Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed the one-hand-ready iPad mini today, prompting fans of the brand to ponder whether they need one, while investors seemed to make up their minds, as the company's stock dropped after the reveal.

Bigger than an iPhone and smaller than an iPad, at 7.9 inches and starting at $329, it's lighter but costlier than its 7-inch, $199 rivals, the Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7 tablets. It's being marketed as "the full iPad experience — there's less of it, but no less to it," and may appeal to, for instance, the education market. It also marks a reversal of Steve Jobs's (initial) opposition to the 7-inch tablet size.

Why is smaller now better for Apple? Design head Jony Ive commented in the launch video, "Our goal was to take all the amazing things you could do with a full-size iPad, but pack them into a product that was so much smaller."

“iPad mini is every inch an iPad. With its gorgeous 7.9-inch display, iPad mini features the same number of pixels as the original iPad and iPad 2, so you can run more than 275,000 apps designed specifically for iPad,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing, in a press release.

“iPad mini is as thin as a pencil and as light as a pad of paper" he added, "yet packs a fast A5 chip, FaceTime HD and 5 megapixel iSight cameras and ultrafast wireless―all while delivering up to 10 hours of battery life.”Continue reading...

Apple may be zooming up Interbrand's Best Global Brands report, but not all is sunny in Cupertino these days. The brand's market value has plunged $70 billion since the iPhone 5 was released, with a market cap falling below $600 billion on Monday and a "near 10% correction" in recent weeks.

Marketwatch's Jon Friedman took the pulse of the company with Wall Street analysts in a column titled starkly "Has Apple Lost It?" Friedman writes: "A skeptic could suggest that cracks may be beginning to show up in Apple’s armor. One reason: The company tumbled into the 'correction' mode, having fallen 10% during Tuesday trading from its 52-week high point of $705.07."

With iPad Mini rumors now in overdrive and guessing games about how Steve Jobs may have responded, Friedman discusses the brand challenges facing apologetic Apple CEO Tim Cook in the WSJ.com video below.Continue reading...

Even in death, Steve Jobs’ presence remains larger than life. As the world notes his passing one year ago today, the news and social media are filled with articles and tributes comparable to the recent Presidential debate. 

On Oct. 5, 2001, Apple's homepage posted the striking image above and called out for tributes. Today, Apple posted a touching video tribute to its cofounder on its homepage today, along with a note from his successor as CEO, Tim Cook, that read, in part: "Steve’s passing one year ago today was a sad and difficult time for all of us. I hope that today everyone will reflect on his extraordinary life and the many ways he made the world a better place."Continue reading...

Apple CEO Tim Cook has apologized for the iOS 6 Maps kerfuffle, following the brand's eviction of Google Maps and proprietary (but glitchy) maps function — one of the key features consumers demand from their smartphones. Google, meanwhile, just upgraded its maps app with high-resolution aerial views.

A contrite Apple posted the apology online (read the full text below) in a mea culpa that the Financial Times calls "a rare moment of contrition from the world's most valuable company," and — unexpectedly — suggested installing rivals' map apps "while we're improving Maps." Cook's personal apology for "mapgate" also raised comparisons to how Steve Jobs handled the iPhone 4 "antennagate," for which the company — but not Jobs personally — apologized.Continue reading...

It’s complicated, the whole issue of personal privacy in an era of social media transparency, and the fact that the first female astronaut, Sally Ride, who this week died at age 61 from pancreatic cancer, came out publically in her obituary, listing her partner of 27 years, Tam O'Shaughnessy first, as a survivor, is stirring the pot of comment and prejudice.

"Could she have helped the cause? Maybe," says Fred Sainz, VP of communications for the Human Rights Campaign. "For her not to have shared an incredibly important aspect of her life — being in a committed long-term relationship with a woman — meant many Americans did not get to see a dimension of her life that would have helped them understand us (gay people) and our contributions to society.

Ride was open in her personal life, "She just didn't want to go public with it during her lifetime. And that's a big difference," said Sainz. "There's no question that Sally Ride could have been fired if she'd come out while she worked for NASA.”Continue reading...

A little anecdote from the booming Chinese port city of Dalian will tell you two different (but equally important) things about Apple's popularity in mainland China and what the brand is going through there.

It seems that the security detail from Mall 1 showed up at Mall 2 to "send a message." That message was communicated when Mall 1's security guards arrived at Mall 2 and knocked down billboards advertising the soon-to-open Apple store. That Apple store, set to the world's largest, will soon open at Parkland Mall. The mall is high-end and home to numerous foreign luxury brands. In fact, a close look at the video of the brouhaha, above, reveals it was shot from a Starbucks patio. (Starbucks, by the way, is plowing its way through China lately, too.)

And all this during a week when Apple CEO Tim Cook visited China, from the Foxconn factory floor to the vice premier, and the March 29th report on Foxconn seemed to make all Apple's Foxconn woes disappear.Continue reading...

Back in 1977, when Apple Computers was just getting started, Steve Jobs commissioned a graphic designer to come up with a logo better than the one they started with — his only instruction was "Don't make it cute." The rainbow version that was unveiled stuck around until 1998 when the current monochromatic version came into being.

At the introduction of the new iPad Wednesday, VentureBeat noted that when Apple CEO Tim Cook “strolled offstage … a colorful version of the company logo appeared on the screen.” This led more than a few observers to speculate that Apple is returning to its old rainbow-logoed ways, especially since, as VB added, Microsoft recently scrapped its colorful Windows logo “in favor of a new super bland version, which leaves companies like Apple free to resume using the rainbow without fear of having it confused with the competition.”Continue reading...

Apple introduced the new iPad today, which starts at $499. Described by Apple as "brilliant from the outside in," the third generation tablet boasts sharper-than-an-HDTV graphics thanks to its "stunning Retina display," ultrafast 4G LTE, a 5-megapixel iSight camera and 3D capability.

Check out the "don't call it the iPad 3" below and tell us: enough to merit trading up — or finally taking the iPlunge if you've been iPadverse until now?Continue reading...