14 DAY TRIAL // Famous Taiwan pop star Jimmy Lin posted a picture of himself holding two devices - one is the current-generation iPad; the other, a smaller sized iPad. Lin claims it’s prototype mini iPad.
Rumors of a seven-inch iPad have been floating around all year - ever since the original iPad’s debut - but few details have since emerged to indicate that Apple has plans to roll out a smaller form factor tablet.
In fact, Apple itself at one point denied plans to develop a smaller iPad sibling, citing inefficiency with the method of input.
Yet Taiwan’s Jimmy Lin, who appears to be quite the famous figure in his turf, claims to have gotten hold of a “new toy mini iPad,” which he later clarified it was a real Apple iPad prototype, and one that is very suitable for his one-year old son’s hands.
Apple would not be at its first such slip (remember the iPhone 4 prototype leak), and while this picture does not strike us as very convincing, it doesn’t look too fake either.
According to clonedinchina.com, Jimmy Lin is not just a pop star, but also a great racing driver, and the founder of a successful technology company.
The site doesn’t mention its name, though, but does conclude (based on this last observation) that it’s “very possible that what he got is a real mini iPad.”
Digitimes reported earlier this month that Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry’s) plants in Shenzhen, China had recently been notified they would begin shipping Apple's iPad 2 within the following 100 days.
In fact, Apple’s entire range of upstream component partners had reportedly been notified of this shipments schedule, the report said.
According to industry publication DigiTimes, initial shipments are to reach 400,000-600,000 units, which would corroborate an earlier report from the same source saying that suppliers would ramp up shipments of iPad 2 components in the first quarter of 2011.