Rain Makers

Apple bullies Google on the Playground and announces a bunch of new Products

October 23, 2012 , 0 Frank Gurnee

Fight, fight, fight, fight… The latest Apple event had Apple calling out Google for a brawl of the tablets. With a rarely seen competitive stance, Apple compared its newly announced iPad mini tablet to the Google Nexus 7 Android device. Pointing out key differences such as the Nexus plastic body, smaller screen, and the “scaled up phone apps” that the Nexus 7 uses rather than native apps like the iPad.

This wasn’t the only surprise at the event. Of course everyone was expecting the new iPad mini to be announced, but Apple had a slew of other announcements that wowed the audience. There were some number announcements; the iPhone 5 sold the most phones in a single weekend with over 5 million new phones sold. 3 million new iPods have been sold since the new lineup was released. 200 million devices now run iOS6, giving iOS6 the title of fastest upgrade rate of any software in history. 300 billion messages have been sent through iMessage with an astounding 28k iMessages per second. 70 million photos have been shared since PhotoStream was introduced, 35 billion apps have been downloaded from the app store, and 400 million books have been downloaded for iBooks. Whew those are a lot of numbers.

Apple announced a new version of iBooks, which has continuous scroll, better integration with icloud, shared quotes through facebook and twitter, as well as auto language conversion. The new version is available today as a free download. Apple went on to talk about the MAC with some pretty startling figures. According to Apple the MAC has outgrown the PC market 7X and is the #1 selling Desktop and Notebook in the US. These numbers led to Apple’s announcement of its new Macbook Pro 13.3” with Retina display.

Macbook Pro 13.3″ Retina

20%thinner

3.57 lbs lightest macbook pro ever

2 thunderbolt ports

2x usb 3 ports

headphone

dual microphones

retina display 13.3” 2560×1600 pxls

$1699 starting price with 2.5ghz i5, 8gb Ram

The next announcement in the MAC family was an all-new MAC Mini. The new MAC Mini provides an easily upgradeable mini system that allows easy access to components such as ram for upgrade. There will be two configurations including a new server configuration of the mini, which allows up to a quad core processor and provides one of the smallest form factors I have seen.

MAC mini starts at a reasonable $599 for the base unit and server units start at $999

Apple continued the event with a newly redesigned iMac. The iMac touted as the #1 selling desktop in the US has gotten a complete overhaul. With a new ultra thin design, upgraded facetime HD camera, 8lbs less weight and an all new fusion drive option which is a hybrid SSD and traditional hard drive built into a single drive, which promises faster speeds than traditional hard drives and near solid state performance; the new iMac looks to be a definite pleaser.

iMAC

edge to edge glass 5mm thin

21.5 inch and 27 inch option

full lamination design

facetime hd camera

dual microphones

8lb less

i5 or i7 up to 32GB ram

up to 768gb flash or up to 3TB hdd

Apple fusion drive option 128gb of flash combined or fused with 1tb or 3tb of hdd

wireless keyboard and magic mouse

21.5 inch 8gb ram 1TB hdd starts at $1299 ships in November

27 inch starts at $1799 ships in December

Moving into the anticipated iPad mini announcement Apple surprised the crowd yet again with the unveiling of a 4^th generation iPad to replace the shorted lived original retina display iPad. The new 4^th gen device adds a new A6X processor that doubles speed and graphics capabilities, the new Apple lightning connector, and a number of additional upgrades.

iPad 4^th Generation

Apple A6X chip

10 hours of battery life

facetime hd

expanded LTE

2x faster wifi

lightning connector

retina display

black or white

16gb wifi at $499

$629 with cellular

Leaving the most anticipated and talked about item for last Apple revealed the iPad mini. A 7.9” version of the popular tablet device which works with all current iPad apps and provides a surprising number of grown up features in the small package.

iPad mini

7.2mm thin

.68 lbs

7.9” Screen

1024×768 resolution

Aluminum enclosure

dual core A5 chip

facetime HD on front

5MP iSight rear camera

LTE wireless capability

Faster wifi

Lightning connector

10hour battery life

16gb memory

ipad mini starts $329 for the wifi version

pre-order October 26^th

cellular option 2 weeks later

The new iPad mini will be a popular choice going into the Christmas season. The new device will fit in one hand and surely be a hit. It is a little surprising that Apple didn’t opt for the ultimate $299 price point, but maybe they just knew they didn’t have to. At $299 the mini would have been a no brainer for many, but just moving into the three hundred dollar price range may deter some. What I do know is Apple has just bullied Google on the playground, and it will be interesting to see how Google responds to such a public display of intimidation. The tablet war has officially begun.