14 DAY TRIAL // The alleged iPad Mini flaunted by a famous Taiwanese race car driver appears to be fake, according to a person with knowledge of how such results can be achieved.
Earlier this week, Softpedia reported that famous Taiwan pop star and racer Jimmy Lin had posted a picture of himself holding two devices - the current-generation iPad and an alleged, smaller-sized iPad.
Lin claimed the smaller device was a prototype mini iPad.
Lin claimed to have gotten hold of a “new toy mini iPad,” which he later clarified it was a real Apple iPad prototype, and one that was very suitable for his one-year old son’s hands.
The picture posted by Lin looked (and still looks) fairly legit.
Yet, according to Cult of Mac reader Greg Mills, it is a Photoshop fake.
“The picture was staged with him holding a real iPad in his left hand and holding up an empty right hand up in the same position as if he was holding a smaller iPad,” he opines.
“If you capture the pixels where his finger nails intersect the smaller iPad you will notice there are vertical lines in the pixels and no horizontal breaks in the pixelation of the same color,” Greg explains.
He calls this “A clear sign the picture was doctored to add the downsized iPad.”
Thus, Greg is fairly convinced the image is a fake.
“The picture is a fake in my opinion.” He adds, “Also, the scale of the ‘mini’ iPad is just a bit too small as it is reportedly 7inches diagonally compared to the real iPad at 9.7 inches diagonally.”
Add this to Apple’s claims that a 7-inch iPad would not work as a tablet should, we now have more reason to believe the second-generation iPad is not the device proudly held up by Taiwan’s Jimmy Lin.
Then again, a prototype doesn’t necessarily have to look like the finished product.
There’s no one to say Apple hasn’t tested several prototypes to conclude that 7 inches of screen real estate wasn’t enough.