And to finish, a closing word – sucks if anyone bought an iPad 3. Actually, sucks for anyone to have bought an Apple product this year at all. With slowing innovation in their mobile line and general overpricing of their other products (some of which I personally think are good in terms of hardware specs), I might genuinely have to think about moving my music library from iTunes to another provider…

The Unstealable Object

There have been many people who have wondered whether it’s possible to find an object that can’t be stolen. This object is safe and you don’t have to go out of your way to keep it safe. As technology levels increase we are undoubtedly getting closer to the time when thieves actually become good people, but will it be a day that will ever come?

In my opinion no. Let’s look at it like this. Yes, technology is increasing and we are now getting stories where stolen laptops, iPads, and iPhones have anti-theft software that can tell the owner where it is and even who stole it by taking remote photographs. Most thieves are generally morons so they usually don’t notice or take into account software like this. So it will certainly increase the number of items that are returned to the owner.

Going back to my point about the thief community being made up of mainly idiots who couldn’t exist in a real job, it’s a certainty that more of these will be caught. However, if they are stupid then they are still going to try to steal it as they will believe, wrongly, that they will get away with it. This is not an unstealable object. Just because the object happens to be returned doesn’t really mean anything. That means that your iPads and your iPhones are still at risk. All you are doing is giving yourself a better shot of catching the individual who did it in the first place.

Will it reduce the levels of people trying it? I think it will as some thieves are smart enough to not go for high-risk objects. And if everything becomes a high-risk objects then they’ll give the game up and just go back to leaching off of state benefits instead. So there’s a point in introducing all of this anti-theft software as it will reduce the levels of people who are stealing.

But there’s also a risk. Thieves have existed since humanity began and they will exist until humanity ends. So that tells us that they are more than capable of moving along with the times. If we move into a world where technology protects everything from sticky fingers then they will just move with the times again. In the beginning there will be a reduction in crime as they struggle to adapt to the new world of anti-theft tools, but eventually they’ll adapt.

Personally, I think we will see a world with a smarter criminal. You will still have your petty thieves who try to steal a packet of cigarettes from the local shop, but I think that the large majority will simply move online. It’s a well-known fact that as more people become connected to the internet the levels of cyber crime just increase. So in the future it will be the thieves acting from a remote base who will be the biggest threat. It will create a smarter thief. And I daresay that it will create more of them because if you steal from home then it takes less courage and less bravado than it does to walk into a store and take something off of the shelves.

Is Apple Developing a Smaller iPad?

Cult of Mac is reporting news of more Apple rumours. Speculation is always rife around Apple, and it quite often turns out to be wrong – from the iPhone 5 announcement speculated to be last year to rumours that it would have a 4″ screen. Nonetheless, the speculations are worth exploring and they sometimes turn out to be true.

One of the arguments is that a smaller iPad will be used to rival the Samsung Note, which is apparently competition because it comes equipped with a stylus. The obvious response to this is that many phones came with a stylus just a few years ago, but the move to capacitive screens – which Apple spearheaded – forced the move away from styluses. The suggestion that the Note will have an impact is to suggest that we should have just stuck with PDAs. As for the Samsung Note being a competitor, it should be mentioned that with the iPad being nothing more than a bigger iPhone, Apple already have an iPad with a smaller stature.

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