The more expensive version of Apple’s iPad Mini that comes with high-speed mobile data will be available on November 23.
Customers who placed pre-orders for the online-enabled device are receiving notifications that their device will not arrive for nearly a month.
Apple had promised during its major reveal event that the LTE iPad Mini would be available a “couple of weeks” after the main product launch on November 2.
November 23 would be exactly three weeks, which is probably a bit later than some expected. Apple’s website promised pre-order customers a “mid-November” ship date.
The white version of the WiFi iPad Mini has already sold out of pre-orders, but the black edition is still available.
After Apple announced the $329 price point for the iPad Mini – with higher-capacity versions available for as much as $529 – there was not a single person who said it was cheaper than they were expecting.
In fact, no one even said that it was on par with what they expected. Because the market of 7-inch tablets is wildly dominated by $200 devices, many analysts had predicted the iPad Mini would not go above $300.
But Apple’s logic is pretty sound. It thinks people will pay well over a 50% premium for a small version of the iPad over a Nexus 7 or a Kindle Fire HD because, well, it’s an iPad. Can’t argue that logic.
It is curious, however, that there is at least one version of the iPad Mini still available to order. Historically speaking, iPad pre-orders have been shut out within hours of the product announcement.
So the fact that it is still possible to pre-order any version of the iPad Mini may be a sign that it isn’t going to be the colossal success that the other iPad models have been. We’ll see.
