“Apple is likely to launch a 7.85-inch iPad prior to the fourth quarter of 2012 in addition to a new iPad scheduled to be released at the end of the first quarter, according to sources in the supply chain,” Max Wang and Steve Shen report for DigiTimes.
“In order to cope with increasing market competition including the 7-inch Kindle Fire from Amazon and the launch of large-size smartphones from handset vendors, Apple has been persuaded into the development of 7.85-inch iPads, the sources indicated,” Wang and Steve Shen report. “In addition to purchasing 7.85-inch panels from LG Display, Apple will also buy panels from AU Optronics.”
Read more in the full article here.
Yeah, right. There are too many problems with this to bother typing them out.
The more so Apple likely will launch 6.93-inch iPad in late 2013 anyway.
(Notice it is not 7″ size against which Jobs spoke out year ago, so it is totally different thing.)
Nonsense. iPod Touches are still popular (I love mine) so this would sell very well IMHO.
No it won’t.
Challenge
Total garbage
There’s a bunch of creatives on this chilly English hilltop ready to queue for this one.
Or same screen-size as iP2 but with a reduced-width bezel might achieve the same thing.
“And monkeys just flew out of our butts!” report Wang and Shen.
… will MDN, et al, shut up about the “tiny screen” Fire (for example)?
I have an iPad 2. I was initially hoping for a smaller screen model. Now I know that 9.7″ is marginal. The smaller screen I’d hoped for might have been good for an iPod touch, not an iPad.
With the anticipated size of the tablet market it may make sense for Apple to have introduce another model at a slightly lower price point to target a different group of consumers.
Despite what Steve said about filing fingernails, we all use our 3.5″ iPhone just fine. I’m sure Apple can make a great 7-8″ tablet that will sell millions.
Why in the world would Apple do this? They have already said that they consider anything close to 7 inches too small, and most people agree!
That’s what she said!
Hilarious! Thanks!
It’s DigiTimes where all story’s are made up.
Yeah but it’s not 7 inches it’s 7.85 inches. Makes all the difference. Actually I do believe Apple will do this even if most of us crew wouldn’t say we’d buy it – but we would.
Apple has no trouble saling ipad2 at the price it’s at. Why change?
this will happen eventually, there are many uses for a 7″ ipod touch. for example, car systems. Apple will someday enter the car market because They own multitouch don’t forget theres a huge profesional market for screens to tap on.
I want a coffee table, iPad. 🙂
God, this is so not happening. Apple is not dumb enough to force screen size fragmentation onto their developers. Just forget about it.
No it wouldn’t. Keep the resolution 1024 x 768. Ups the pixel density, practically no impact on developer. None.
“In order to cope with increasing market competition including the 7-inch Kindle Fire…”
Since when does Apple react to the market.
They create the market.
Typical DigiTimes. They can’t get anything right. 7.85 inches? Jeez. Everyone knows the correct size is actually 7.851148375349 inches, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Digitimes has to round their damned numbers for the size. I hate rumor mills that can’t get their facts straight.
There. I feel better now.
Complete and utter nonsense. Won’t happen.
No way. An article on MDN this week about the Amazon Kindle Fire confirmed the legitimacy of Steve Jobs’ opposition to the smaller tablet:
Excerpt: “All the individual grievances — recorded on Amazon’s own Web site — received a measure of confirmation last week when Jakob Nielsen, a usability expert, denounced the Fire, saying it offered ‘a disappointingly poor’ experience. For users whose fingers are not as slender as toothpicks, he warned, the screen could be particularly frustrating to manipulate,” Streitfeld reports. “‘I feel the Fire is going to be a failure,’ Mr. Nielsen, of the Nielsen Norman Group, a Silicon Valley consulting firm, said in an interview. ‘I can’t recommend buying it.’”
Is there a gas leak where you people are? Does it not strike anyone as odd that Apple will never make a 4 inch iPhone screen because 3.5 inches is the absolute perfect size for a touch screen? Yet, unless you have toothpick fingers you can’t possibly manipulate a screen that is over twice the size.
