Steve Jobs famously said that a seven inch tablet would be dead in the water, and in the case of the iPad mini, we agree completely. Jobs' Mob yesterday launched a spectacular fail which will be sending its founder's remains spinning, assuming he has not reincarnated yet.

The iPad mini is so bad that even Apple fanboys at Gizmodo have found it difficult to say a nice word about it. Apple's problem is that it is pushing technology into a market which is dominated by rivals at a higher price.  In its arrogance, the company assumes that people will buy its product. The Kindle Fire HD's $200 16GB model is $129 less than Apple's iPad. It also has access to good content reasonable 1200x800 resolution, 216 PPI IPS display and its dual-driver stereo speakers. The same pretty much goes for Google's Nexus 7 tablet, which features a faster processor and, better yet, stock Android.

True the iPad Mini, on the other hand, boasts a somewhat larger display, coming in at 7.9 inches to the Fire's 7 inches but the 1024 x 768 resolution is not as good and it has a 162 PPI. The iPad Mini does have better storage and has iBooks and Kindle e-textbooks which makes it good for students. It also has LTE if you can find it. The iPad Mini is also thinner but it is probably not noticeably so.

So basically the only reason you would want an iPad Mini is if you are out and about and want to download or connect to something. Apple's other problem is that all its loyal fanbase will already have an iPad so they are not going to buy a smaller less useful cousin.  Meanwhile intelligent technology types are probably going to use Google's Nexus 7 or the Amazon Fire which are just as good and much cheaper.

All up this is going to end exactly as Jobs predicted. The iPad mini is going to be dead in the water.