“Even as rumors about Apple’s next generation tablet – dubbed iPad 3 – continue to grow, a report on another gadget called ‘iPad Mini’ – an iPad with a 7.85-inh display that could compete with Kindle Fire – has surfaced,” Wendy Li reports for The International Business Times.
“Taipei-based DigiTimes said that an iPad with a 7.85-inch display (iPad Mini) might be released by Apple in late 2012, or in time for the next Christmas, supposedly to compete with the 7-inch Kindle Fire from Amazon and smartphones with large displays,” Li reports. “iPad currently controls 70% of global tablet market and shipments are expected to touch 60 million units in 2011. However, as competition among various tablets intensifies, Apple will try to maintain its lead over rivals such as Amazon, Samsung, Acer and Toshiba.”
Li reports, “Apple has not confirmed whether it it will actually release a 7.85-inch iPad, but if it does, it will a major shift from what the company’s late co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs regarded. According to Jobs, any tablet smaller than 10 inches are ‘tweener’ devices – too big to be a smartphoe and too small to be a tablet. However, the fact that the 7-inch Kindle Fire is selling like hot cakes and Amazon said it’s the company’s best selling product ever might disprove Jobs’ opinion.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Unless people have evolved fingers that are now half the size they were last month, tiny-screen tablets like Amazon’s Kindle Fire are failures in the usability department. Tablets that aren’t able to be used are failures. After the initial Christmas rush, the returns will begin or they will be relegated to the status of glorified e-readers by their unfortunate owners.
One naturally thinks that a 7-inch screen would offer 70% of the benefits of a 10-inch screen. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. The screen measurements are diagonal, so that a 7-inch screen is only 45% as large as iPad’s 10-inch screen. You heard me right: Just 45% as large.
If you take an iPad an hold it upright in portrait view and draw an imaginary horizontal line halfway down the screen, the screens on these 7-inch tablets are a bit smaller than the bottom half of the ipad’s display. This size isn’t sufficient to create great tablet apps in our opinion. While one could increase the resolution of the display to make up for some of the difference, it is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size.
Apple has done extensive user testing on tough interfaces over many years and we really understand this stuff. There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touchscreen before users cannot reliably tap, flick, or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps… The 7-inch tablets are tweeners. Too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad.
These are among the reasons we think the current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA. Dead On Arrival. Their manufacturers will learn the painful lesson that their tablets are too small and increase the size next year, thereby abandoning both customers and developers who jumped on the 7-inch bandwagon with an orphaned product.
Sounds like lots of fun ahead. – Steve Jobs, October 18, 2010
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Disgruntled early adopters of Amazon’s tiny screen Kindle Fire have slew of complaints – December 12, 2011
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IF…it happens it will be geared toward gaming.
I thnk you ARE right HONEYDEW…
lets not CALL THIS a mini ipad…
LETS call this the NEW itouch PAD or a bigger ipodTOUCH.
mini nothing focused on gaming yes I AM SURE you are correct.
Absolutely. Such a device would have to be aimed at a specific niche (like gaming), or Apple would have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do after openly dissing the 7″general use tablet as unusable.
Could be a TouchPad?
Do you think it could possibly be a remote for the apple TV? I mean, It makes a lot more sense than a standalone product, and the gaming could also mean airplay mirroring to the Bigger screen while adaptive controls stayed in your hands?
I have been suggesting that it be marketed as a Fat iPod touch for a while now. Apple can work around the comments made by Steve Jobs by stating that Siri has changed the user interface that required the sand paper the same way that Siri will take the “hobby” out of the AppleTV.
Yup, gaming AND AppleTV with apps. Should be good for downloading, game controller, program selection, remote and hifi controller – all on a 52 inch plasma of your choice 🙂
So much for Steves thoughts. That didn’t take Apple long.
You buy this crap? If so, can I buy your APPL? I’m sure you’ll go short, right?
