Apple unveiled its iPad Mini with Retina display alongside the iPad Air in October giving a rough launch timeline of November, but analysts claim that Apple will launch the smaller device sometime early next year.
There have been reports from the upstream supply chain of shortage in Retina display panels, which have also been confirmed by Tim Cook during a recent earning’s call. Cook said, “it’s not clear if [Apple] will have enough” stock of the iPad mini with Retina.
Independent analysts have been predicting the shortage well before Cook confirmed the reports and many have pegged the supply of the iPad Mini with Retina as “ridiculously tight in the fourth quarter” because of the supply shortage of the new Retina panel. Reports have also claimed that Sharp, which is responsible for manufacturing 40 percent of the panels, is responsible for the shortage because of the low yield from its production.
iPad Air has already gone on sale today and Apple is confident that it will be able to meet with demands for the larger iPad to the extent that it has even offered personal pick-up as an option to its US buyers.
Earlier there were reports that the iPad Mini with Retina will go on sale on November 21, but IHS is of the opinion that Apple will launch iPad Mini with Retina in spring 2014 and not during the holiday shopping season.
FUCK APPLE