[vxf]

I don't understand the negativity. I am the farthest thing from an Apple fan. Well, maybe not the farthest... I don't have any negative feeling. But I am not a fan either.
I love my ebook readers. Those are for fun.
My iPad is to read academic articles, which is my job. So I find it functional, but the emotional attachment is not there...

Anyhow... I see some people integrating into Apple's system very well. I recently bought an iPhone, rather than anything else, because my iPad is already setup and I was told I could sync the phone without any efforts. Indeed, restoring the backup of my iPad on the iPhone sync'd everything - from contacts to email accounts.

Call me lazy, but the simplicity of it was enough to make me choose an iPhone over anything else.

I don't feel the need for a smaller LCD device. But, if I did, I would buy the iPad mini. Because I would not have to fiddle with it.

Truth is, the Apple system has other advantages than the locked-in media - which I don't use. It's a system that works out-of-the-box.

And one more thought. I recently had to setup access to 6 different email accounts (2 exchange accounts, 4 imap ones) on both my Outlook on my desktop and on an iPad. The iPad took 5 minutes. Outlook took 2 hours of fiddling, searching the web for setup instructions and lists of settings. Why, I wonder?

That is why I would buy a Mini before a Nexus or a Fire, that is why I think Microsoft can stick its Surface you-know-where. That is why I am not an Apple fan, but I will buy their products. Because I have a short fuse and things i find more fun than figuring out how to jailbreak and/or properly setup anything else.

For people who enjoy that fiddling, I can see why Apple would not be appealing. But I have done my share and I would today rather spend an extra buck and even lose a pixel here and there if that means not having to google the settings of my university's exchange server.