There are so many reasons to love this photo of Apple marketing boss Phil Schiller holding up an iPad Mini. For one thing, it captures the kind of hushed sanctimony and reverence with which Apple introduces things that are, essentially, little plastic gizmos. But mostly I love Phil's weird off-camera gaze, which reminds me of this photo from Stepbrothers. What is he looking at? What's he thinking? Is he fearful, even then, on the day of the introduction, that this cool new device is going to kill sales of the bigger iPads and thus drag down Apple's profit margins?

(See also Is The iPad MIni The "Real" iPad?)

If so, then Phil was right, because apparently that's what's happening, according to a report from Digitimes, which claims Apple is cutting back orders for components used in the big iPad and now expects to sell fewer of them than originally expected. Mostly because it's selling so many of these goddamn iPad Minis.

Digitimes says Apple originally planned to sell 60 million big iPads and 40 million Minis, but that now Apple expects to sell 33 million big ones and 55 million little guys. 

That's great news if you're the product manager in charge of the iPad Mini - you're having a blowout year! But you'll notice that the new sum total of all iPad sales for the year stands at 88 million, which is less than the previously expected 100 million. This is not good. 

My Entire Premise Could Be False, In Which Case, Sorry

Then again this entire report could be bullshit, since it comes from Digitimes, and Digitimes is perhaps not the most reliable publication in the world, as reflected in the headline the story to which I linked, which mentions issues with Apple's "supplpy" (sic) chains.

But if the report is true, this means Apple will sell fewer overall iPads (of all kinds) than originally expected. And more of what it does sell will be the less-expensive Mini model.

That in turn means Apple is likely to make less profit margin, as the financial wizards at Business Insider point out.

Does Phil Schiller sometimes lie awake at night wishing Apple had never made that damn Mini? Does he lurk outside Apple stores and curse the cheap bastards who keep buying Minis just because they're $170 cheaper than the big one? 

Maybe not. Maybe Phil and his team figure they pulled off a pretty amazing coup. They milked ridiculous margins out of the original iPad for a long, long time. And now that big iPad serves a purpose - it makes the iPad Mini look cheap. Which it's not, considering that you can get roughly comparable Android tablets for a lot less. 

(See also The iPad MIni's Killer Feature = Price.)

Apple stock is up a bit today to $427, so apparently Wall Street is taking the Digitimes report with a grain of salt. 

Photo by Reuters. 

If I drop my iPhone 5 on the sidewalk, how easily will it be to repair the screen? What if my Kindle Fire's battery stops holding a charge? When we're shopping for new tablets and smartphones, we seldom take these kinds of things into consideration. Most of us just presume nothing bad will happen. And if it does, well, we'll deal with it when it happens. 

As far as the manufacturers are concerned, they're usually more interested in getting customers to stand in line for the new gadget in another year or two, so making it easy to fix today's devices is hardly a priority. If you look at the user manual of an iPad, Kindle Fire or Nexus 7, you won't see instructions on replacing the battery - or opening the device for any purpose. iPhones are held together using proprietary pentalobe screws specifically designed to keep you out of your device's innards. 

Whether we like it or not, we're living in the Age of Unrepairable Machines. As our devices get more portable and sleek, our ability to tweak and repair the hardware diminishes. (The ability to work with the software, of course, is a separate question.)

Some argue that this is okay. Most of us wouldn't want to fix our refrigerators or our watches if they break, so why bother with tablets and smartphones?  

Computers Used To Be Hobbyist Favorites

The thing is, historically, computers have been easily modified by their owners. In fact, that ability to fix, upgrade and otherwise tinker with computers was a big part of the genre's early appeal. So while you can't crack open an iPad to add more memory like you can with your laptop, there are still plenty of consumers who would prefer the do-it-yourself route to replacing busted screens and dead batteries. 

But how realistic is that in 2013? Just how fixable is that tablet you're thinking of buying?

Thankfully you don't have to wait until the screen shatters to find out. The folks over at iFixIt have been tearing down the hottest new gadgets as they're released and posting detailed, step-by-step reports on the guts of each one. We put together this handy chart of how iFixIt ranks popular smartphones and tablets:

Note: If you're the DIY Mr(s).-Fix-It type, we definitely recommend reading through your gadget's teardown report with care before breaking out the 54-bit driver set. And keep in mind that none of these manufacturers intend for you to open their devices, so do so at your own risk. 

Photo courtesy of iFixIt.

For all the wonder and convenience of the post-PC era, there's one big disadvantage worth griping about: As we move toward tablets and smartphones, our devices are getting harder to open up and fix ourselves.

It's not just Apple products, either. Sure, Cupertino's wares have become so notoriously hard-to-fix for so long, that a bogus news story about Apple developing a new asymmetric screw spread from like wildfire last year before people figured out it was fake. As it turns out, though, most tablets and smartphones are relatively hard to fix ourselves. The iPad is pretty bad, for example, but the new Microsoft Surface Pro is even worse. 

In a recent teardown by iFixIt, the Surface Pro scored a measly 1 point out of 10 on the site's fixability scale. That's a point lower than the fourth generation iPad and iPad Mini (which were tied at a still-pathetic 2 points).

The Surface Pro has more than 90 tiny screws inside it. Yes, 90 screws. On top of that, many components are glued together using adhesive that makes it difficult for do-it-yourself tinkerers to take the device apart and swap out parts. 

Thankfully, Microsoft does let you (very carefully) remove the battery, which is thankfully not soldered into place. But try removing the LCD screen or solid state drive and you're likely to ruin your brand new tablet/ultrabook hybrid. 

The Kindle Fire HD, Nexus 7 and iPhone 5 are all considerably easier to open up and tinker with. But at 7 points apiece, these devices still aren't as consumer friendly as PCs used to be. It would appear that we're trading our freedom to update, expand and repair our devices for convenience, sleek design and unwieldy gobs of adhesive.

(Of course, It's not just tablets and smartphones. Apple's newest laptop got some very low marks from iFixIt, which called the retina MacBook Pro "the least repairable laptop yet.")

A Crappy Deal For Consumers

These new devices might be slick and trendy, but this trade-off sucks for consumers. Since repairs and hardware upgrades (insofar as they're even possible) are harder to complete at home, fixing a shattered screen, replacing a component or troubleshooting hardware problems requires consumers to pay some high-priced technician or replace the device all together. 

There's an obvious strategic incentive here. Companies like Apple depend on consumers upgrading their devices every year or two in order to keep their sales flowing. Why risk fixing my iPhone myself when I can trade up to a shinier, faster new iPhone 5?

For Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, and other hardware manufacturers, The Age Of Unrepairable Machines is a good thing. For everybody else, it's kind of a bummer. 

Lead image from iFixIt.

Jailbreaking is suddenly all the rage - again. Despite Apple's best efforts to improve its iOS mobile operating systemand discourage users from hacking its mobile devices, yesterday's launch of the the evasi0n jailbreak tool for iOS 6 is a massive hit. Since yesterday, the Cydia store for jailbreak apps has been installed more than 1.7 million times. 

Demand for evasi0n was so high, in fact, that the Cydia app store has been experiencing performance and availability issues for the last 24 hours. Cydia creator Jay Freeman (known online as @saurik) confirmed the issues on Twitter and via the app store's home screen. Freeman and other developers have been busily rewriting code and fixing bugs. 

"Traffic from evasi0n has caused many errors," Freeman wrote early this morning. "After 19 hours of work… things seem stable."

(See also: How To Jailbreak iOS 6 On Your iPhone, iPad Or iPod Touch)

New jailbreaks are always highly anticipated and it's now pretty much expected that the launch of a new one will cause the site hosting it to slow down or crash. But it's not every time that the release of a new jailbreak causes Cydia itself to grind to a halt. 

As of this afternoon, many Cydia twaks and extensions were still returning error messages instead of downloading. Most of them appear to have been fixed, although some users on Twitter are still reporting issues. 

If Apple was hoping to see jailbreaking's popularity decline, the launch of evasi0n should be sobering news. 

Even though jailbreaking phones and other non-tablet mobile devices is perfectly legal, Apple discourages the practice both with public warnings about the risks and with substantial upgrades to iOS that often steal ideas from the jailbreak community. The Notification Center that arrived in iOS 5, for example, looked very familiar to people who had jailbroken their devices. iOS 6 didn't have quite so many features lifted from the jailbreaking community, but it was still a fairly substantial upgrade with plenty of improvements. 

Why Is Jailbreaking So Popular? 

Of course, the launch of iOS 6 wasn't without its problems. Most notably, the arrival of Apple Maps was an epic debacle big enough to dislodge key executives at the Cupertino giant. It wasn't until Google released its new Maps app for iOS in December that iPhone 5 owners were able to get relief from the disfigured terrain and imperfect data wrought by Apple's first stab at mobile mapmaking. As of Monday, those users have the option to make Google Maps for iOS their default mapping application, if they choose to jailbreak. 

I'm speculating here, but it's easy to see why many iOS 6 users were particularly anxious to free themselves from Apple's control, especially after an imperfection as glaring as Maps bruised their confidence in the company's ecosystem. Another possible lure would be the ability to make Google's Chrome the iPhone's default browser.

That, and jailbreaking's popularity was already on the rise. In a highly detailed history of jailbreaking, Techcrunch's Sarah Perez revealed that Cydia has been downloaded 22.8 million times to date. That number is probably closer to 25 million by now, after the launch of evasi0n. 

Taking Back Control From Apple 

Jailbreaking is all about control. It shifts the balance from Apple to the consumer, allowing users to customize their devices, change the way the OS looks and install tweaks and add-ons to enhance the experience. 

It makes sense that millions of people would want to regain this type of control over their mobile computing experience. After all, we are positively glued to these devices. They play an integral role in our day-to-day lives and as a result, we feel personally attached to them. 

With personal computers, people who wanted it were conditioned to expect control over things like the names under our app icons, our default Web browser and the color scheme of our desktop. The post-PC mobile era has given us many new advantages and added a sleek layer of polish, but has taken away much of that control. Some of us want it back. 

In a lot of ways, Apple's strict control is a good thing. It's the reason the user experience feels so flawless and intuitive. It's why I can hand an iPad to my 70-year-old mother or my 3-year-old-niece and not have to explain anything to them. It's the reason that in the post-PC era, the tech savvy are doing far less tech support for family members. 

But there's a limit to how effective this top-down control can be. It's great that iOS works the way it does out of the box, but annoying that power users can't dig into the settings and start tinkering with things in ways that we've been able to do for decades on PCs. It's infuriating that I can't change my default browser to Chrome without circumventing Apple. It bugs me that I'm forced to use Apple's boring Mail app over something like Gmail or Sparrow, unless I hit the "Jailbreak" button. 

Most of the things you can do with a jailbroken iDevice feel like things we should be able to do anyway. Many of them, as Android devotees are quick to point out, are things you can do on Google's mobile OS without having to do any tinkering.

That's true, but there are more than 500 million iOS devices in the world - and without an officially sanctioned way to customize things, the tinkerers among us will continue to turn to tools like evasi0n. Sometimes, if there's enough of us, we'll even crash servers to get them. 

Lead photo by David Locke. 

PC shipments dropped 6.4% in the fourth quarter of 2012, while tablet sales rose 75.3% in those three months. The two latest numbers from research firm IDC, taken together, confirm what now seems to be an inevitable trend in personal computing: Tablets are now driving the computer market, while PCs have to be content to follow. If these trends continue, in fact, it won't be that long before tablets outsell PCs overall - just over a year or so, in fact.

IDC reported Thursday that the tablet market shot up at an almost unbelievable rate during the fourth quarter, as iPads and other tablets apparently became the gift to give and receive this holiday season.

Sun Setting On the PC?

Tablet sales not only spiked more than 75% from a year ago, to 52.5 million units, they grew 74.3% from the third quarter of 2012 - implying that some catalyst drove fourth-quarter sales in particular. IDC concluded that that spark was the Apple iPad mini, whose sales of 22.9 million units caused Apple tablet shipments to spike by 48.1%. However, the rising tide of Android tablets rose slightly higher over Apple's head, as Cupertino's market share dropped from 46.4% in the third quarter to 43.6%.

In a report released this month, IDC concluded that the "advancement of computing no longer starts and ends with the personal computer," an acknowledgement of the now-accepted belief that the PC is has lost its primacy: that the personal computer is following the smartphone and tablet, rather than driving it.

One question is how much of Microsoft's legacy in the PC is affecting sales of its Surface tablets. IDC reported that Microsoft sold fewer than 900,000 Surface RTs, the cheaper, ARM-based tablet that was released before the Surface Pro hits stores next month. 

Microsoft Surface "Failed To Gain Much Ground"

"There is no question that Microsoft is in this tablet race to compete for the long haul," Ryan Reith, program manager for the Mobile Device Tracker program at IDC, said in a statement Thursday. "However, devices based upon its new Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems failed to gain much ground during their launch quarter, and reaction to the company's Surface with Windows RT tablet was muted at best. We believe that Microsoft and its partners need to quickly adjust to the market realities of smaller screens and lower prices. In the long run, consumers may grow to believe that high-end computing tablets with desktop operating systems are worth a higher premium than other tablets, but until then [prices] on Windows 8 and Windows RT devices need to come down to drive higher volumes."

