The iPad Mini: Same or New and Improved?

Recently, Apple has released a whole new crop of products ranging from the iPhone 5 to the whole new collection of iPods and iTouches. Well, another creation has been born from the Apple womb: the iPad mini. According to the Apple website, the iPad Mini features a powerful A5 chip, FaceTime HD camera, iSight camera with 1080p HD video and 275,000 made especially for the iPad.

Essentially, the same features as the iPad 2. However, there are some differences; the iPad mini is only 7.2 millimeters thin (about the same thickness as number 2 pencil) and only 0.68 pounds weighing much less than the iPad 2. Despite these changes, the essential content of the iPad Mini is the same as its older brother.

Apps included are the safari app, complete with reader feature to red web content without the distractions of ads, the mail app, iBooks – the app that is very similar to Amazon’s Kindle complete with book store, adjustment of brightness and text size, and complete with highlight features, photos with editing feature, iCloud sync, and slideshow, FaceTime with stunning new HD, Apple Maps app, even comes with Siri-the virtual personal assistant and so much more.

What makes the iPad Mini so different than the other products out there or more specifically the iPad 2? Really nothing at all. On the website, Apple has a video to find out more about the iPad Mini.

Senior Vice President of Apple Jonathan Ive commented that the iPad Mini is not just a reduction of the iPad 2 but instead a concentration of it. Though that may sound nice and fancy, I simply am not buying it.

Apple has made their money as a result of selling products that are incredibly useful, which is the point of any company, but they also seem to be similar to Nintendo when it comes to making any new products– simply change the name, add a new color and put in a few more features and there you have a whole new product.

Clearly, this method seems to work or else they would be out of business. Is it right that Apple simply makes a smaller product and then slap a higher price on it? Currently, the iPad Mini costs a whopping $329 dollars, and the prices get higher with the gigabytes and the including of cellular service. Apple seems to either be running out of ideas or trying to pull the wool over the consumer’s eyes.

With these “new products” one can’t help but wonder when the next crop will arrive and all one’s previous will become old and obsolete. Perhaps the consumer should think twice before blindly buying the latest product and really looking into what is being sold to them.