iPad Mini to be aimed at girly gadgeteers?

Do we need gender-specific gadgets? If the woeful selection of pink hardware desperately pushed in our direction each Valentine’s Day is anything to go by, no. But Apple may have other ideas.

Its rumoured 7.85in iPad Mini – expected to be released this year – could be marketed at women, according to a former Apple manager. Leslie Grady, now a consultant, says a handbag-sized iPad would bridge the gap for people who find the existing 9.7in tablet too hefty to leave the house with. “I really do feel like this is the sweet spot for them,” she told the New York Times. The smaller iPad is expected to sell for up to half the price of the 9.7in model. That’s as little as US$250.

Will Apple do with the iPad what it once did with the iPod? Will we see the introduction of an iPad Nano and iPad Shuffle in future? Will the 9.7in iPad one day be renamed the iPad Classic? Or will a pincer movement of a rumoured larger Kindle Fire and Google’s £160 Nexus 7 bring about the iPad’s extinction? Roll on October, when we’re likely to get some solid intel.

[via New York Times]

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