Hasta La Gadget!

The iPad mini has finally arrived—Apple’s much anticipated response to the incredibly successful 7-inch tablets pioneered by Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and more recently by Google with its Nexus 7. So far they are the only tablets that have made a dent in Apple’s near monopoly on tablets. At first Apple declared them too small to be useful, but consumers clearly wanted something more portable than a full size 10-inch tablet, and also a lot less costly. Millions were sold—and that got Apple’s attention. Over the past year there have been increasingly credible accounts of a small iPad prototype being developed by Apple, but there was no guarantee that it would turn into an actual product until Apple’s official announcement. More »