For comparison, 900,000 tablets sold doesn't even match the Barnes & Noble Nook, which finished fifth with 1 million tablets sold. IDC estimated that the Nook sold 1.9% of all tablets sold, leaving Microsoft with about 1.7% of the total market. That's bad news for Barnes & Noble, whose sales dipped from 1.4 million units a year ago, and an indication that Amazon is clearly  winning the war between the two online book giants.

Still, it's all small potatoes compared to the leaders: Apple (22.9 million units, 43.6% market share), Samsung (7.9 million units, 15.1% market share), Amazon (6.0 million units, 11.5%) and Asus (1.0 million units, 1.9%). You can see how each vendor has fared in IDC's interactive historical chart, below. 

2012 was a big year in mobile. We have never seen a year like this where there were so many quality devices from so many disparate suppliers all competing for the interest of consumers and enterprises. What were the best of the best? We rank the top 10 smartphones and tablets below:

1. Samsung Galaxy S III

Samsung pulled off a feat in 2012 that only Apple had previously been able replicate year after year. It released a flagship device that was highly anticipated by both Samsung fanboys and the consumer populace as a whole. While there may not have been any lines at AT&T or Verizon stores the day the Samsung Galaxy S III was released, smartphone enthusiasts indeed waited for the release of the S III with great enthusiasm, and have purchased the smartphone in droves.

Samsung said that it had passed the 30 million sales mark for the Galaxy S III in early November. With the two biggest shopping months of the year in front of it, Samsung will likely be very pleased with how many of its flagship devices have made it into consumers’ hands. 

The smartphone is worthy of the praise. The Galaxy S III has a slick 4.8 screen, a responsive (if sometimes confusing) interface, quality camera and Near Field Communications capabilities. Samsung has worked hard to create a device that not only looks good, but is packed full of features. Consumers have recognized the effort and rewarded Samsung with their loyalty.

• Best Features: Screen size, hardware features, camera. 
• Worst features: Some people complain about the plastic back feeling cheap. TouchWiz skin on top of Android operating system can be cluttered and confusing.

1.a iPhone 5

What? You thought we would let Samsung have the top spot by itself?

Not a chance.

The biggest story of 2012 has been the war between Apple and Samsung. In the courts, on retail shelves, in commercials and media publications, in consumers pockets and in their hearts - the war between Apple and Samsung has been a bitter, if highly entertaining battle all year.

So, in a hat tip to a year dominated by Apple and Samsung, the Samsung Galaxy S III and the iPhone 5 are co-best devices of the year. 

The iPhone 5 is the marvel of industrial design in the smartphone industry. It is hard to quantify this if you have not held one. When you do, your thoughts instantly turn to, “Oh man, this thing is so light, so thin. It is beautiful.”

For any other criticisms that the iPhone 5 can have levied at it, the flagship smartphone from Apple is indeed worthy of aesthetic praise. Apple also finally included LTE in the iPhone 5, increased the screen size, improved the internal hardware and performance all the while keeping a similar degree of battery life to the previous iPhone models. Apple added several important new features in iOS 6 such as Facebook integration, improved Siri functions, PassBook and new camera features. Apple also ditched Google Maps in feature of its own Maps app, what the industry may refer to as a work in progress.

• Best Feature: Size, weight, screen, camera and iOS 6 improvements.
• Worst Feature: No Near Field Communications, something which many people in the mobile payments industry greatly wished for. Maps. 

3. iPad Mini

Apple, a company that normally is shrouded in secrecy, did not do a very good job of keeping its secrets in 2012. By the time the iPhone 5 was released, we had a pretty good idea of what exactly it entailed. Yet, at the end of the year, there was one big question that nobody had really been able to verify: Would Apple really release an iPad Mini?

We expected it during the iPhone 5 announcement. It did not materialize. Apple then announced a surprise product launch at the end of October. This time, it really was the Mini. Apple also came out of left field with a fourth-generation large screen iPad. Nobody saw that coming. 

The Mini is a 7.85-inch tablet that is thin and functional. It does not have the same high-quality display that the original iPad has but it fits a market niche for smaller tablet screen sizes that had come to be dominated by the likes of Amazon’s Fire series of slates and Google’s Nexus 7. The market demanded a smaller, cheaper tablet from and Apple delivered with the Mini.

• Best features: Screen real estate in a smaller tablet form factor, thinness and weight.
• Worst Features: Overall size. It is not quite as easily held as a 7-inch tablet, making it a tweener between the one-handed Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire and the larger tablets like the Microsoft Surface, 9.7-inch iPad and Nexus 10.

4. HTC One X

2012 was a rough year for Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC. It lost ground to Samsung in the Android market, faced injunctions from Apple (and eventually was forced into a patent settlement) and saw consecutive quarters of poor revenue. 

All of this bad news for HTC came despite the fact that it made several of the top smartphones of the year. The One X (and its next iteration the One X+) headline this mini-renaissance from HTC. It is a 4.7-inch smartphone on AT&T that is thin and comfortable, sports a dual-core processor (quad-core for the One X+), quality camera (though behind that of some other smartphones on this list) and a simple yet quality skin with Sense 4. The One X is a smartphone that people take notice of and, sometimes, mistake for a Galaxy S III considering that they are virtually the same exact size. Many Android users prefer HTC’s flagship over the Galaxy S III. 

• Best Feature: Uni-body design, screen size, Sense 4. 
• Worst Feature: As is often the case, a feature can be both a strength and a weakness. The uni-body design also means there is no removable battery for the One X. 

5. Nexus 7

In the fall of 2011, Amazon did something that that no company had been able to do up to that point: effectively compete with Apple’s iPad. Amazon did this by releasing a tablet that severely undercut Apple’s original slate on price while also offering a host of entertainment capabilities. At $199, the Kindle Fire was priced to sell.

The problem with the original Kindle Fire is that it was not really a quality device. It used a stripped down version of Android Gingerbread 2.3.6 and ignored many common hardware features that many people would expect. It was boxy and slow, a shadow of its iPad competition.

Google was paying attention. If Amazon proved the market for a cheap 7-inch tablet, Google moved to perfect it. The result? The Nexus 7, a good quality 7-inch tablet announced in June and shipped in July that is perhaps the best tablet you can find at its price. It is a Nexus device, which means it is a flagship for the newest version of Android and a template that other manufacturers can work upon. It is thin but sturdy, features a front-end camera and quality set of hardware, satiating consumers looking for an iPad alternative at a fraction of the price. 

