Why Buy an iPad Mini?

It seems that apple will be releasing its scaled down tablet device, the "iPad Mini" in a special event in October.  Who will buy such a device?   To get a better perspective it might be worthwhile to take a look at Google's recently released Nexus 7.

The Nexus 7 has been described as a "game changer"". It has been described as being "far ahead"of existing android tablets with it's high quality hardware and relatively inexpensive price. It is also the only tablet so far to ship with "Jelly Bean", or Android version 4.1.

"Jelly Bean" is significant, as it delivers some of the smoothness and usability to Android devices that was believed to be lacking.    Those seeking to purchase an Android tablet should look for this, as apparently it makes a big difference.  In the past Android has lacked the "rock solid" feel of iOs devices.  

In the last quarter of 2011, Android tablet shipments reached around 40 percent, with iPad accounting for about 60 percent of the market. Interestingly of the Android tablet sales, 40% of these were Amazon Fire or the Nook, which are popular for reading eBooks.   These devices use the 7 inch form factor and show that there is substantial consumer demand small tablet devices.  It seems obvious that to remain a market later apple must provide something in this form factor.

According to an article in CIO Magazine, Kyle Wiens, founder of iFixit and an iOS developer, says Not only will the iPad mini have a smaller, eye-straining screen, It probably won't have a Retina display, either."

Wiens, though, believes that the iPad mini will be used extensively in the field by technicians, where mobility trumps everything else. Such employees don't have much use for fancy Retina displays.    It does have to be readable in bright sunlight however.

"With service manuals, you need to see pictures to do repairs, which makes the iPad much more usable than the iPhone," Wiens says. "Yet you might be in tight places, so something in between would be reasonable."

In the same article Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi says that a small tablet probably won't have much of an impact on the enterprise. Milanesi covers the tablet market at Gartner and is very familiar with small tablets such as the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7, which she says are too small to get much work done.

She says a 7-inch Apple tablet, along with a cheap price point, will resonate with consumers, which somewhat undermines her anti-enterprise adoption argument. The thinking goes: If an iPad mini is a consumer hit, then it will likely ride BYOD to the enterprise anyway.

According to Steve Jobs, "The reason we

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