The iPad Mini Will Be an Awesome EFB - If I Ever Find One

Over on PaperlessCockpit.com, I've been writing about my quest to find an iPad Mini in stores. It's now a month later, and I still haven't had any luck. Best Buy will allow me to place an order (and take my money), but the estimated shipping date is still "Not Available." This is more than a little frustrating. Other online retailers say they have a few iPad Minis in stock, but they're going fast.

The Apple online store says the 16GB WiFi iPad Mini ships in two weeks from order date.

I'm not buying it.

Really, I'm not buying the two week promise, and I'm not giving Apple, or any other retailer, my money based on an ephemeral promise of a two week delivery date.

Apple's little delay is giving me an opportunity to compare some of the other tablet alternatives out there. My wife really loves her year-old Amazon Kindle Fire, and after it was spontaneously "jailbroken", it proved to be an adequate performer, and with a $200 price tag, it was a great value. This year, the $200 Kindle Fire HD is looking very compelling.

Since I dumped iBooks last year due its content being locked in iOS devices and started buying my eBooks via the Kindle eBook Store, the Amazon tablets are really calling to me. I'm even an Amazon Prime member, so a lot of the books I have to pay for on my iPhone or iPad, I could get for free on the Kindle Fire HD.

Apple, are you starting to wonder for whom the bell tolls?

So, I'm about two more days from taking myself out of an iPad Mini and into a Kindle Fire HD.

The following infographic from TechNewsDaily.com doesn't show Amazon Kindle devices, but it still doesn't help the iPad Mini's case.