The iPad Mini might be coming sooner than we thought. We’ve recently heard that production of Apple’s smaller tablet computer might already be under way, which is a good thing if this recent report from AllThingsD is true: it’s saying that Apple plans to announce the iPad mini at a special event on Oct. 23. Not for nothing, that’s three days before the Microsoft Surface hits stores.
Early reports aren’t as complete as what we heard about the iPhone 5—for all intents and purposes, we had already seen that product long before its announcement. We do know that the iPad mini will, naturally, be a little smaller, maybe a little thinner, with a lower resolution and a lower price. This is clearly the wide net that Apple will use to father customers who don’t want to shell out for a new iPad.
This isn’t the sort of announcement that’s likely to “blow our minds” or anything like that. This is the kind of product that expands Apple’s product line without fundamentally altering it, and I think we can expect to see more of these in the future. Now that Apple has established tent-poles, it stands to gain a lot by widening the customer base with products like the iPad mini. And so, while it won’t have tech blogs salivating, and won’t provide the sort of wild stock fluctuations that the iPhone 5 did, I’d expect this to be a slow and steady win.
迷你iPad或于本月23日发布
迷你iPad的到来可能比我们预想的要早。最近有消息称，苹果（Apple）这款小尺寸平板电脑的发布工作可能已经在进行当中，如果AllThingsD的报道属实——该科技博客称苹果计划在10月23日的一次特别活动上发布迷你iPad——那倒是件好事。这个日期并非毫无意义，微软（Microsoft）的Surface平板电脑将于3日后上市。
关于迷你iPad的前期报道并不如iPhone 5那样完整——实际上，我们在iPhone 5发布很久之前就看到了它的样子。我们知道，迷你iPad的尺寸自然会更小，也许机身更加纤薄，屏幕分辨率和价格都会更低。这显然是一张大大的网，苹果将用来网罗那些不想掏钱购买新款iPad的用户。
这可能不是那种“震撼我们心灵”或类似于此的产品发布，迷你iPad是那种苹果用来扩充产品线的设备，它不会出现根本性的改变，我想苹果未来会推出更多这样的产品。由于苹果已经在市场站稳脚跟，该公司通过迷你iPad这样的产品扩大客户基础就一定能够获利颇丰。因此，虽然迷你iPad不会让科技博客大流口水，也不会像iPhone 5那样造成苹果股价大幅波动，但我预期它能从稳中制胜。
双语阅读 迷你iPad Announcement May Be Coming Oct. 23：
译 何无鱼
