Kuo On Next Week's Apple Event, Says Touch ID Sensor Unlikely To Be Included
In a report issued this morning, KGI’s Mingchi Kuo has listed predictions for the October 22nd event to be held at the Yerba Beuna center for the Arts. Clearly, iPads will be front and center, with the thinner, lighter iPad 5 headlining the event. Kuo predicts a slimmer iPad 5 with 20% lighter weight down to 7.5mm and 500g respectively. He also expects an 8 megapixel camera with a larger aperture on the order of the iPhone 5 and a new 64-bit A7X processor. As we’ve seen since our initial story in January, the iPad 5 shell will have thinner bezels like the iPad mini.
Speaking of the iPad Mini, the prediction is that it will go Retina in its second iteration with a 2048×1536 pixel display covering its 7.9 inches and get upgraded to the same A7 chip as the iPhone 5s. We’ve heard recently that the retina update will make it slightly heavier and thicker than its current form.
Kuo says the Gold option will be on the table for iPads but fingerprint readers may not because of the inability to make enough for iPhone 5s production alone. We’ve seen a ton of space gray and other shells for the iPad Mini so that would seem increasingly likely.
Kuo is one of the few Apple analysts I actually follow — the others are complete phoneys. Whilst I think it is stupid for Apple to launch a new big iPad without a fingerprint sensor involved, because of his near-perfect track record regarding device components, I’m inclined to believe what he says.
The other stuff acts as a confirmation of what has been already known. On that note, I’m excited to see this substantially lighter and thinner big iPad in person. Deciding between that and a Retina Mini is going to be tough.