Half a year after launch, 3rd-gen iPad discontinued & selling for $380

In a surprising move today, Apple launched a new version of its full-size iPad and in the process, it killed its seven-month old third-gen iPad. That model, which had a base price of $500 yesterday, now runs for $380 refurbished.

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Apple almost always waits about a year to introduce a new variation of its products, but in this case, it decided to hold an event to tout the iPad mini, so we suppose Apple decided to do a minor refresh of the regular iPad while they already had everyone gathered. It’s also nearly holiday time, so why not encourage people to get new full-size iPads if they aren’t feeling the iPad mini?

The refurbished third-gen iPad starts at $379 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and goes all the way up to $679 for the 64GB model with 4G LTE connectivity.

Interestingly, Apple will continue to sell the 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2 as a new item for $400. If we had a choice between the iPad 2 and “iPad 3,” we’d immediately buy the third-gen model for its Retina Display, faster processor, and LTE data.

There’s some indication Apple fans plan to quickly upgrade from the third iPad to the fourth. Electronics reseller Glyde told us it has had a 174 percent day-over-day increase iPad inquires, with the third-gen iPad seeing a staggering 980 percent increase.

iPads photo: Apple

Apple’s October Surprise

We expected Apple to announce an iPad mini today, and we got it. What we didn’t expect was the sheer number of new products the company unveiled. Here’s a rundown of the news.

• Apple debuts new MacBook, iMac, IPad 4 and iPad Mini (live blog)
• With the iPad Mini & an updated iBooks Author, Apple finally has a chance of revolutionizing the classroom
• Apple announces 7.9″ iPad Mini, measuring just 7.2mm thick
• Tablet domination: Apple has sold more than 100M iPads
• Apple’s Fusion Drive combines SSD speed with big storage
• Apple announces stunning 5mm-thick iMac
• Apple unveils gorgeous Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro, starts at $1,700
• Apple launches new iBooks with continuous scrolling, better iCloud support, and page filters
• Apple by the numbers: 200M devices running iOS 6, 125M docs in iCloud