The iPad mini is, for my money, the perfect iPad as far as form factor is concerned. But man, that 1024 x 768 display just looks like garbage once you’ve gone Retina. So while I have (and love) my iPad mini as an e-reader, I won’t get rid of my Retina iPad until the iPad mini can match it, pixel for pixel.
I doubt I’m alone in this, which is why everyone’s eagerly waiting for the iPad mini 2. Apple obviously wants to put a Retina display in the next-generation tablet, but the question remains: is the technology (and the production yields) there yet to make it a reality? Not in 2013, according to a new report.
Taiwan’s Economic Daily News says that because there are display panel shortages, Apple won’t be able to release a Retina iPad mini later this year alongside the new, improved iPad 5.
Instead, what they seem to see Apple doing is releasing a low-res version of the second-gen iPad mini this year, then perhaps beefing it up with a Retina display during a mid-cycle update in early 2014, similarly to the way the third-gen iPad was replaced within 6 months with the more powerful, Lightning-equipped iPad 4.
Sounds plausible to me, which makes the prospect of buying a low-res iPad mini 2 this year even less palatable than it was before. On the other hand, at least there’ll still be some point to the iPad 5 when it’s released, if only for a few months.
Source: Economic Daily News
