Here are your Apple rumors and AAPL news items for today:
Available: Fans of the iPad Mini may have to wait until late next month to get their hands on a model with a Retina screen, but those looking for a new version of the current model won’t have to wait so long, AppleInsider notes. At its special media event this week launching the Retina iPad Mini and the larger iPad Air, Apple announced that the black and slate version of the current iPad Mini model was being discontinued in favor of a space gray model. On Thursday, Apple Stores began receiving limited supplies of the new tablet. Buyers apparently snapped up the gray models, since some larger stores said they had quickly sold out of the model. Apple has also ditched the black and slate color combination in its iPhone 5s, which was launched last month. In fact, it has phased black out of all its product lines outside of the iPod Classic and new Mac Pro. The space gray version of the iPad Mini is priced at $299, down from the original iPad Mini price of $329. The Retina iPad Mini is scheduled for launch in late November, though its supplies are rumored to be extremely tight.
Apology: The former CEO and chairman of Nokia says that the handset maker’s troubles had a very specific cause, ZDNet notes. Jorma Ollila who ran the Finnish company as it climbed to the top of the global cellphone market, and then tumbled back down, has published a memoir in which he cites the introduction of Apple’s iPhone in 2007 as a major factor in Nokia’s decline. Ollila says that Apple had “managed to create something completely new” with the iPhone and that his management team became “painfully aware” that Nokia’s models and software could not match what Apple had delivered. Ollila notes that Nokia failed to respond quickly enough to changing consumer tastes, especially for touchscreen phones and an ecosystem of apps. Olilla served as Nokia’s chairman from 1999 to 2012, and CEO from 1992 to 2006. Nokia’s handset business was recently acquired by Microsoft (MSFT).
Math Error: A plan to provide iPads to 31,000 students at 47 Los Angeles Unified School District campuses is running far above its previously announced budget, the Los Angeles Times notes. In June, the district said it would provide every student with an iPad, paying about $678 per device. But recent budget disclosures indicate that the district is actually paying almost $100 more per iPad. The reason for the higher price is that the district won’t receive a discount on iPad purchases until it has spent at least $400 million. If the district does not spend at least that much, its contract with Apple will be violated and it will end up paying even more for the iPads. Last month, some students who received an iPad under the program quickly figured out how to evade Internet safeguards, accessing websites not approved by educators.
For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.
