The biggest “Will they or won’t they?” question for Apple fans heading into the holiday season will be whether the company will at long last release a new version of the iPad mini tablet with a Retina display. Generally we’ve been hearing that while Apple would love to release a Retina-equipped iPad mini in time for holiday shopping, the next-generation device has been even more difficult to mass produce than the original model. Barron’s points us to the latest dispatch from Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek, who says that Apple will still probably release the Retina-equipped iPad mini by the end of the year despite having multiple problems getting production up to speed.
“Yields for Retina film based display for mini remain terrible, which is why there was speculation… that the launch could be pushed out to [the first quarter of 2014],” Misek writes in a research note. “We think initial launch supplies could be constrained to as few units as 2 million to 5 million.”
Misek believes that Apple will sell the Retina-equipped iPad mini starting at the same $329 price point that the original iPad mini sold for.
