On the first day of its sale, the featherweight KO'ing the heavyweight i.e.
the 312-gram Mini knocked the 652-gram fourth-generation iPad into quick obscurity. People might be surprised to hear th fourth generation term but that is exactly the case with even the heavyweight retailers. That is exactly what happened when a retailer was asked at a certain large U.S. retail store (which will go unnamed) in Los Angeles gushed about the iPad Mini but was stumped when I asked about the gen 4 iPad.
"You know, the one right in front of you," was the answer.
Though I like the Mini, I'm partial to the fourth-generation iPad for, among other things, reasons I reported on yesterday. It's the first iPad to get Apple's A6 chip -- in this case a turbocharged version called the A6X -- and every step the iPad takes toward laptop-class processing power has got my attention. But I'm in the minority. The problem, of course, is that it looks the same as the gen 3 iPad, except for the Lightning connector.
There are other minor improvements too. The front-facing FaceTime camera has been upgraded to HD 720p video. The 4G/LTE iPad also works with a wider range of international carriers.
And it's not going to get easier for Apple. With the Nexus 10 tablet, Microsoft Surface, and the crush of tablets and hybrids coming from the Windows 8 crowd, Apple is going to need to make a bold statement with the next 10-inch class iPad.
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