Playing Offense and Defense

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Farhad Manjoo on the iPad mini.

Launching the iPad mini may be purely a reactive, defensive move for Apple. But when you’re as big as Apple is now, you can play offense and defense at the same time.

I whole heartedly believed that the 7" market was going to fail but with the Google Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire's selling at $199, those devices captured an audience. Heck, I even bought the Nexus 7 but I'll admit, it'll be up for sale when my iPad mini comes in. Is the $129 premium worth the ecosystem of apps to you?

The only tablet is the iPad

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One of the biggest insights into today's tablet market can be read in this fine article by Slate's Farhad Manjoo.

It’s been two years since Apple’s tablet went on sale. Rivals have released dozens of alternatives, but the iPad still represents more than 60 percent of market share. Worse, the rest of the market is dominated by two devices that are being sold at a loss—Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

Simply put, if you think about what people use as their MP3 players today and the last ten years combined, does anyone think of anything else besides an iPod?

Read it in entirety here: The iPad Is Unbeatable