As we mused from the Californian Keynote last week, the iPad Mini revealdidn't win any awards for unexpected launch of the year (that gong went to the third-gen-terminating iPad 4) but in the time we've spent with it, the biggest surprise is how it's surpassed our expectation; not in price, but with regard to the biggest sticking points around tablets: usefulness and purpose.
Right now, Apple claims 100 million iPads are loose in the wild, though speaking to our tech-savvy, early- adopting readers that own them, not many can us what they really use them for. Web browsing, Facebook-checking, newspaper/magazine reading and, from the hundreds of apps that are installed, only around a dozen are regularly engaged.