I sold two Apple devices this week. And bought one.
I sold my 4th generation retina iPad. A few weeks ago I decided to use an iPad mini, that I bought as a mobile device management testing device, for a week. Just to get a feel of how the smaller device handled real use. I had voiced the opinion that the lack of a retina screen would mean I wouldn’t like it as much as the larger iPad model. I was wrong. Ever since that week I have hardly used the retina iPad at all. The smaller form factor of the iPad mini gives the full iPad experience in a more portable, and easier to hold, package. The iPad mini may not be a replacement for a laptop, whereas the larger iPad could, and has, for many people. This doesn’t matter to me as I have a 15 inch retina Macbook Pro as my main computing device. If a retina iPad mini ships, and it doesn’t add a lot of weight due to a bigger battery, I’ll get one of those. Or even a 9.7 inch iPad that has the same case style and smaller bezels, like the iPad mini.
I also sold my 16GB iPhone 5. A few times recently I’ve come very close to running out of storage space on my iPhone. I’ve had to choose which podcasts to keep on the phone and also had to delete some multimedia rich apps. I want interesting content, and not storage availability, to be the arbiter of what’s on my iPhone. So I bought a 64Gb iPhone 5 to replace the 16GB one.
So my day to day computing arsenal is now:
- 15 inch retina MacBook Pro.
- 64GB iPhone 5.
- 64GB iPad mini with Logitech Ultrathin Mini keyboard for when required.
I also have the following devices for use in testing mobile OSes and apps outside of iOS, and for mobile device management testing. I don’t use these day to day: