-Hello and welcome to Inside Scoop.
I'm Sumi Das.
Joining me is Senior Writer for CNET Josh Lowensohn.
Josh, thanks for being with us.
-My pleasure.
-Okay.
Seems like we were just talking about the invite for the iPhone event.
Now all of a sudden it's October and we're talking about the next set of invitations that have just gone out this morning from Apple.
Describe what you got in your inbox this morning.
-Yes.
I mean it's pretty much the same as that thing that happened last time.
We have the iPhone in September and now we have what's probably gonna be the iPads in October.
-It's
becoming a bit predictable, isn't it?
-Yes, but it makes a lot of sense.
I mean this is right before the holidays.
-Right.
-They get to push out new products and all the little kiddies get their tablet under the tree or Hanukkah bush or what have you hopefully in time you know.
-Okay.
So describe the invitation for us.
We always like to read between the lines.
-Yes.
So last time for the iPhone it was circles which was kind of a hint about the home button.
-Yes.
-This time it just basically says we have a little bit more to cover which is kind of an allusion to the Smart Cover which covers the iPad--
-Okay.
-Which is what we think but it's basically just a series
of the Apple leaf and the Apple logo just kind of floating around.
It's not exactly foretelling of the future.
-Okay and give us the details.
When and where?
-Next Tuesday, October 22nd at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco which is just right down the street from where CNET is.
-Right.
-That's where they introduced the first iPad, that's where the iPad 2, it's kind of their go-to place to the tablets so it's actually a really nice venue, it holds a lot of people.
-Right.
-It's downtown.
-That's key, a lot of people, right?
-Exactly.
-We have a lot to cover lying in the invitation.
So covers, this is maybe not the grand innovation that some people were hoping for, is it?
-No and so the key thing to think about here, there's been a series of leaks for this new iPad.
We're basically just expecting a redesign version of the full-sized iPad that looks a lot more like the iPad mini with kind of narrower sides.
-Okay.
-So obviously if they do make it narrower they have to make a new magnetic cover for it.
-Oh, got you.
-So you know it's really not very exciting.
-Not terribly exciting but people
will still get crazy excited about it, I'm sure.
-Yes.
I think the hard thing now is that if you look at what Microsoft is doing especially with the Surface they have these covers that have batteries, they have keyboards, they have track pads.
-Right.
-They basically turn your tablet into a--
-Into a mini laptop.
-A notebook.
-Yes, yes.
-Apple's put up patents for things like that, but I don't think we're expecting anything close to that.
-Okay.
So we're not gonna see a 6-inch version that was a sort of off-the-wall rumor that we had seen circulating?
-I would not expect that this year.
You know there's already been a bunch of leaks and I think the
big kind of mystery and unknown is whether we get a Retina Display iPad mini, so something with 4 times the amount of pixels as last year's model.
-Okay.
All right.
Well, that's something to look forward to I suppose.
-Yes.
-And you will be at the event of course.
-Yes, I'll be there in force.
-And you'll be live blogging?
-Live blogging.
We're not sure if Apple is streaming or not.
That's usually not something we know until the day up but yes, we'll have pictures, live updates, all that stuff.
So definitely tune in.
-Streaming or not, you're gonna always come to CNET--
-Yes.
-To find out what's happening.
Josh, thank you so much.
-My pleasure.
-For Inside Scoop, I'm Sumi Das.
Thanks for watching.
