Are you an iAddict? If you are, believe me, I’m not judging. I am one of you. In fact, I knew I wasn’t alone when, upon the release of the first iPad The New York Times interviewed someone who said that “if Apple made a $5,000 microwave, I’d buy it.” Not, of course, that I’d spend $5,000 on a microwave, but the point being I, literally, love the way Apple designs products. They are so functional and gorgeous that they quickly become indispensable, and a huge part of all of our lives. But maybe mine more than most.
Except for one glaring thing. I didn’t love the iPad. I preferred reading books and magazines in their paper form. I didn’t watch a ton of videos. I already had an iPhone. So the iPad was superfluous to me. Besides, it was too large to carry around all the time. Especially when you’re weighed down with diapers, wipes, extra changes of clothes, and other kid-oriented products.
But. Then. The iPad Mini came out. It looked cute in the ads, but I overlooked it completely. Frankly, I felt relieved that there was an Apple product I could live without.
But then my husband got one for Christmas. My kids watched videos on it when we traveled. And, importantly, I forgot to bring my own iPad on vacation (which is the one time I find iPads truly useful– when lugging all your books, magazines, etc. just doesn’t make sense). So I started using my husband’s Mini.
Let’s just say I’m hooked. (I guess I should start saving money unless that microwave comes out.) The iPad Mini turns out to be a ton more useful (to me) than its larger predecessor. It’s (obviously) smaller and lighter, which makes carrying it around much more functional. In fact, it’s more like carrying a paperback book instead of a hardcover (and who has the room/arm strength/room in their bag to carry a hardcover book around all day every day?). Also, in the years (it’s been years, right?) since the iPad debuted, magazines and newspapers have converted to forms that are much more easily read and available on the iPad.
Plus, you can read your email, FaceTime people, play games, surf the web, etc., as you’d expect. It’s really like carrying a large iPhone (and, frankly, who hasn’t wished their phone was bigger when they were squinting to read some long article, book, view the details of a Kardashian get-up, etc.?). About a week ago I saw an article called something like “Will 2013 Be the Year of the Phablet?” (In full disclosure, I didn’t read the article, but I’m assuming that it was talking about this sort of thing– phone + tablet = phablet, I’m guessing.) Now, I wouldn’t want to wildly conjecture, but, given my own experience, I’d have to say, “Why, yes; I think it just could be.”
The only difficulty is that the iPad Mini is so new that barely anyone makes cases for them yet. But you can solve that if you have a smallish clutch laying around. Voila, you have a fashionable iPad case. And, yep, I officially have myself an addiction.
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