Mini-me? No Thanks...

As we've previously established, I've become quite the Apple device guy over the past few years. It wasn't surprising therefore, that I got plenty of questions asking me if I'd be buying an iPad Mini.

It never crossed my mind. I have no issue whatsoever with the size of the full-size iPad, even though is has been obsoleted less than a year into it's all too brief life. It is an excellent travel companion for the tightest of plane seats, doesn't have to be pulled out of your bag to get through the airport scanner and has just enough space to get some actual work done if needed.

I do not read a ton on my iPad, but it is where I do most of the reading. I saw a massive increase in screen quality when going from the iPad 2 to the iPad 3. Going to the Mini would probably be a step down. Even though it's a smaller screen with a higher effective pixel count, it's still not going to be as good as the iPad 3's retina display.

I know there have been complaints about the price as well. It isn't a particularly compelling value, that's for sure. I think they should have tried to hit the $299 price. The "3" in front just isn't as warm and fuzzy. I will say that anyone concerned about the Mini having the "old" A5 processor really shouldn't. The iPad 2 was really, really fast when I had it and there was a negligible difference going up the faster A5X in the iPad 3. The A6 would probably be quite a bit faster as it clearly makes the iPhone 5 quite snappy.

Do I have any other comments on the recent Apple announcements? Three minor thoughts.

1. I really do like the Lightning connector on the iPhone 5. It is much easier to use and makes connecting the device much less of a fumbling process. Clearly, it's a minor benefit but it IS a benefit. It's probably still not worth the cost of replacing all my 30 pin cables, but thinking back to all the previous phones I've ever had, it really is, unfortunately a very familiar problem.

2. The sleeper announcement in my opinion were the significant updates to the iMac mini. The bountiful ports including on that device really makes that device the go anywhere, do anything computer.

3. If there was any doubt that optical storage is dead, rest assured, it really, really is. Perhaps in retrospect, that NetFlix move to split off the disc business makes a lot more sense even if it was too soon for that market (and it was and still is.)

Posted with Blogsy