Best Features: Form factor (thin build plus screen size), Android Jelly Bean.

Worst Features: Does not meet the iPad on battery life, screen resolution and durability.

See Also:

• An iPad-Toting Mom Reviews the Google Nexus 7
• The Android Nexus 7 Tablet (and Jelly Bean) Explained
• Google's New Nexus 7 Tablet Gives Android an Instant Boost
• Google Nexus 7 Makes Amazon Kindle Fire Irrelevant

6. Kindle Fire HD 8.9

Kindle Fire by Amazon

Given the success of the original Kindle Fire, people anxiously looked towards the 2012 refresh of Amazon’s tablets. In turn, Amazon pleased its fans by releasing not one but two new Fires this year. Both were significant upgrades over the original. 

The most significant upgrade for the Fire line was the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD. Amazon included much of what was missing in the original Fire, including a higher quality screen, a front-facing camera, a dual-core processor and a better graphics processor. The 8.9-inch version (Amazon also released an upgrade for the 7-inch Fire) is big enough that it will please consumers looking for larger tablets at cheap prices but small enough to not seem overly awkward. The Fire still runs off a derivation of Android and sports easy access to all of Amazon’s media properties such as books, movies, TV shows and music. 

• Best Feature: Amazon media services.
• Worst Feature: The handicapping of Android. Amazon does not let users download apps from Google Play, instead forcing them to the Amazon Appstore for Android. That also means that Google services like a native Gmail app, Google Maps, Chrome for Android and others are missing, replaced by inferior Amazon products. 

See Also:

• What The Kindle Fire Says About Amazon's Whispered Phone
• A Close-Up Look At Amazon’s New Kindles

7. Samsung Galaxy Note II

You have to give credit to Samsung for thinking big. 

Really big.

The Note II is the next iteration of its “phablet” smartphone/tablet that employs the embedded S Pen stylus. It is a 5.55-inch smartphone made for the large of hand or those who want a small tablet that can make real phone calls. Samsung, one of the few companies in the world that can pull off multiple flagship devices, believes that the Note II is the pinnacle of innovation from all the disparate devices that the company produces. The Note II improves on TouchWiz of the Galaxy S III, provides a plethora of “S” apps (like Notes and entertainment) and finds creative uses for the stylus (which also saw significant improvement from the original Note). The Note II is not for everybody, but it has a lot to like.

• Best Feature: S Pen. Improved camera and gallery software. 
• Worst Feature: The size can be odd and awkward unless you are in the market for an extremely large smartphone. Limited apps for the S Pen.

 8. Microsoft Surface

It took a long time, but Microsoft finally came to market with an iPad competitor. The Surface runs Windows 8 and retails for $499 to start and, according to the commercials for it, is highly recommended to be used with an attachable keyboard. 

The Surface makes this list as much as homage to Microsoft finally hitting the tablet market as it does for being a quality device. The Surface is the type of device that Microsoft hopes can spur the adoption of Windows 8, create momentum for a dedicated hardware division and show the world that Microsoft will not be ignored in tablet industry. 

• Best Feature: Windows 8.
• Worst Feature: Windows 8. 

 See Also:

• Microsoft Surface Review: The Best… Something
• Was Microsoft's Surface A Mistake? Of Course Not
• Microsoft Surface RT Reviews Are In - And They're Mostly Mediocre
• Hands On with Microsoft’s New Surface Tablet
• Microsoft Surface vs. Apple iPad: Head To Head Comparison [Video]

9. Nexus 4

When Google announced the Nexus 7 at its I/O in June, many people figured that the flagship Android device for 2012 would be a tablet, not a smartphone. 

Well, that turned out not to be the case.

In October, Google announced three more Nexus devices to go with the update to Android 4.2 Jelly Bean: the Nexus 4 by LG, updated Nexus 7 by Asus and a larger tablet, the Nexus 10 by Samsung. Of these, the Nexus 4 is the device that should excite Android fans the most. It is a 4.7-inch smartphone with a 1280x768 resolution that rivals the iPhone’s Retina display. It has a quad-core processor, one of the first in a smartphone in the United States and can be used with a wireless charger. Android fans like pure power and the Nexus 4 has that, in spades. 

• Best Feature: Quad-core processor, Android Jelly Bean 4.2.
• Worst Feature: Lack of 4G LTE. The Nexus 4 instead uses the “advanced 3G” standard HSPA+.

See Also:

• Google's Nexus 4: If You Like Huge Android Phones, You'll Love This One
• Google's New Nexus Line Challenges Apple On All Fronts

10. Nokia Lumia 920

Nokia, like Samsung, is trying to think differently. Too bad that the interface of Windows Phone does not leave much room for creativity because there are several fine aspects of the Lumia 920 that can be commended. Nokia has one of the most progressive approaches to NFC of any other mobile manufacturer with speakers and headphones that can transfer music playing on the smartphone to the other device and back. Nokia also is one of the first major manufacturers to go all in on wireless charging. The Lumia 920 boasts one of the best cameras in the smartphone market with superior optics and software. 

The Lumia 920 comes with a 4.5-inch screen in a variety of colors. It may be a touch heavier than many consumers are used to (especially if you just held an iPhone 5) but that does not necessarily take away from its usefulness. 

• Best Feature: NFC capabilities, wireless charging, camera. 
• Worst Feature: Size and weight. 

Well, that was fun, huh? We got some new phones, new iPods, new tablets from everybody, new Macs, probably some new ultrabooks or whatever, all in time for the holidays. We got a fresh new excuse to argue with each other about which ones are the messiah and which ones suck. Now it’s all over.

Can we go back to work now?

I won’t pretend it’s not fun to be a tech reporter during gadget season. I love a new computer. I love to imagine how much more I could accomplish with a next-generation device. This year’s crop did not disappoint, either. I’m thrilled with the iPhone 5, I’m intrigued about why Dan Frommmer calls the iPad mini “the real iPad,” I could see myself switching from an Air to a 13-inch MacBook Pro with retina display in the next generation, and I really enjoyed exploring the Nexus 10 tablet.

I enjoyed these device announcements because I could see how each of them might enhance my life as a reader and a writer. I like how gadget season makes me contemplate my daily workflows and consider ways I might change them, speed them up or slow them down.

Even more than that, I love imagining what young geniuses and first-time computer users can accomplish with them as prices and barriers to entry plummet. That’s the revolution of personal agency that makes tech so critical right now.

Remember The Real World

But all the drooling is gross. When people use words like “sexy” to describe a chunk of metal, my skin crawls. And the breathless comparison of specs and stats and prices gets us nowhere.

Why is it so easy for people who love technology to lose sight of what we do with it? It’s not specs or features or form factors that matter. It’s applications. It doesn’t matter which tablet looks better on paper. Which one is better for reading? I don’t care what the company says the battery life is; which phone will last me through a real day of work?

Not only do these practical questions make for more interesting reviews, they open perhaps the most important point that all techies have to consider. Everyone uses devices differently. We all have different habits, different jobs to be done, different interests, and different goals. No gadget is the best choice for everyone.

Your favorite phone may not be my favorite phone. Having the same phone as someone else shouldn't make you part of some tribe whose enemies use that other phone. As we go about the Internet reading about phones, can we all please try to keep that in mind?

Photo credit: Eliot Weisberg

Apple’s iPad business has been a huge success since launching 2.5 years ago, selling more than 100 million tablets and generating about $60 billion in revenue. Now, with the new iPad mini in the picture — it launched last Friday in 34 countries, and “practically” sold out over the weekend — Apple’s iPad sales are likely set to accelerate.

My take after spending a bunch of the weekend with the iPad mini: This is the real iPad. With the exception of screen sharpness, everything about it is better than the bigger, “classic” iPad — and screen sharpness won’t be a deal breaker for the vast majority of people.

I expect Apple to continue to sell the big, old iPad indefinitely: In some situations, it is superior, and it’s likely to get lighter and thinner sooner than later. (I’d even love to see Apple experiment with a really big iPad someday. That might be fun.) But once most people can buy an iPad mini — Apple will likely have supply issues well into next year, artificially limiting sales — I expect the iPad mini to become Apple’s best-selling tablet. (And its second-best selling device, period, after the iPhone.)

• The best thing about the iPad mini is its weight — it’s almost effortless to use, and that’s a big difference. The full-size iPad is more luxurious with its bigger screen, but its weight and density always made it a little tricky to use. I read on my iPad most nights to fall asleep, and even just holding it steady and upright requires actual effort. (The cracking blow of an iPad 3 falling onto my face and nose, after I’d drifted to sleep, is one I’d never like to experience again.) I feel more confident holding the iPad mini, which means I’m more likely to use it in more places — the whole point of an iPad.
• The non-retina display is a bummer after spending half a year with a retina iPad. But it’s worth the tradeoff. I’ll definitely be replacing this with a retina iPad mini when they’re available, probably in a year or two. This is primarily a reading device for me, and there’s nothing like reading on a retina display. (Ok, a well-printed book, I guess.) But an arm’s length away, the iPad mini screen is good enough not to drive me crazy. Small text is hard to read, but zooming around is easy enough. Again, the dramatic increase in portability is worth it.
• I’m giving up now on keeping this thing remotely scratch-free and perfect. This is officially my “beater” iPad. That means I’m going case-free, baby. I’m going to use it on the subway, I’m going to carry it unguarded in my pocket, and if I have to whack someone with it, so be it. I’ll probably keep it in a sleeve (or use the smart cover I bought) when I throw it into a backpack. But the plan is to make this thing my workhorse carry-around iPad, and if that means getting a little scuffed up, that’s okay. The replacement price, if necessary, isn’t too much to swallow anymore. (That’s one of the reasons I went with the cheapest, 16 GB/wi-fi base model.)
• I have never wanted an Instagram iPad app more badly than I do now. Pretty much every other iPad app looks great, and I’ve started fresh with a skeleton crew of apps — Twitter, iBooks, Instapaper, a few others, and that’s it so far. But the iPhone (non-retina) version of Instagram looks horrible on this thing. Let’s do this.
• The big question, which I won’t know the answer to for a few weeks or months, is how the iPad mini will fit into my gadget routine. Where will I use my iPhone instead of my iPad mini if I have both? Where will I bring my retina iPad? (There’s still nothing like watching HD video on a retina screen. Planet. Earth.) Will I ever bring both iPads? (One has LTE, the other needs to tether.) What about my 2-year-old-but-still-unbelievably-quick MacBook Air? If I were to design my ideal technology kits for a week-long business trip, a Saturday around town, or a normal day of work, they’d all probably be different. Is the iPad mini too much like a phone? Is the big iPad too much like a laptop? Which do people want to buy more? That’s what we’ll eventually find out.

Anyway, the iPad mini, after a day’s use, is the closest thing I’ve found to the gadget I started wishing for in late 2008, which I’d called the “iPod touch HD.”

What is it? A tablet computer with a 7- or 8-inch multi-touch screen — about four times the iPod touch screen area — with Apple’s OS X built in. This includes wi-fi access to iTunes for music and movies, optional 3G service (or wi-fi/Bluetooth tethering to an iPhone for Internet access), and access to the App Store. [...]

What will we use it for? Everything we use the iPhone for, except phone calls. And many things we use our computer for, except everywhere. This includes: Listening to music, watching videos, surfing the Web, reading e-books and Instapaper articles, playing games, writing blog posts, etc. We won’t use it for Photoshop or anything we need a real file system for. But that’s okay — that’s why we have a computer at work and at home.

Perhaps the most impressive part: Back then, I thought it’d be lucky to be able to buy one of these things for “for $600, or $700 with more memory. Halfway between the MacBook and the iPhone, right where it belongs.” The iPad mini starts at $329 — half the price I’d imagined. (And its so-so competitors are even cheaper.) That’s pretty nuts.

(For another hands-on look at the iPad Mini, see Fredric Paul's iPad Mini Review: Few Surprises, Lots Of Questions.)

This post originally appeard on SplatF with Dan Frommer.

After spending a weekend playing with the iPad Mini, I can say conclusively that it's... a smaller iPad. Sure, there are few more things to say about it - and I'll get to them - but the Mini really is nothing but a scaled down iPad 2. 

The real questions are a) How does the size change the tablet experience and, b) How does the diminutive device fit into the tablet market?

When I got my mitts on the iPad Mini, I had dreams of going deep into its unique features and specs. But why bother? I've been using an iPad 2 for months and the Mini is, as promised, basically the same thing with a smaller screen. That's a good thing, of course, as the iPad is still the gold standard for tablets, and the Mini delivers pretty much all of the standard iPad performance - in a smaller package. It's markedly better than the other small tablets out there, including Google's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD.

Apps worked just fine, with no hiccups. The five-megapixel back camera took much better still pictures than does an iPad 2 (though still not great), the speakers sounded much better (though still not great), and Apple's new Lightning connector wouldn't work with any iOS peripherals in my house.

Actually using the Mini was significantly different than using a full-size iPad in that some tasks felt more natural on the Mini.

