I was just reading a great article from Entrepreneur.com suggesting that we forget the iPhone 5 – and think about the iPad mini instead.
Although the iPhone 5 is the iDevice most people are thinking of, while anticipating a larger 4-inch screen, quad-core processor, NFC, new dock connector and all those other specs you’ve read time and again for that September 12 launch and September 21 availability, the iPhone 5 leaks have failed to misdirect our attention from the iPad mini – especially given the success of the Nexus 7 – even though Google is likely subsidising the tablet while Apple is sure to make a profit on any 7-inch tablet it sells.
While the Nexus 7 can easily slip into your inside jacket pocket, the iPad Mini is expected to be a wider device, so while it won’t fit into most pockets unless specially designed, it will still offer a screen vastly bigger than that of any iPhone, including the iPhone 5, while still being much more portable and lighter than the new iPad.
Entrepreneur.com suggests this means a better sales tool when sharing presentations – something that will obviously look far better on an iPad mini than an iPhone - without the chance of phone calls or messages coming through and interrupting things.
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Other points in favour of the iPad mini are that it’s more versatile, by being bigger than an iPhone and smaller than an iPad and that it’ll run the same iOS 6 as the iPhone 5.
These are good points – surfing the web on the Nexus 7 is much more comfortable than with a handheld smartphone of any brand, and although the iPad’s screen is bigger, the Nexus 7’s added portability and light weight make up the difference while always being visually more comfortable than 4-inch and smaller screens.
Obviously the iPad mini will benefit from well over 200,000 programs specifically designed for the 9.7-inch iPad, of which there must be thousands, if not tens of thousands, that are business flavoured, something that could easily see the iPad mini outclass the iPad in the business adoption stakes, let alone for students or, really, anyone.
While an iPhone slips into your pocket, an iPad mini will effortlessly slip into a backpack, briefcase or handbag and could easily replace, for many tasks, a regular laptop.
Indeed, with a 7 to 8-inch screen, an iPad mini would be the same screen size as many of the netbooks out there which did take off for a while, but which today are nowhere near as good for business or as much fun as an iPad is – let alone any unreleased iPad mini.
The iPhone 5 is most certainly coming, but unless we’ve all been fooled because something even more spectacular is on the way, the iPad mini cometh, and it will transform what the Nexus 7 has achieved and will “times it by infinity plus one”.
That could well be superlatively hyperbolic, but while I most certainly do love my Nexus 7, along with the amazingly good price it sells at, I already know that I’m going to love my iPad mini even more – and whether you’re a consumer, a business person or anyone else – chances are that you’re really going to absolutely love it, too.
