I'm liking the mockups better than the iLounge description! Still enough side margin to rest a thumb and grip one-handed without frequent mistaken touches. Hope it's real. Looks like it... but then again it's also an obvious guess to make, if someone were to do a fake.
I don't like white (neat at first glance, but it reflects light and makes the screen seem dimmer). And I do not like the monotonous all-black scheme of the iPad Mini and iPhone 5. But for some reason, the all-black makes a Smart Cover look great to me. Red especially.
Consumers don't care about DPI numbers. Developers don't either: they care that the pixel dimensions (be they 1x or 2x) are the same. The iPhone and iPod Touch already have the same DPI as a retina Mini would, and yes, it's higher than an iPad, but they all look awesome. They all have a DPI appropriate to viewing distance. If the iPod Touch can have higher DPI than an iPad, then why can't a Mini (when cost/power/performance allow)?
So you may be certain Apple WILL offer a retina Mini, and that it WILL of necessity have higher DPI (but same pixel count) as the larger iPad. I tend to think it won't happen until next year, and it when it does happen, I expect a non-retina Mini to hang around on the low-end. (In fact, I think the Mini's current pricing was designed specifically to help retina happen... and then a non-retina Mini would be cheaper than any current Mini. Spring 2014? I'd love it sooner of course...)
I don't like white (neat at first glance, but it reflects light and makes the screen seem dimmer). And I do not like the monotonous all-black scheme of the iPad Mini and iPhone 5. But for some reason, the all-black makes a Smart Cover look great to me. Red especially.
This looks really really good. However, it also means that there is not going to be a retina Mini.
There's no way Apple would do both an iPad 5 and a Mini that are so similar, the Mini being the low-end cheaper model, while having much higher DPI than the premium iPad 5. Not going to happen.
Consumers don't care about DPI numbers. Developers don't either: they care that the pixel dimensions (be they 1x or 2x) are the same. The iPhone and iPod Touch already have the same DPI as a retina Mini would, and yes, it's higher than an iPad, but they all look awesome. They all have a DPI appropriate to viewing distance. If the iPod Touch can have higher DPI than an iPad, then why can't a Mini (when cost/power/performance allow)?
So you may be certain Apple WILL offer a retina Mini, and that it WILL of necessity have higher DPI (but same pixel count) as the larger iPad. I tend to think it won't happen until next year, and it when it does happen, I expect a non-retina Mini to hang around on the low-end. (In fact, I think the Mini's current pricing was designed specifically to help retina happen... and then a non-retina Mini would be cheaper than any current Mini. Spring 2014? I'd love it sooner of course...)
Last edited: