I still have no power (NYSEG now estimates restoration at 11 p.m. Sunday night) but I managed to get my mitts on an iPad mini today at the Apple store in Stamford, CT. As it happens, the store had no mini’s on display; several employees were carrying them around instead. They were more than happy to show them off and allowed extensive in hand demos.
Bottom line: I want one.
Yup, I’d read the reviews, made a cutout, and used other devices to get a sense for its size and weight. But in the hand….wow. To say that it weighs 1/2 as much as the iPad doesn’t quite capture it. The marginal returns from the weight loss seem greater than 2X if you follow me. And it’s seriously thin. It feels like waaaaaay less in the hand, in a less is more kind of way. Wonderful.
I focused on iBooks and Safari. Those are the apps I could envision allowing a mini to suck usage time away from my iPad. My concerns about the keyboard were more or less validated – no extensive text entry in landscape is likely for me, though using two thumbs in portrait wasn’t bad. A quick tweet and an email bore that out.
Safari was fine though not as luxuriant as on the iPad. iBooks otoh is an entirely different animal. I enjoy reading on my iPad but the weight is definitely fatiguing over time. I still do it but I would happily do it more, and more comfortably, on a mini.
As for the screen, it was fine. It worked fine for me on an iPad 1 and 2, so shrunken down was a marginal improvement over that (admittedly out of date) experience. I’ll happily get a mini with a retina display when they ultimately make one. In the meantime, they’d sold out of the 16GB model or I might’ve grabbed one on impulse. Instead, this goes on my Christmas list.
Go check one out in person. You will want one.
The iPad Alone 
Tony,
I just discovered your blog and I’m excited to follow your iPad Alone journey. Have you written a workflow-like post? I’m always intrigued by what core apps are used by committed iOS folks like you. By core apps I mean mail, calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, and even apps that facilitate file storage like Dropbox and Goodreader. Finally, reading about how you manage photographs, small videos, and music would be helpful.
Thanks for writing this blog. This weekend I will spend some time reading some of your older posts, enjoying your iPad travels while also benefitting from your insights.
Signed,
Seattle Fan
Thanks Seattle Fan! I plan to do a workflow post in the not too distant future, but the short version is that it involves iWork apps, Dropbox, and dropDAV. (I happen to also use this workflow to back up to a local Mac, but that is more of a legacy thing than a necessity).
As for media, I’m a mediot. I use iTunes Match to make my life easier, though it’s slow and annoying at times.
Photos are a disaster. I basically have a zillion completely unorganized photos on my old Mac. Again, a legacy thing. I use photostream to keep things going for now, but at some point I have to get organized with photos in general, whether iPad or otherwise!
Great to hear on the reading point that’s what I’m aiming for… got a couple of week of vacation coming up in December and plan to do some extensive reading. I’ll have to check out safari from what I seen it’s way better then what was on the Nexus 7.
Yup I think it’s more than fine for iBooks for example. I would of course prefer retina. But in the meantime, this will do.