Apple Inc is expected to launch its much-awaited iPad Mini at an event on October 23, according to latest reports.
Late Apple chief Steve Jobs had criticized the idea of mini slate publicly but the Cupertino giant decided to come up with an iPad Mini. The latest report published in AllThingsD said that Apple will showcase the smaller version of iPad at an event on October 23.
"People familiar with Apple's plans tell us that the company will unveil the so-called "iPad mini" on Oct. 23 at an invitation-only event," a source told AllThingsD. The source declined to reveal the venue of the event, but it is widely speculated that the event is likely to happen at Apple's Town Hall Auditorium which hosted launch of OS X Lion, a next-generation MacBook Air and the iPhone 4S.
Apple iPad mini is likely to come out with a screen between 7 and 8 inches which are highly similar to the size of Amazon's Kindle Fire HD tablet and Google's Nexus 7.
"We actually had the opportunity to play with a pilot iPad Mini used by one of the vendors," Topeka Capital analyst Brian White told Reuters. "This 7.85-inch iPad Mini fit our hands like a glove and we were easily able to tuck the device in our sport coat, offering consumers a more mobile iPad experience for certain use cases."
Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that the Apple's mini iPad launch will happen ahead of Microsoft Corp latest operating system, Windows 8 launch, which is scheduled for October 26. Although the rumours are doing around well about the iPad mini, there is something which would make Apple a little worried. The latest survey report of TechBargins.com revealed that only 18 percent of US consumers would consider purchasing Apple's latest iteration.
