I've heard somewhere recently (I forget where) that Steve Jobs himself didn't think the idea of an iPad Mini was worth developing. He was more interested in entirely new products, like the so-called iTV. In his absence, I think it's becoming noticeable that the people in charge of Apple have other ideas. Some naysayers are already even saying the Apple is starting to go the way of Microsoft over the past decade; lacking innovation.
By the way, I have to agree with you, lbtlover, regarding what the ideal device in the near future should be. A laptop/tablet is certainly convenient when you want to use either, and to be capable of transferring information from one device to another (through flash drives or otherwise) would also make things very easy. I have heard that reviews for Windows 8 were rather poor, but with Windows 7 fixing the problems Vista had, I'm sure this time will be no different. (Besides, I'm not ready to ditch my laptop anytime soon, so I'll be sticking to Windows 7 for a while.)