Goodbye To The Mini

[Richard Serkes]

After a week with the new iPad Mini I returned it to Apple. It just didn't work for me on a day-to-day basis. What happened, you ask? Well, after playing with it for a few minutes in an Apple Store I decided it was a perfect solution for reading with one hand while holding a cat with the other. My cats don't just lap sit, they lap drape which means I have to support them. The full size iPad was awkward during one of these lap cat exercises but the Mini would be perfect I thought. And it was. I also figured the significantly reduced weight compared to the full size iPad would be great for traveling. But when it came time to do other things I found it lacking.

The smaller virtual keyboard was harder to use than I thought it would be either full screen or split. Teenagers have this "thumbing" thing figured out but I don't. And reading anything on the I'Net required two-finger resizing to make the font a decent size and then sliding the image back and forth so I could read both ends of a line of print. And for some reason filling in fields was hit-or-miss even when I expanded the field's size.

So bottom line, it's a cute little Apple device which has its good points but overall it just doesn't let me do what I want to do with an iPad so it had to go. If you're thinking about getting a Mini go to an Apple Store and really work with it. By that I mean compose email, read news stories on the internet, try to log in to a forum you belong to, etc. Who knows, you may have a different experience with it than I did.

Oh, and I really appreciate Apple giving me (us) 14 days to make a return with no questions asked. I received a 100% refund with a friendly smile. And since I had sold my full sized iPad 3 after getting the Mini the Apple Store employee was more than happy to sell me a new iPad Retina (4) to replace the iPad 3.

Life is good.

[Stephen Hart]

Did you try herding your cats?

BTW, the 14-day return policy is good. I used that card to get a brand new iPhone 5 instead of having someone attempt a repair on my defective iPhone. But in researching later, I found that Apple extends the return-for-any-reason policy to 30 days on iPhones.

[Richard Serkes]

Did you try herding your cats?

BTW, the 14-day return policy is good. I used that card to get a brand new iPhone 5 instead of having someone attempt a repair on my defective iPhone. But in researching later, I found that Apple extends the return-for-any-reason policy to 30 days on iPhones.

That's correct, it's 30 days for iPhones and 14 days for everything else. There are a few exceptions to this but they're reasonable exceptions.

[Stephen Hart]

If you like your larger iPad, you'll love Lenovo's 27-inch tablet computer introduced at this week's CES.
Brobdingnagian!

[Stephen Hart]

And since I had sold my full sized iPad 3 after getting the Mini the Apple Store employee was more than happy to sell me a new iPad Retina (4) to replace the iPad 3.

Life is good.

Now that you've had some time with the iPad Retina, what's your opinion? One really compelling thing I've seen about an iPad is iBooks, which aren't available for iPhone.

For example:
http://www.downloadtheuniverse.com/dtu/ ... ebook.html

I'd also like to experiment with making iBooks using iBooks Author. An iPad would be the only way to check our your effort as a user would see it.

[Ray Bentsen]

Now that you've had some time with the iPad Retina, what's your opinion? One really compelling thing I've seen about an iPad is iBooks, which aren't available for iPhone.

For example:
http://www.downloadtheuniverse.com/dtu/ ... ebook.html.

Just to clarify ... "Leonardo di Vinci: Anatomy" is a stand-alone iPad app, and has nothing to do with iBooks.

iBooks is an app that is available for iPhone and can be used to read all of the same electronic books that can be read on the iPad version of the iBooks app. Both apps are free and can be downloaded using the App Store app.

IBooks is actually one of the first downloads that I suggest for a new iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch owner. Then, once iBooks has finished downloading, I always suggest that the user go to the iBooks Store and download the free User Guide to learn how to use their new device. (see screenshot)



P.S. I plan to purchase an iPad Mini with Retina Display, once they become available later this year (as per rumor). I love my iPad 3 (with retina display), but the Mini will fit into my cargo pants pocket with no problem ... and still have a retina quality display.

[Stephen Hart]

You're right Ray. The site I linked to regards ebooks distributed as apps just like all other ebooks. Leonardo da Vinci Anatomy is an app, not an iBooks book, but it's still iPad-only. In this case, the difference between a book delivered as an app and a book delivered as an iPad-only iBooks book is minor.

The issue of iBooks is complicated. iBooks Author makes books that only work on the iPad.
What works in iBooks, the app, on an iPhone will work on an iPad. But the reverse is not true.
So this part of your message:

iBooks is an app that is available for iPhone and can be used to read all of the same electronic books that can be read on the iPad version of the iBooks app.

is wrong.

I think Apple let a good deal of confusion slip through here with naming. It doesn't do much better on the iTunes Store, where you have to look at fine print, such as:

This book can only be viewed on an iPad using iBooks 2 or later. iOS 5 or later is required.

You see that on many, if not all, books in the iTunes Store in the Textbook category.

So what I'm getting at here is that I might like to read some books that are iPad-only, and I might like to dabble in producing books using iBooks Author (for the iPad).

And I wonder how Richard feels about his Retina iPad after using it a while. (Richard, are you out chasing Wile E. Coyote? )

[Richard Serkes]

I love it! It really is faster at loading pages than the iPad3.