Apple has released a pair of new iPad mini commercials, Books and Photos. Like the previous Piano commercial, they start off with both the full-sized iPad and the iPad mini side-by-side, both showcasing the same app. Then fingers take turns, alternately at first, then in coordination, choosing different books and photos, respectively.

Books is a little odd in that Apple stuck to plain, black and white novels instead of showing their full range of text books, picture books, comic books, and more. Apple is still ahead of Amazon and the Kindle when it comes to the power of their books format, and the quality of their visuals, so making that part of the pitch would have made sense. Sticking to novels may give the illusion of catalog and ereader parity with Amazon, but it keeps the fight on Amazon's terms.

Also, Books and Photos, wisely, keeps things at a distance so it's hard to see the difference in quality between the Retina iPad 4 and the non-Retina iPad mini. Because of the way the human brain works, Photos are more forgiving of lower resolution than text, but why take chances?

Whether or not that's a fair representation of the differences between both products is another story.

Speaking of successes and failures, I dislike it when it feels like I care more about an app or service than the developer or platform owner. It sets off huge warning bells and sends me looking for alternatives. Apple is starting to give me that feeling with Game Center. Since Letterpress launched, a game that depends entirely on Apple's Game Center application programming interfaces (APIs) for everything from matchmaking to gameplay, Game Center reliability has taken a nose dive. For several hours this weekend, I once again had more Game Center errors than successful turns. I've also had my iPhone and iPad mini go out of sync, with the iPad mini hours behind the iPad, and games I've simply had to abandon because turns could never be taken again.

The errors are frequent and frustrating enough now that it seems like Game Center has always had a glass jaw and this is simply the first time it's taken hit. Part of the reason for this has to be that Apple literally has no skin in the game. Apple makes not a single app, built-in or App Store, that relies on the Game Center API. Apple has nothing that hammers Game Center, nothing that creates an urgent awareness within the company of how Game Center scales and performs under load.

That means that it will always be developers who find Game Center pain points first, and that break things first, and that's a terrible situation for developers and users alike.

Dogfooding (eating your own dogfood) is a term sometimes applied to companies who intentionally make themselves dependent on their own products so they can make sure they find everything from the major problems to the rough edges before their users do. It's the ultimate form of quality assurance (QA).

I always had the feeling that, with the iPhone, if anything didn't work, Steve Jobs would be down in the labs smashing it on the floor and demanding it be fixed. I never had the feeling Steve Ballmer or Eric Schmidt cared for any Windows Mobile or Android device beyond wanting to have a screen in that space. That explained the relative usability of those two products to me.

And that's the same vibe I'm getting with Game Center. That Apple felt they needed to have it, but that they don't particularly care about it. Nintendo has Mario, Xbox has Halo, Sony Has Grand Turismo, all among many others. Their gaming platforms have first party games that are almost always among the most popular and most ambitious.

It's often said that Apple doesn't get gaming and doesn't get social, so maybe social gaming like Game Center was predestined for birthing pain. But it's also likely exacerbated by Apple not having a single shipping product that depends on Game Center being great.

No company can do everything all at once, and if Apple has to spend resources fixing and improving Game Center, they can't spend those same resources fixing, improving, and creating other things. That's opportunity cost. I get that. But social gaming is a big deal. It deserves attention. It deserves resources.

I'd like to think Phil Schiller or Jony Ive or Craig Federighi or even Tim Cook is as frustrated with Letterpress performance as we are, and is down in the labs throwing an iPad mini on the floor and demanding it be fixed. I'd like to hear that Apple is buying or launching an app that's going to showcase a newer, better, far more reliable Game Center. Something. Anything.

Maps and Siri were both recently given a press release-level hand-off to Eddy Cue. Maybe Game Center isn't as high on the priority list, but I'd like to at least see some sign that it's on the priority list.

There's been a lot of great stuff written about the recent Apple management shake-up that saw Scott Forstall removed as head of iOS and his portfolio re-distributed to Jony Ive (design), Craig Frederighi (software), and Eddy Cue (services).

• Forstall Out; Ive Up
• Regime Change
• Innovation is a Fight

That last one in particular, by Michael Lopp, talks to the important of disruption is vital to success.

The word that worried me the most in the press release was in the first sentence. The word was "collaboration". Close your eyes and imagine a meeting with Steve Jobs. Imagine how it proceeds and how decisions are made. Does the word collaboration ever enter your mind? Not mine. I'm just sitting there on pins and needles waiting for the guy to explode and rip us to shreds because we phoned it in on a seemingly unimportant icon.