Open your windows and doors before the gas kills you.
It’s all to do with the fact that with touch, the UI is directly tied to the screen size – unlike the desktop where there is an abstraction layer between the KB/mouse and display size.
The two-hand-UI-canvas (aka iPad) was both alleged by Jobs AND independently reviewed in shipping products (that are smaller) as the minimum size for a DIFFERENTIATED experience compared to the one-hand-UI-canvas (aka iPhone).
The 7inch diagonal, you see, is deemed to be a “tweener” because you cannot scale down the two-hand-UI-canvas as-is without reducing the tap accuracy – that’s where the toothpick/sandpaper comments come from.
The second alternative is to scale UP the one-hand-UI-canvas, but that just leaves you with a UI that feels a bit, uh… Homer-Simpson-dialling-wand-like. It’s just a one-hand-canvas in a physical form factor that’s too big to drop into a pocket or indeed even use with just one hand.
So, it’s not being two-faced or having double standards, it’s actually two sides of the same coin.
Oh, yeah! Apple will release the 7″ iPad, right along with the Apple NetBook that those shrill analysts were screaming abut 2 years ago!
That’s right Fandroids and Windows users, hold your breath!
…
Keep holding!…
I don’t believe that this is going to happen either. A 7.5″ is the muddy middle ground that tries to blend the compromises of a smartphone and a full size iPad. It’s just not going to be good at anything (except maybe reading books) and Apple isn’t interest in such a limited device.
What for?
Further proof that rumors are a waste of precious time.
Any “tweener” product Apple devices can’t be larger than seven inches or it won’t be able to be adapted for use in ISO-standard (Double DIN) automotive dashboards. Apple MUST work with this standard to simplify the use of iOS devices in vehicles.
For the love of God, these twits have lost their senses. That size doesn’t work. Period. Jobs denounced it, the press has panned it and the customers who didn’t listen to the aforementioned are returning them. For car audio/GPS, yes that is the target size, but Apple won’t enter that fray until long after the TV’s are moving along nicely. And it will be a specific model for car use, heavy on the Siri…
I suppose it’s possible Apple may come out with a 7-inch design next year, although I think if they do it will be marketed more smartly as a larger iPod touch, rather than a smaller iPad. It will still cost more than a Kindle Fire, but it will ‘work’ so much better. And that will be the cold water that douses the Fire, and marginalizes all other 7-inch form factors as ‘toys’ against the iPod touch. This keeps it in line with Steve’s claim that they wouldn’t go to 7 inches for the iPad.
I would LOVE to see Apple take on the car stereo industry with a well-integrated solution. It’s pretty fragmented, though, like the living room home theatre.TV situation, and I’m not sure that they don’t see the cabled or Bluetooth iDevice as an adequate solution. But if the iTV materializes next year and is successful, then I’ll believe they might actually try it. However, I’m not sure that would stand against the recent NTSB recommendation against ‘distracting’ auto activities (ALL phone conversations, etc.). That market might be dead before Apple gets to address it.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand.
By “car stereo” you mean… music, right?
Gee, if only Apple would revolutionise the portable music industry.
Don’t all these “car stereo”s have iPod/iPhone connectors?
Seems to me the job’s already done.
Where is the Siri controlled, GPS, iPad-esc car stereo that you think has been made? Some stereos have a rudimentary control for iPods, but don’t you think there’s a better way to integrate all our goodies? If the job’s done, it’s done half-assed…
Whether this will come about, frankly I don’t give a hoot. I am very happy with my iPad 2. It would be nice with a retina display. (next model) I wouldn’t buy anything smaller given that I have a 4s as well.
There is a ~7-inch reader pad market.
This market is sooooo lucrative that Amazon sell their Kindle Fire AT A LOSS, and that’s not counting the reported barrage of customer returns.
Oh yeah! Apple wants a piece of that pie! 😯
New 7″ screens are probably for a whole new product. Maybe it is some kind of 7″ display for a new TV Remote control, or two 7″ screens folded for some other purpose, but I highly doubt that it is an iPad.