24 October, SINGAPORE – The rumor sites have got many predictions right this time round. Here is a quick low-downs on Apple’s announcement at today’s media event.
- First up is the new 13″ Macbook Pro. It is a redesigned macbook pro of only 0.75 inch thick and a full pound lighter (3.5 pounds) than the previous generation. Best of all, it comes with the gorgeous retina display, making it the 2nd highest resolution display after the 15 inch Macbook Pro with the 2560 x 1600 resolution. The facetime camera is upgraded to 720p and it has 7 hours of battery life. Amazing. It comes with dual core i5 or i7 processors. The starting price is S$2388 (8 GB RAM, 128 GB flash drive and 2.5 GHz dual core i5) and it ships in 4 to 6 days in Singapore!
- Second announcement is on the Mac Mini. Not much excitement here. The Mac Mini starts at S$788 for the 500 GB model and S$1388 for the 2 x 1 TB HDD model with OS X server. It ships in 5 to 7 days in Singapore.
- Things are getting exciting after the Mac Mini announcement. It is time for the iMac to take center stage. The iMac is redesigned and it looked really thin from a side angle. The new generation of iMac has no optical drive and the display goes from edge to edge. Truly beautiful! The iMac is slightly thicker towards the center of the display to contain all the hardware running it. The 27 inch iMac comes with 2560 x 1440 resolution, while the 21.5 inch has 1920 x 1480. It comes with upgraded 720p facetime camera.Apple also announced the fusion drive, which is basically a combination of flash drive and hard disk drive that will come with the iMac. The flash drive is 128 GB which will contain the iOS and apps, while documents will be stored in the 1 TB to 3 TB HDD. This would mean an increase in performance for the iMac. Apple claimed that it will be nearly as fast as an all-flash drive but at fraction of the price. The 21.5 inch model starts at S$1788 and it will ship in November. On the other hand, the 27 inch model starts at S$2488 and it will ship in December.
- Apple also announced the iBooks Author apps, which will interest budding educational authors for iBooks.
- Finally it comes to the highlight of this event. True to our expectations, yet another generation of the iPad is unveiled. We refer to it as the iPad 4, (officially known as new iPad with Retina display >.< ). The iPad 4 comes with double processing power, similar to the iPhone 5. It has 10 hours of battery life and 720p facetime camera. As expected, it comes now with LTE connection and of course, the lightning connection. The 16 GB wifi version starts at S$658, while the 16 GB LTE model starts at S$828.Again, the rumor sites hit the nail with the introduction of the iPad Mini to the iPad family. It is basically and sized up iPhone with 7.9″ display. It is not a Retina display, however. The resolution of the iPad mini is 1024 x 768, similar to the iPad 2. It is 7.2 mm thick and weighs 0.68 pounds, about half of the iPad 2. Processing hardware wise, it is similar or better than the iPad 2. It will have the same gorgeous anodized finishing like the iPhone 5 and it will have 10 hours of battery. The iPad Mini starts at S$448 for the 16 GB Wifi model and S$618 for the 16 GB LTE model. It can be pre-ordered in Singapore’s Apple store starting from 26 October 2012. It will be released on 2 November for the wifi version, and LTE version 2 weeks later (est. 16 November 2012).
So there you have it! All that you need to know from the Apple’s October 2012 media event!