Consensus is said to be the opposite of leadership, but collaboration is a tool to achieve normalization. Under Steve Jobs, the power of personality literally revolutionized the consumer electronic world. Under Scott Forstall, the power of personality literally changed the mobile experience of a generation. Yet with incredible highs come incredible lows. Success, like everything, has a price. And that price is equal and opposite failure. MobileMe, iOS 6 Maps, Siri reliability -- the list is well known.

Absent Steve Jobs, and now absent Scott Forstall, we may have lost Apple's highest highs and the greatest greats. But we may also have lost the lowest lows and worst of the worsts that came with them. Instead of Star Wars under Lucas, we'll have Star Wars under Disney. Instead of Kubrick, we'll have Pixar.

Just like Steve Jobs did with product grids, Tim Cook has now done with people. There will still be great things, and still be terrible things, but the chances of both will be lessened by collaboration and committee.

The iMore show returns tonight with a full-on review of Apple's latest iOS device, the iPad mini. We'll be talking all about the trade-off between power and portability, and we'll be answering your questions.

Have an iPad mini question? Leave it in the comments below, email it to podcast@mobilenations.com or tweet it to @imore.

Join us LIVE at 6pm PT, 9pm ET. Set an alarm. Bookmark this page. Be here.

The HiLO Lens is currently on Kickstarter seeking backers for what can only be described as a clip on lens for your iPhone or iPad that allows you to get creative with your photographs. The HiLO lens is the first ever right angle lens for your iOS device that will let you take pictures from all sorts of new angles.

Modern digital cameras often have a swivel/flip screen, HiLO Lens extends your iPhone camera or iPad camera in a similar way. HiLO Lens is the first right angle lens for the iPhone4/4S/5 & iPad3. With this simple device you'll create more memorable photos. HiLO Lens is full of custom designed optics, made with three lenses and a prism. The optics keep HiLO Lens tiny and capture the full field of view (FOV) of the iPhone camera.

The optics in HiLO Lens are more sophisticated than any other lens available for the iPhone. Optics are always a compromise and we want to keep HiLO Lens affordable. To give you an idea, the aluminium container housing the optics is machined to tolerances of 0.01mm - that's 1/10th the thickness of a strand of hair!

There will also be a free app to accompany the lens should it make it into production. The app will correct any mirroring which may occur which is caused by the prism and also improves the image quality too. If you like the look of the HiLO lens and would like to back the project, you can do so from $60. It only has 9 days left to run and is currently just under its target for funding of $27,500.

Could you see a good usage case for this type of lens for your iPhone or iPad?

Source: Kickstarter

Apple and HTC have reached a global settlement to their long-running patent dispute. The settlement includes a 10-year cross-licensing agreement. A joint statement released by both companies quotes HTC's Peter Chou and Apple's Tim Cook:

"HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple, so HTC can focus on innovation instead of litigation," said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC.

"We are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC," said Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. "We will continue to stay laser focused on product innovation."

So, all in on the innovation. The settlement includes current and future patents. No terms were disclosed. Phil Nickinson of our Mobile Nations sibling site, Android Central spoke to HTC tonight and also learned:

The licensing deal covers all of HTC's products, company spokesman Jeff Gordon told Android Central this evening, which includes Android as well as its current Windows Phone stable. Gordon also said that "we do not expect this license agreement to have an adverse material impact on the financials of the company."

HTC makes both Android and Windows Phone devices. Apple already has a cross-licensing deal in place with Microsoft. When it comes to Android, however, Apple's late co-founder, Steve Jobs, vowed to go thermonuclear on what he considered Android's grand theft of iPhone intellectual property, and Tim Cook has asserted that Apple can't be the developer for the world. Apparently neither that legacy nor that position were impediments to a resolution in HTC's case.

Apple has previously reached a settlement with Nokia as well, but they remain in litigation with the very-well funded Samsung and the Google-owned Motorola.

Apple will be paying Swiss national rail operator SSB $21 million dollars for using their clock design on the new iOS 6 Clock app for iPad. Apple launched the new Clock app for iPad in September of 2012, over 2 years since the original iPad launched sans Clock app of any kind, and initially without permission to use the famed design. The AFP paraphrases (no link provided and/or available) the Tages-Anzeiger daily:

[According to several unnamed sources, Apple] agreed in October to pay the lump sum so it could continue using SBB's Swiss-designed station clock face on its iPads and iPhones.

Apple often seems to prefer begging paying for forgiveness than asking for permission, and this is simply the latest example. It's a great looking clock, it's a great looking app, the SSB seem to have their money, we have the feature, so all's well that ends well.

Now could Apple please go steal that Braun calculator design, along with a good weather and stock app design, so we can finally get iPad parity with iPhone and iPod touch?