Apple needs help: iWatch, 'Retina' iPad mini delayed until 2014?

iPad maxi?

Hmm... any news on whether that will be coming out in pink? You know---"for her."

A6 probably, not A5X or A6X

There's no need for the 'X' type chips because those are built to drive a retina display (4x the pixels to move) so they'll likely put an A6 in if it continues to run with the 1024x768 display of the iPad1/2 and current mini.

I'm not surprised they're struggling - many have asked why Apple can't do this and yet the Android tablets have higher resolutions than the iPad mini, but they don't have the number of pixels moving around in a mini size, in fact typically they have about half as many. Apple won't want a thicker heavier iPad mini sticking out a lot of heat as they had with the iPad 3 so they need to wait for denser batteries or more efficient CPU/GPU and displays to get there. Since the display is the biggest drain on the battery that is the limiting factor since a retina display needs a much brighter backlight. They probably need a new display technology to make it really work (IGZO?) and that would likely land on the full size iPad first.

They don't have a chance...

add to its 100-member iWatch team to tackle "hard engineering problems that they've not been able to solve...

How to make a smart watch cool.

I'm sure the same people who thought calculator watches were cool will like them but...

Check your sources

Check your sources. DigiTimes is consistently wrong and they have no journalistic integrity in my opinion. DigiTimes is accurate only when they are reporting the obvious that anyone familiar with technology or the market can already guess. They frequently quote "sources" that are "close to Apple". This usually means they made it up. Financial Times' reputation is also faltering if they are relying on "people familiar with Apple's thinking". This is not investigative journalism. Uncovering what will be in Apple's next product release is not on par with uncovering graft and corruption. If you can't name your sources why should we believe you?

"Cupertinian employees are applying for jobs at ... Google,..."

So what. Anyone in the industry knows that people in the area/industry regularly change employer. Heck, I worked for Apple, Google and MSFT within one quarter but then I was a contractor - not a regular employee.

I worked for Apple for a year and many people had worked for Google just a few months back and some were already thinking of moving on.

Under all the ooh-shiny, the technical problems to solve are pretty much all the same regardless of what phone. OS, or whatever you're working on.

The only difference is that maybe the chick-pickup-foo of the iphone etc was better. Not any more though.

If true, it's proof they've lost the plot

Everybody knows that adding more people to a late engineering or software project makes it later.

tagged

There is a fundamental difference between owning the same phone as your mates and owning the same watch as your mates. Identical watches to the fashion conscious is akin to turning up to the same party wearing the same dress. Imagine a room full of people all wearing identical watches? Electronic tagging for the chic!

The third generation iPad - the first with retina display - is too heavy. It's uncomfortable to hold for too long, and you are prone to drop it because it is heavy. Also, it is thicker than the previous generation, which is unusual for an Apple device. Also, the retina display sucks up far too much of the computational power of the thing, which is why it is not notably faster at doing anything than the previous generation. The revised fourth generation model that Apple released six months later fixed the second of these problems with a faster SoC, but the heaviness problem remains. Presumably the revised fifth generation model that we will see in two or three months will fix the size and weight issues, but big compromises were made for that retina display.

The whole reason why the iPad mini has been so successful is because it is so small and light compared to the big and heavy full size iPad. The last thing Apple wants to do is to lumber the mini with too much size and weight as they did the full sized iPad. Therefore, I have always been sceptical about seeing a retina mini this year. A second generation mini this year followed by a retina mini next year has been what I have been expecting all along.

don't do it apple

fuck the iwatch man, will be a huge mistake for apple. i think wearable tech generally ain't gonna be the "next big thing" everyone thinks it is... beware!

A friend of mine designs high end gpus for phones, and the most frequent design issue his company faces is the compromise between looks and ruggedness. If a phone looks and feels gorgeous, and runs tickety boo from the word go, but erupts through the screen at the faintest hint of a ding, it's going to be sent back by the prototype testers as a "great idea, piss poor execution". At some point in the QA process, the release deadline will rear its ugly head, as will the cost of sourcing a more robust component.

If your company's rep is built on the look and nebulous *coolness* of a product, can you afford to shortcut the QA process when the gizmo reaches the point of 10-15% projected returns per annum? Given the number of cracked screens I've seen on clamshell macs and iPhones over the years, I think Apple willingly take that risk, and happily swap out the busted chunk of coolness for a factory recon, in preference to a more robust, and therefore less "cool" design which might still cost them that 15% in R&D and retooling...

Beat Up ?

This post does seem like a bit of a beat up on Apple, popular with the fandroids I know but not very informative.

For some months the general "knowledgeable" consensus has been that there will be a new iPad mini this year but that it will be lighter and faster but without a Retina rated display; retina will wait until the 2014 refresh when it can be done without compromising weight and battery performance.

The Mini already has a better, denser (over 50% better) display than the iPad 1/2 (163 versus about 126 pixels per unit area), so the case for Retina is less compelling, although it is also less of a stretch to reach.

And the iWatch, I don't think anyone quite knows what Apple has in the works, but I must say that I struggle to see quite how they will make a compelling device. That's possibly more a failure of my imagination though, I don't think the great majority of commentators really anticipated the iPhone and iPad phenomena either. Maybe Apple can assemble a compelling iWatch, at least it will be interesting to see what the can produce. Success is not guaranteed.