I’m sitting outside reading and checking the site on my new iPad. (Okay, and I’m also playing through Kingdom Rush for the third time. They really NEED to come out with Kingdom Rush 2 already!!) And while I’m really loving my iPad, I am hoping the rumors about the iPad-mini are actually true.
Sure, as we noted here, the smaller iPad makes sense from a market perspective. It would fill the gap that currently sits between the $199 iPod touch and the $399 iPad 2. And sure, it would let Apple compete with the likes of the Google Nexus 7 and the Amazon Kindle Fire. And sure, it will let the iPad become an even bigger presence in the world of education. After all, giving a student a $250-$299 iPad mini is certainly better than needing to give a $399 and up iPad as it currently stands.
But there is an even bigger reason the iPad-mini will be a huge hit if it comes to pass. WEIGHT!
While the current iPad isn’t exactly heavy it also isn’t exactly light. At just under a pound and a half it gets heavy pretty quickly. And that’s the weight without a case. Add a case and the weight, and fatigue from holding it, grow.
The rumors have the iPad-mini being significantly smaller from a screen perspective AND about as thin as the current iPod touch. That combination would yield a device that is significantly lighter. That will make it easier to carry but it will also make it simple to hold for an extended period. And it sounds a lot like… this.
Welcome to the future… Gene Roddenberry style.
I find myself watching TV shows (and movies that have an appropriate aspect ratio) more and more often on my iPhone rather than my iPad, and a lot of it has to do with holding the durn thing up (I have an iPad 1). So in a way, I’m kind of pushing from the other side–I really want an iPhone with a slightly *larger* screen. But hey, I would give an iPad mini a try, definitely!
I’m one of those not so enamored with the idea of an iPad mini because I think the display compromises are more than I am willing to put up with (the lack of resolution with actually decrease readability of documents). The iPad 3 is MUCH lighter than the iPad 1 and for me, a 7″ iPad doesn’t make that much difference. I have more trouble with eye fatigue on poorer quality displays than I do hand/arm fatigue from holding the iPad!
That said, I think many people like the idea of a lighter iPad as long as the compromises aren’t too significant. I think it would be fine for casual reading and watching movies, but I think students are probably NOT a good market and would probably grow to hate it because it will NOT make textbooks and/or technical documents look all that good unless the screen is retina quality (which I suspect it won’t be if and when such a thing every hits the market). Even the language books I study often have a problem with blurring the character marks which makes them harder to read and understand. Now if a unit with an amazingly high quality/resolution screen comes how, I will have to seriously consider it!
I readily acknowledge I am very lucky to not have any joint issues, so the iPad is not a problem for me. But the reality is that as we do more and more with tablets, we are altering our basic use-case from a more ergonomic desk-based laptop use to a ‘wherever we flop, forget the posture’ tablet use. That puts more stress on joints anyway, so a smaller, lighter iPad Mini has multiple benefits.