Dave Winer on the iPad Mini

Dave Winer, writing at Gizmodo:

By the way, this is why the orchestrated reviews of products are often worthless. I invite Mossberg, Pogue or Gruber to re-review their iPad Mini now, a week after their initial reviews, and let us know if they’re actually using it. And if they still think it’s a winner. I believe it’s not only not a winner, but it signals a new Apple that’s no longer beyond compare, no longer insisting on delighting its users to the point of orgasm.

I completely stand behind mine, and still have barely even used the iPad 4 I have on loan from Apple. Winer seems to agree with me that the ideal iPad is one which doesn’t yet exist (but surely will): a Mini with a 2048 × 1536 retina display. In the meantime, we have to choose: big iPad with sharp retina display, or small iPad with a fuzzy one. I’ve gone small and fuzzy.

As for this:

Once you’ve shipped an iPad with a super high-resolution “retina” display, you can’t ask people to buy a new one that doesn’t have it. Steve wouldn’t have done it.

I don’t see how the non-retina iPad Mini shipping seven months after the retina iPad 3 is any different than the non-retina iPad 2 shipping nine months after the retina iPhone 4 was unveiled. Retina spoils you. If Apple could go retina across the board in one fell swoop — all iPhones, all iPads, all Macs — they would. But they can’t.

★ Monday, 12 November 2012