What Worked Well?

Any app with a simple layout took to the smaller iPad like a duck to water. Email worked great, for instance. The 7.9-inch screen is plenty big enough to work with messages, and the app seemed more concentrated, somehow. I didn't miss the extra size at all.

Reading books or long blocks of text worked great, too. A single column fills the smaller screen nicely, and the smaller, lighter Mini is more comfortable to hold, especially in one hand. 

Taking photos holding a Mini felt noticeably less ridiculous than holding an iPad. Still felt kinda ridiculous, though.

Being smaller and lighter, the Mini is more likely become a constant companion - especially when Apple adds fast, fourth-generation LTE connectivity in future models. Having a smaller tablet with you at the coffee shop is way better than having a bigger one back at home.

What Worked Less Well?

Apps that squish a lot of stuff on the screen, not surprisingly, fared less well. Even though the Mini's screen has the same resolution as the iPad 2, the shrunken size made busy apps harder to read and navigate.

That dynamic was even more true for browsing Web pages. Simple pages looked great, as did ones that dynamically adjusted the layout to optimize for my screen (ReadWrite.com, for example!) But complex pages and images larger than 1024 x 768 overwhelmed the screen, forcing me to zoom and scroll and squint.

The smaller screen covers for the Mini's lack of HD video. But even though movies and videoconferences played fine (Heck, those things work fine on the iPhone, too.), they didn't generate the same impact that they do on a full-sized iPad. 

Where Does The Mini Fit?

As I was testing it, I kept wondering if I would buy one, or even who it was best suited for. I already have a full-size iPad and a seven-inch Nexus 7 tablet. I don't think I'll be buying a Mini as well.

But what if I was looking for my first tablet? Or if I only had the iPad 2? 

If I had no tablet, I would consider the iPad Mini. It's a nice compromise between the cheap seven-inch tablets like the Nexus 7, Kindle HD and the spendier 10-inch options. My only concern would be price.

If I was stretched, $200 for one of the competing little guys might change my mind. For people who aren't invested in the Apple ecosystem. Jumping from there to the $329 iPad Mini is a 60%-plus premium. It's clear the Mini is a superior device, but that's a big difference.

For people with a little more money to spend, there's only a $70 gap between the iPad Mini and the iPad 2 or Google's new Nexus 10. If I could swing it - and I was planning to use the tablet primarily at home - one of those larger devices would be mighty tempting. As would a fourth-generation iPad or Microsoft Surface if I had a little more cash to spend.

I'm sure Apple will have no trouble selling all the iPad Minis it can make this year, but the market sweet spot is kind of limited: People who really want an iPad but can't afford the extra $70.

And what about those who aleady have a full-size iPad? Well, I wrote recently that I sometimes reach for various tablets depending on what I want to do. But I also wrote that, "If I was forced to give one up, which one would it be? The seven-incher, no question." (See How Many Screens Does One Man Need?)

Plenty of Apple fans will undoubtably want two sizes of iPad. But most people will choose one size or the other. And for me, given the price differentials, I think I'd spend my dough on a full-size iPad - and add a cheap, seven-inch tablet if I really needed something more portable as well.

I may be wrong about that, though. ReadWrite's Dan Frommer believes the Mini is now the "real" iPad. I'm guessing Tim Cook thinks it is, too. 

At first, I didn't think much about about the new iPads Apple launched yesterday. Sure, the iPad Mini represents an interesting push into the market for smaller, cheaper tablets, but I certainly don't need one. And the fourth-generation iPad? It's the company's least substantial tablet hardware upgrade yet, hardly an improvement over the new iPad I bought six months ago. Apple's new tablets are nice, but their arrival didn't have an impact on me.

Then I got a text from my brother. 

"Want to split a third generation iPad for Mom for Christmas? Only $379 refurbed." Hey, that's a pretty good deal! Only $379 for a new, 10-inch iPad with a Retina display, nice camera and everything. Just like the one I bought a few months... Hey, wait a minute. Dammit it, Apple!

See Also: Why The "New" iPad Should Never Have Been Released

I'm not one to impulsively spring for every new gadget that comes along. As a rule, I always skip at least one generation when upgrading my phone. When the iPad 2 came out, I held onto my first generation Apple tablet, waiting for the next version to launch. As a freelance writer, I tend to be very judicious and budget-concious when it comes to shelling out for new devices.

But when the "new iPad" started shipping in the spring of this year, I knew it was time to upgrade. Not only was it thinner and faster than my first generation iPad, but it had that super high-resolution Retina display and two cameras. I sold my now-outdated tablet and put the cash toward a brand new, shiny third-generation iPad. 

Now, a mere six months later, that very same device is available from Apple at a 25% discount. Gee thanks, guys. If I had known the "new" iPad would become the "old" iPad before the end of the year, I would have held out. 

@johnpaul I bought mine 33 days ago. Feeling the pain.

— Manolo Espinosa (@Manolo) October 24, 2012

I'm not the only customer feeling burned by Apple's uncharacteristically rapid relaunch cycle. After I tweeted a complaint, SoundCloud's Head of Audio Manolo Espinosa responded, saying that he had picked up an iPad 3 just a month ago and was now "feeling the pain." Fortunately for him, the Apple Store let him return the device and get his money back. Not all customers will be so lucky. 

Alas, this is one of the perils of being a consumer of mobile technology these days. With every Apple product launch, customers joke about how the company just made their existing phone, tablet or laptop obsolete.

Of course, that's an exaggeration, as my still-perfectly-functional iPhone 4 demonstrates. But electronics manufacturers - especially Apple - have a way of making their customers feel like suckers by pushing out new iterations of their prized gadgets sooner than ever.

Normally, buyers of new iOS devices have a year to feel like super-cool, cutting-edge early adopters. This time around, Apple shortened the window to six months in order to get new devices out in time for the holiday shopping season and ensure more universal adoption of  the Lightning connector that debuted with the iPhone 5 last month. 

That's great for Apple. I'm sure it will sell a make nn ungodly amount of money selling iPads and iPad Minis this year.

Me? I've learned my lesson. I'll be holding out for the iPad 9. 

But Amazon’s Kindle Fire thing is half the price! But the Nexus 7 is way cheaper!

So?

Apple is going to sell out of its Christmas 2012 supply of iPad minis no matter how much it costs — $329, $200, whatever. Why leave money on the table? If it can sell 100% of its iPad mini supply for more than $329, why bother selling any to people who would only buy it for less than $329? (Also, this helps preserve Apple’s margins.)

