‘Come ye here yon ships seeking port! That ye may batter yerselves upon the rocks so ye may be plundered! Arr!’

It’s the tech world equivalent of Jamaica Inn.

So why would Apple give a rat’s about this nonexistent market? What competition? What customers? What profit?

Kids: Why rumor, cheer and rush Apple into a market that has been proven to be a fiasco, just as Steve Jobs predicted? Just so they can cannibalize full-sized iPad sales? Sorry, but this dopey rumor was DOA.

Google tab-plastic cheaply made Apple (likely) aluminum case
Google tab-severe (tablet) app lack Apple 100K tablet apps
Google malware prone Apple secure

So, yeah kind of like you pay more for a bmw than a hundai the apple tablet will sell for more AND be worth more. No fanboyisim required just common sense.

Would be a nice fit for my Grandkids …. I have five of them!

Note: 1024×768 or 4:3 ratio

Just like the iPhone nano before it, this iPad mini does not seem to fit what Apple believes (Jobs comment may have included the word “current”, but his argument was about screen size and pocketability, which is not going to change with advances in technology) or with how they run their product lines. It also seems to be chasing competitors, which is something else Apple does not really do in the mobile device category.

Apple can pull a $249 7″ out of the hat and sell well. But if they want a blood bath, then they need to drop the iPod Touch 8GB to $99 and bring in a 7″ 8GB at $199.

Also they need to shore up iCloud and iWork, produce document sharing, capabilities.

I am not going to say they will hurt, but I do see the writing on the wall, that this is trending.

I can live with that.
/i/s/h

Some of these broken states manifest in some amazing abilities. It’s like a slot machine, you don’t ever know when you or someone else will pull up a triple jackpot.

Steve certainly had a loaded machine, and got top bill. The rest of us just get cherries.

So, yes, they were a failed compromise and also woefully under specced (and horribly underperforming). The fact that suck horrible badly functioning compromises actually sold in large numbers likely led Apple to believe that there was a need, a desire for something small, easy & portable, but that the netbook wasn’t it. Thus they created the Air and the iPad which have pretty much gutted the “netbook” category.

MBA and the whole “ultrabook” thing is $1000 top line spec with netbook weights and thinness

That’s the reason for the specificity.

Given the same parameters, you could diagnose 99% of the population as acrophobic (or arachnophobic) Just stupid really, vapid “journalists” desperately searching for something to write.

Why didn’t MDN shred this guy for implying that the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 pressured Apple into making an iPad mini? That their roaring success proved Steve wrong? It has nothing to do with outside influence. This has been in the making for years and Apple just took their sweet time getting it right.

If there had never been one single 7 inch tablet ever made, Apple would still release an iPad mini later this year.

That was then, this is now.

(BTW wouldn’t it be neat if they could whip out a posthumous video of Steve Jobs talking about how he now approves of a mini iPad? Too morbid you say?)

What convinces me is all the UI research that shows the 7.85-inch size is the sweet spot for keeping touch targets the same size as on the iPhone. Apple could make a tablet at any size they wanted, but the rumors have been very specific about this size which I always found unusual.