Apple likes going small. Or, more specifically, Apple likes going smaller. The Power Mac G4 Cube crammed the power of a tower into a stunning lucite square. The iPod mini shrunk the already small iPod into an even slimmer, sleeker enclosure. The iBook carved a lightweight, attractive notebook out of the bulbous iMac. The Mac mini... well, you get the idea.

And now we have the iPad mini, the son of one of the few Apple innovations that actually went bigger. At the time of its release, if you remember, the iPad was roundly criticized for a design dismissed as uninspired, clunky and too derivative of the iPod touch.

Except it really wasn't a giant iPod touch. Holding it and using it felt completely new. There was a larger, uniform bezel around the entire screen. It came in white. The built-in apps were sleeker with extra options. Even iOS had new design elements: the home screen included an extra row of apps and a little more space in the dock.

Three years later, the iPad mini feels more like a giant iPod touch than the iPad ever did. That's not a criticism; it fits so well in my hand, in fact, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if it was released in 2010 instead of the iPad.

A few weeks back I wondered whether Steve Jobs would have approved of the iPad mini, having been so vehemently against the form factor. Now that I've used one, not only am I utterly convinced Steve would have loved it, I'm beginning to think he would have chosen this 7.9-inch form factor over the 9.7-inch one, and possibly scrapped plans for the larger iPad.

Well, maybe scrapped is too harsh, but he likely would have swapped releases. It makes sense that Apple sort of crippled the display; if it had offered a retina mini, there would have been more than a few 4th gen iPads sitting in Apple's warehouse this quarter.

(Yet, even with a very noticeably lower-res display, I'm thinking the mini is going to blow away iPad 4 sales this holiday season. Out of the three million sold over opening weekend, I'm guessing only a couple hundred thousand were big iPads.)

My iPad never felt clumsy or awkward until I held its little brother. Much like the marketing suggests, there's no fumbling with the mini; once I picked it up I naturally knew how to hold it. Where the larger iPad is built more for lap operation, the curved aluminum back of the mini rested so comfortably in the crook of my palm, I didn't want to put it down. And it's so light, I didn't need to.

The slim bezel makes the whole thing look far sleeker than its predecessor, and the finger rejection technology--when my thumb hangs over the edge, iOS is smart enough to ignore it--makes the iPad bezel seem unnecessarily large. (I'm quite sure we'll be seeing a slimmer-bezeled version next year.)

Plenty of people have bought iPads over the past three years--more than 100 million in fact--but I think the vast majority of them--myself included--would have gone smaller given the choice between it and the mini. My iPad now feels more like a stationary device for my couch than something I want to travel with. And I take my iPad everywhere.

If things had been reversed, the iPad would have been billed as more of a pro device, if it was released at all. A little thicker, a little less portable, a little more powerful, not unlike the 13-inch MacBook Pro vs. the Air.

The mini hits a sweet spot of design: gorgeous, thin, comfortable and very utilitarian, nearly as much as the iPad itself (including typing, I was surprised to discover). It might be the perfect iOS device.

If only it didn't have all those visible pixels.

Find Michael Simon on Twitter or App.net as @morlium.