iPad mini sales launched

Shoppers got their hands on Apple's new iPad mini Friday, launched with less fanfare than previous incarnations amid talk it might have come too late to the 7-inch tablet computer market, AFP reported.

The ghost of Apple founder Steve Jobs hung in the air two days after Halloween as the company tried to lure shoppers with a slim black tablet computer it insists is more than just a shrunken version of its wildly popular iPad series.


The event stirred little of the excitement associated with previous Apple products however, generating only small lines of devoteesat flagship stores around the world.


In suburban Milan, a couple of dozen such fans were treated to coffee and buns offered by the local Apple store.


"I got up at 6:30 in the morning but it was worth it," said Daniele Messi, a 20-year-old marketing student who was first in line there.


"I decided to buy it even though I already have all of Apple's other products, I love them," he added.


Earlier in the day, around 300 people had queued up outside Apple's main store in Tokyo, some wearing fancy dress, to buy, or at least touch the new product.


Around 20 people had camped out overnight outside the shop, but the queue disappeared quickly following an initial rush.


In tech-mad Singapore numbers were well down on previous launches, while in Hong Kong around 30 people queued to collect their pre-ordered devices.

In Seoul there was a 200-strong queue, some of whom had camped out overnight, with one man telling AFP that Apple was a better buy for his 4-year-old daughter.

"I prefer iPad to Android devices because it has more content for children like my daughter," he said in reference to a rival smartphone operating system developed by Google.

Mark Ranson, associate analyst at the global technology research firm Ovum, said the iPad mini marked something of a departure because it was an instance of Apple following the crowd, rather than setting the pace.

"This reactive nature of the iPad mini launch was largely the cause of the more muted public response," he said before adding that increasing competition was squeezing Apple.

"Samsung's continued growth, Google's further push into the device market with its Nexus line of products and the strong performance of Amazon's Kindle Fire, are all conspiring to bridge the gap between Apple and its competitors," he noted.

Apple's senior vice president for marketing Phil Schiller helped unveil the iPad mini last week, insisting that it was an entirely new design and not "just a shrunken down iPad".