Nexus 7

The device arrived on 21 June. It took me about a week to open it, which was just as since the cover arrived about that time.

My first impression is that the Nexus 7 is not an iPad mini. The 7 has a smaller screen and is not as thin. Even the rubber case is not as slick as the magnetic one that protect the mini.

My first goal was to boot it up. Android is rather colorful and I will admit, more so than iOS.

My second goal was to deploy an app, just plug and go, I had hoped. But not so fast on the Mac which did not recognize it. So I plugged the 7 into my Windows machine and the same thing.

Evidently, the 7 needs some special developer tricks (like tapping the screen 7 times) and drivers.

The latter took me on a world-wind tour that led to the Nexus Root Toolkit, uninstalling drivers, and installing drivers. I doubted it would work yet it did!

Furthermore, when I plugged the device into my Mac, that worked, too. The Mac needed not extra software so I can only assume the NRT must have been installed some drivers and reconfigured the 7, too.

Thus, I've successfully deployed two apps from Android/Eclipse to the 7.

In summary, from a hardware POV, the mini wins hands down. However, from a software development POV, being an iOS developer, I don't see how Apple can win this battle with Google.