Report: iPad Mini To Close Tablet-Smart Phone Gap

Tablets soon will have more of a presence at home and at work. Well, duh -- that seems obvious. According to a report by mobile app analytics firm Flurry, consumers will use tablets to connect to their TVs at home and will bring their own tablets in to work.

Apple's last earning call forecasts such a future, as it revealed that 14 million iPads were sold in the prior quarter, compared to 26.9 million iPhones. The iPad Mini, which is more competitive in price with the likes of Amazon's Kindle Fire HD and others, will further close that gap between the phone and the tablet, according to the report. The report was based on 30 million consumers who opt in and share data with Flurry.

All this predicted iPad adoption seems pretty likely given the trajectory of smart phone adoption, but it definitely will be interesting to see how the iPad Mini influences the sale of iPads and other tablets, and how the connected TV will turn the two-screen experience into a smarter and more fluid one. Microsoft is also betting heavily on TV-tablet synergy with Windows 8/Windows RT and its Xbox services.

Look at the chart to see how smart phones and tablets are being used:

It's clear that consumers are spending their time playing games on tablets more than on anything else. Tablets also are used when consumers are sitting in front of the TV from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Smart phones tend to be used throughout the day, and used for checking Facebook and email and such, probably all things that some people can't check on their work computers.

In the workplace, it will be interesting to see what employees choose to bring in: a Surface, an iPad Mini, an iPad, or one of the many Android tablets. There are so many choices, and that's before we get to the phablet category.