That great sighing sound you heard coming from the Northwest on Tuesday was the collective expression of relief coming from Amazon.com's headquarters when Apple introduced its new iPad Mini with a starting price of $329.
Any thought that Apple would go from owning the top end of the tablet market to the entire category was quickly done away with the announcement that Apple's starting price was $130 higher than Amazon's seven-inch Kindle Fire HD.
The iPad Mini's higher price doesn't mean that there is no joy in Cupertino, however.
For one thing, as an Advertising Age piece points out, the larger iPads were not nearly as on-the-go friendly as the Mini. As a result, consumers who have used the larger iPad as an at-home device may now use it in much different ways as the tablet becomes a much more mobile device.
A PCWorld article suggests the iPad Mini may also open up business opportunities for Apple. In a nutshell, the Mini delivers all of the functionality of other iPads, but at about 65 percent of the price.