Then, next year, Apple can launch the retina-display iPad mini at the current (or similar) price, and slice $100 off the non-retina model. The same way Apple continues to sell the iPad 2 for $399 and the iPhone 4S for $99 — $100 off their current-year-model prices. (Perhaps the 2013 prices will vary, depending on what Amazon and/or Google, etc. are charging then.)

Either way, it’s a sure sellout this year and a good story to tell next year. Smart.

This article originally appeared on SplatF with Dan Frommer.

Nobody doubts that the classroom of the future will look very different than it does today. It will, at the very least, involve fewer dead trees and be much more tapped into that globe-spanning network of knowledge we call the Internet. Learning will also be even more geographically distributed than it is today. And it's increasingly looking like tablet computers will be at the heart of the whole experience. Like it or not, Apple is leading the charge. 

What Apple Showed

When Apple made its first official foray into digital textbooks earlier this year, I was skeptical. It seemed clear that iBooks 2, iBooks Author and the new "textbooks" section of the iBookstore would not revolutionize the education market anytime soon, even if the longterm potential was obvious. Tuesday, Apple shared some early results from those efforts and revealed the next phase of its overhaul of education. It's definitely onto something. 

Most of the 100 million iPads sold worldwide were purchased by consumers and businesses, but a growing number of those buyers are school districts. In the last nine months, 2,500 classrooms have started using iBooks textbooks, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced. Their content now covers 80% of the core high school curriculum in the United States. It's not a bad start, but Apple has a long way to go before iBooks makes an iTunes-like impact. 

The next wave of that impact won't come from iBooks 3 or the new version of iBooks Author, which are both nice, but relatively minor updates. If anything from Tuesday's event will help push digital textbook adoption forward, it's the hardware. Specifically, the iPad Mini. By offering a $329 tablet, Apple suddenly made iPad adoption notably more affordable for cash-strapped school districts. Apple also released the fourth generation 10-inch iPad, which should help drive down the price of the company's older devices as well. 

Indeed, the cost of these iPad-based programs is one of their biggest logistical handicaps, especially in urban school districts. I live in Philadelphia, where the public schools are forever plagued by budget cuts. The teachers I know have to ask for donations from the community (or pay from their own pocket) just to ensure's there are enough pencils and reams of paper. Their students aren't going to see $500 tablet computers anytime soon. A $329 iPad is bit easier to swallow for educators set on bringing iOS, rather than cheaper Android or Windows tablets into the classroom. Give it a few years, and these things will be dirt cheap. 

Apple's Not the Only Player, But It's Still Apple

Of course, Apple has plenty of competition, both on the hardware front and when it comes to educational content. Because of the iPad's premium price tag, some schools are experimenting with Kindle Fires and other Android-based tablets. The 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, for example, is considerably cheaper than the iPad mini. One fifth grade classroom that tried deploying the Galaxy Tab found it to be effective overall, but software glitches continually interrupted the experience for students. That's something that the Apple fan boys will be quick to point out: The iPad, as they say, just works.

There's some truth to that. Compared to Android, iOS is more polished and intuitive, but what Android tablets may lack in user experience, they typically make up in more affordable hardware. 

The iBookstore isn't the first place to offer digital textbooks, either. Startups like Inkling, Chegg and Kno were reimagining the textbook for a digital world long before Apple started getting serious about its role in education's future. Meanwhile, Amazon has its own e-textbook storefront and rental program and Barnes and Noble offers its own digital learning tool called Nook Study. 

While the educatiuonal space is filling up, it's also relatively young. So far, Apple has made one of  the most direct pushes into it. We don't see Amazon pushing the Kindle Fire as the next big thing in classrooms, for instance. Not yet, anyway.

As is often the case, Apple has a tremendous advantage by virtue of the fact that it's Apple. The iPad's dominant position in the marketplace gives it the best shot of carving out a meaningful segment of the education market, where its sights are now very deliberately set.

In boardrooms across the world, computer- and mobile-industry executives were chewing their fingernails watching Apple’s announcement of its two new iPads Tuesday. How would Apple's new product reshape the market?

The greatest- perhaps only - weapon that companies like Google, Amazon, Samsung and other tablet manufacturers have been able to wield against Apple’s runaway hit has been price. If Apple could create a dynamic device and match them at the cash register too, Cupertino would bury the competition. But Apple did not do that with the iPad Mini, starting at $329. The collective exhale from Apple’s competitors can be heard around the world.

Let’s take stock of what Apple just announced: two iPads, one the fourth-generation 9.7-inch model that will immediately replace the third-generation that was released in March. The other the iPad Mini at 7.9 inches that in most aspects is a slightly shrunken iPad 2, with slightly better peripheral components, such as a better front facing camera. 

First, nothing we saw today was revolutionary. With all the rumors leading up to the announcement, nobody expected it to be. It is surprising that Apple announced a fourth-generation iPad so soon after the last release, but it makes perfect sense for Apple to issue a refresh right before the holiday season (I actually always thought that the Q1 release schedule for the iPad series was a bit odd). The iPad Mini was mostly what pundits expected: smaller but well designed, still bigger than the 7-inch varieties from the competition.

Price Is The Sticking Point

From a market standpoint, Apple barely acknowledged that Google and Amazon exist. The $329+ price point of the iPad mini is targeted more towards the price points of full-size Samsung Android tablets and Microsoft’s Windows RT devices.

But Apple has made a mistake if it thinks it can marginalize devices like the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7, both which start at $199, as bottom feeders. These are quality devices that provide performance roughly on par with the mini. Cost-conscious consumers will gravitate towards them.

On the other hand, Apple has just significantly diversified its tablet portfolio. Even though Apple is replacing the third-generation iPad, the iPad 2 still exists at $399 (16GB storage, Wi-Fi only) and the mini plus the fourth-generation iPad give Apple a spectrum of price points from $329 to $829, depending on size, storage and cellular connectivity. While we can quibble about the starting price of the iPad mini compared with the competition, the fact that Apple has given consumers options across the market will be a powerful tool in its arsenal. 

Is It Worth ~70% More?

But comparing the mini against the competition, the pertinent question is whether the extra $130 or so for the Mini is worth it instead of a Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD. Here, the answer is not so clear. There is nothing about the iPad Mini that tells me it outshines the Nexus 7 in such as way that I absolutely must have it. True, Apple does have 275,000 iPad-specific apps (which should transfer well to the smaller screen size), but comparing bezel sizes has never been a real selling point to me. 

“Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad, but they have failed miserably. These are not great experiences. But why?" said Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing. "First, let's look at the bezels around the display. Ours, the iPad mini, is made of aluminum and we've worked hard to make it thin so it is comfortable to hold in one hand. Theirs is made of plastic and is thicker. In fact, the whole Android product is thicker and heavier than the iPad mini even though it has a smaller display."

