iPad Air - page 16

The ring of Tim Cook’s softened Southern twang hasn’t yet left our ears, and yet Belkin has already announced, not one, but practically a whole wall at the Apple Store full of iPad Air cases and keyboards.

Of the ten cases and three keyboard cases announced by Belkin after today’s event, the most interesting is the minimalist Qode (perhaps a Star Wars character?) Thin Type Keyboard Case — one of Belkin’s excellent keyboards wrapped in aluminum and equipped with a hinge that lets it double as a cover for the screen. For a little more protection, there’s the Qode (Peruvian dessert?) Ultimate Keyboard Case, which adds a protective aluminum backing around the iPad Air.

Apple fans will have to wait until November 1st to get their hands on the svelte iPad Air, while the wait for an iPad mini with Retina display will be even longer. For those of us too impatient to wait until the new tablets hit store shelves to inspect the devices ourselves, Apple gave journos at today’s event a few precious minutes to get their hands all over the iPad Air and iPad mini.

Here’s a roundup of the best hands on videos of the new iPads:

To compliment the new iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display, Apple has released not only updated Smart Covers, but a new Smart Case accessory. “We have a lot more to cover” was the tagline for today’s event, and it turned out to be true in more ways than one.

Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage today at San Francisco’s Moscone Center to kick off the special keynote event that we’ve dubbed here as the iPad Event.

Cook began his presentation with some numbers, including the nine million new iPhone 5s and 5c models that were sold over the first weekend of availability. Cook called it the biggest iPhone launch, ever, and showed a video to underline his point.

It’s got to be tough making cases and other accessories for Apple products. While it may seem that everyone knows everything about the new iPad mini already, the truth is that the actual specifications of the product are unknown by anyone except Apple and its manufacturing partners in China.

An accessory maker who wants to create an iPad mini case, for example, is hard pressed to know what to make, what size and shape to make it, and what type of person is going to want it, especially at first. The stakes are high, considering that a well-designed case that makes it to market at the same time as the iPad mini will be the one that most people choose.

We spoke to Marware’s Director of Marketing, Ronnie Khadaran, who opened up about the process his company went through to design its new iPad mini cases and accessories.

As you know, the upcoming media event for Apple’s smaller, thinner, and less expensive tablet, the as-yet-named iPad Air iPad mini, is being widely reported as happening on October 23,2012.

While the invites haven’t gone out yet, we’re seeing a rumor that the event will focus on iBooks, which makes a ton of sense considering that a smaller iPad is in the same market category as a device like the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is kind of like a souped-up eReader, with media consumption its main purpose, at least from Amazon’s perspective.

While this seems like a plausible rumor, I’m not ready to fully embrace it yet.