iPhone 5

Knowing Apple, you won't get a free adapter. It has no reason to. If you have an older iPod dock, that's your problem.

And knowing eBay, you will get loads of sellers, whether license is required or not.

But Apple is unlikely to anger its loyal customer base by stifling competition here. In any case, it won't see other adapters as "competition". It's got other bigger products to profit from. Imagine Apple CEO showing a slide of $1 million profit from the adapter alone!

that's very much a subjective thing though.  I know plenty of people who think ios is less intuative than android and vice versa.  Personally, I loved webos, shame it didn't take off, but there you go!

Intuition is learned, just because a person finds one OS easier than the other doesn't mean it is more intuitive, just that its more similar to what they are used to.  For instance, Apples reversed trackpad makes perfect sense, but I refuse to switch it on.  Its counter intuitive to me, but to someone who hasn't used a computer before it would be intuitive.  

what was the last Android phone and OS you used, John? they've come a long way recently. hence Apple nabbing plenty of Google/Android ideas! 

It was a Desire, but now I'm talking more about Jellybean on a Nexus 7.

Well, I'm probably going to get one. (It will actually cost £1 per month less than my existing contract and I will get double my current monthly download allowance.)

I have no docks so I don't care about that.

It seems (to keep prices down) there may be no 3G iPad Mini so that may no longer be an option.

There might be a 3G Nexus 7 but when? (They can't even make enough wi-fi only versions at present so it could be a very long time.) No iTunes or AirPlay either.

There is the Samsung 7" Galaxy Tab 2 (3G + Wi-fi) but it also doesn't do iTunes or AirPlay.

So my best, most compatible, options are to get a 3G iPad (too big) or get the iPhone 5 (at least the display is a bit bigger than my iPhone 4).

I would have preferred an iPad Mini, but no 3G will be a deal breaker if true.

I will wait until November (current 18 month contract ends, enough time for any potential iPhone 5 bugs to emerge, enough time - hopefully - to find out if iPad Mini will have a 3G version or not).

If Samsung made their tablets iTunes/AirPlay compatible (like almost every modern Windows PC/laptop in existence) then I'd have bought one by now.*

*Unless they are compatible and I am just unaware of it. (That very possible as I know next to nothing about tablets.) 

why not just thether it to your phone?

nexus 7 is a tablet, and the os is slightly different on a tablet then on a phone....

Either way, if you have one, you should know that it's possible on android to just have home screens with app icons on ala ios, no need for all the fancy extra stuff you can do on android.  So in that reguard on a basic level, they are exactly the same.  IMHO of course

Huh?

if you have a smartphone, most of them have a wifi hotspot option, sometimes referred to as tethering.  Basically you enable it, then it turns your phone in to wi fi hotspot.  So you then connect your tablet/laptop etc to the wifi on your phone and it uses the 3g connection on your phone.

No need to have 3g built in to the tablet and a seperate contract etc...

There are now dozens of Airplay apps for Android.

iMedia Share, Remote for iTunes, Twonky Beam for example

Interesting that now, the iPad is considered a game changer, whereas when it was released, it was widely dubbed "just a big iPhone" by the critics...

I would first check with your network whether they allow tethering or if there are extra data charges for doing so. Some networks don't allow tethering or charge for the priviledge, others dont.

A tablet with a non-intuitive UI, yes.