If we are talking about the Nexus 7, there is not a single person that I have talked to that uses the device that does not think it extremely comfortable. The Kindle Fire HD is a bit more cumbersome. Both are heavier than the mini’s .68 pounds (the Nexus 7 is .74 pounds, the Fire HD is .87 pounds). The 7.9-inch screen size of the Mini gives it more surface area than the Nexus 7 and Fire HD as well. Yet, note the irony: Apple is releasing a device it is calling the mini but at the same time noting how much bigger it is than the competition. 

Consumers have to ask themselves if it is worth it to pony up the extra cash for the Mini for what amounts to a few ounces of weight, some extra screen surface area, and iOS apps. That is not to say the iPad Mini is not worth what Apple is charging, but the competition has set the pricing bar very aggressively, and Apple may not have done enough to clear it.

Today at an event held in San Jose's California Theater, Apple gave an audience of rabid tech news hounds what we've all been waiting for: the iPad mini. Long rumored, the iPad mini will join its big brother, the 9.7" entity still somewhat amibiguously known as the new iPad, released earlier this year.

The new iPad mini weighs .68 lb. and is a sliver-thin 7.2mm with a 7.9" screen. It features a 1024 x 768 resolution - same as the iPad 2. That means iPad apps are already optimized for the new screen size. The device comes in "black and slate" and "white and silver" models (what we like to think is a choice between good and evil). The iPad mini hums along on the same A5 processor that debuted with the iPad 2, with a FaceTime 1.2MP front-facing camera and a 5MP f/2.4 camera in the back.

The iPad mini equipped for Wi-Fi only will start at $329 for 16GB of storage, and from there it's $429 for 32GB and $529 for 64GB. If you want a little more connectivity on your tiny iPad, you'll be shelling out at least $459 for a 16GB 3G version, and $559 and $659 for 32GB and 64GB, respectively. That compares with 7-inch Amazon Kindle Fires and Google Nexus 7s starting at less than $200. 

The new iPad mini boasts a metal case and taller, wider screen than its competitors, in a thinner, lighter package. But prior to the announcement, the most relevant speculation revolved around Apple's smaller tablet's price point - increasingly the most relevant detail as companies like Amazon and Google take any measures necessary to keep pricing down on the new wave of smaller, more affordable slates. And Apple was not willing or able to match those prices - positioning itself as Mercedes to Google/Amazon's Toyota/Honda. 

In spite of Steve Jobs's best wishes, Apple will now be competing in the tablet market with a one-handed iPad - but it's doing so under duress. With products like the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 aggressively carving out the 7-inch tablet space at much lower prices, Apple is actually playing catch up for once.

I’m sure the new Apple iPad Mini will be super awesome, but do I really need yet another screen in my life? Especially since I already have a full-size iPad? Does anyone?

Is 8 Enough?

After all, I already have at least eight screens in my regular rotation. And that doesn’t count spares, backups and obsolete or little-used devices still hanging around the house. Nor does it include the many devices owned and used by other members of my household – don’t ask, that number is truly shocking.

Still, I know that eight is an absurd collection of screens for one person.

Or is it?

As a professional technology journalist, I’m probably not typical. But I bet, if you think about it, many of the people reading this have almost that many screens in their own lives, or maybe even more.

The scary thing, though, is that all eight screens of my screens are actually used almost every day. Some are more important to me than others, of course, but I don’t FEEL like they overlap. I need them all. Or at least I want them all.

The question for me now, of course, is whether I need or want yet another one, no matter how cool it is. The question for Apple, meanwhile, is how many people will want a mini iPad – especially if they already have a full-size iPad?

My Screen Collection

To try to answer those questions, I had to think about how I use all my screens. Step one is to inventory them all by size and device:

1. 3.5-inch iPhone (being upgraded to 4-inches!)

2. 7-inch Nexus 7 tablet

3. 9.7-inch iPad 2

4. 24-inch monitor for Windows 7 desktop PC in home office

5. 21.3-inch second monitor for Windows 7 PC

6. 13.3-inch screen on ReadWrite laptop

7. 24-inch external monitor for ReadWrite laptop

8. 50-inch plasma TV

As I said, that list doesn’t include the 4.65-inch Galaxy Nexus I’m not currently using, an old 15.6-inch laptop stored under my desk that may or may not even work, and a 10.1-inch netbook that now serves as a Linux test machine. Oh, and I think there’s a Palm Pilot and a Treo 650 hiding somewhere in the house, too, along with a Nokia NGage (look it up). Finally, there’s a review model of a weird XX-inch Samsung tablet running a beta version of Windows 8 and Microsoft Office that’s simply too clunky to even remember, much less try to use.

Which Screens Are Essential? And Which Ones Aren't?

Of all of them, the only truly indispensable screens are on the smartphone, the work laptop and - I have to admit – the big plasma TV. I could easily live without the rest of them if I had to.

Importantly for this discussion, though, the least critical ones are the two tablets. While I’d miss either one of them, I know I could get along pretty well without both of them. (I suspect that’s true of most tablet owners. It’s a nice to have, not a need to have, device.)

The big question for Apple, though, is that what’s the real need and overlap for two tablets of different sizes? Does anyone really need or want both a ~10-inch tablet and a 7-inch model? If you already have a full-size iPad is there any reason to also have an iPad Mini?

Surprising even myself, I’m going to answer “yes.”

There's Always Room For One More Screen

While I’m not sure I’d rush out and buy an iPad Mini – for my purposes, it’s important to me to regularly use at least one Android device to make sure I know (THAT)? what I’m current – I find that I do use both tablets. Sometimes that’s just because one happens to be closer at hand, and the immediate task I want to accomplish will work well enough on either one. Other times, though, I might want to do something that I feel is more natural on the smaller or larger device.

Reading text – like in a book, for example – is usually more comfortable on the 7-incher. So is anything involving walking around while carrying the thing.

Surfing the Web or watching a movie? Much more satisfying on the bigger screen. Writing/creating is easier with more real estate, too.

If I was forced to give one up, which one would it be? The 7-incher, no question. While it’s more portable, it’s just not as powerful, versatile or fun. It’s also much cheaper.

So no, I won’t be buying an iPad Mini any time soon. But I bet a lot of people who already have iPads will. And they’re not all just fanboys who have to have whatever Apple is offering. My entire screen collection tells me that dual iPad owners will find plenty of reasons to choose one or the other for the various things they do.

I'm curious, though... how many screens do you have? And do you have room for any more?

Photos by Fredric Paul.