Apple unveils iPad mini

On Tuesday, Apple revealed iPad mini, whose design is 23% thinner and 53% lighter than iPad 3. With a 7.9-inch display, iPad mini features the same number of pixels as the original iPad and iPad 2, so users can run more than 275,000 applications designed specifically for iPad. At the launch event, Apple's CEO touted iPad mini's potential for education, noting that 80% of the US's "core curricula" is available in iBooks, the company's digital bookstore. Apple's iBooks Author allows users to create their own textbooks, incorporating math tools and multi-touch widgets (though, as Education Week points out, that functionality is available on other platforms too). Insider Higher Ed's Technology and Learning blog offers some reasons why iPad mini "might hit the EDU sweet spot." One of them is price: $329 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi version of iPad mini, compared to $499 (US) for the 16GB Wi-Fi version of iPad 4.  Apple News Release | Education Week | Inside Higher Ed