Never get tired of reading Steve’s quotes… Although he said current crop, so 7.85 is a bit like 8″ which hasnt been done well yet… If you take a higher resolution display and a smaller lcd 10″ apps might be able to be scaled to fit without any usability issues, perfect for children and women I’d say and people with less than average sized hands.. Any developer want to comment about this possibility?
Steve could be right, if Apple still pulls it off, hope the hardware beta testers are of a lot of different hand sizes and ages.
Well, if it scaled perfectly it would be possible. But there would be another problem that Apple and good developers would not be to happy about: File size.
No reason to ship an App that’s say 30MB when it could be 20MB if resized properly.
I’m glad the iPhone to iPad scaling was not perfect, or we’d see a lot less iPad apps and a lot more scaled up iPhone apps. Especially apps that don’t rely to heavily on graphics (text and UI buttons can scale up when made correctly in Xcode (similar to vector art and PDFs).
Not. Gonna. Happen.
1.) Apple makes products that are substantially different from each other. An iPhone is meant to be small, since it needs to fit in a pocket and is used in a truly mobile environment. iPad is large because it’s not a true mobile device (you don’t walk down the street with it or pull it out in the check out line at the market).
2.) Apple won’t create a device that has no clearly defined purpose, and will cause buyer’s remorse or confusion. It wouldn’t be small enough to be fully mobile, but it wouldn’t be large enough to be full size. When and where would one use this thing?
3.) Apple doesn’t want to fragment the App Store with screen/device sizes. That’s one reason we should expect the iPhone 5 to retain it’s current screen size.
4.) Compete with the Kindle Fire? Apple’s going to release something in a year that competes with something shipping now? The Kindle Fire simply competes with one of Apple’s apps.
Nailed it.
I’m sure glad these moron analysts and tech know-it-alls aren’t running Apple. The Fire is selling for one reason: price. Amazon is losing $ on every one it sells. Does that sound like an Apple strategy? Even if Apple was going to make a tablet this size, it would sell for $350 — more than a Kindle. Who would buy one? What would be the point?
*If* Apple was making a different size device I think a 5″ iPod would make a lot more sense. The screen could have the same number of pixels (so no resolution fragmentation) and it would be better for ebooks and such.
“Amazon is losing $ on every one it sells. Does that sound like an Apple strategy?”
Nope. However, it sounds *exactly* like Microsoft’s Xbox strategy. But without the Windows/Office hegemony’s financial support.
Amazon does have some cash, but not as much as Microsoft. Their profit-making abilities have diminished these days. I think they made 60 million in profit WORLDWIDE last quarter. And they’re clearly gonna take a loss with the Fire. Based on this and their pitiful margins (2%?), I predict they will report a loss in January.
“The Kindle Fire simply competes with one of Apple’s apps.”..an astute observation Marty, I concur.
People buy Kindle Fire not because it has 7″ screen but because it’s cheap. So, if Apple want to compete with Fire, it won’t make a 7″ screen, but simply lower the price, which is not gonna happen.
Nice synopsis Marty.
I agree with most of your points. Except maybe number two in terms of the use. It kinda relates to your fourth point. iBooks right? Reading. Apples current screen standard is pretty useless in bright sunlight. If the nascent book and magazine industry is to progress on the iOS platform I feel it needs to be readable anywhere. So the lynchpin is not the screen size to a degree but the viewability. Its all strategery 🙂 If iPad 3 is lighter and the screen issue is addressed, Game over. Analyze the cost structure of the iPod/iPhone and iPad lines, not much wiggle room for value perception through product differentiation by screen size. Not to say wouldn’t add a mid-size screen but the economies of scale wouldn’t make total sense right now. It’s a similar strategy to the iPod line when it came out. The competition is still floundering to get a substantial foothold at any screen size.
Those Amazon kindles are going to be just that…fire-starters for bigger iPad growth. They’re a cheap gateway drug…:)
“Apples current screen standard is pretty useless in bright sunlight.”
Kindle fire has the same type of backlit LCD. It is no better for outdoor reading than is the IPad. I tell people to do themselves a favor and get an iPad first. If they need to read in the sun, get the cheap e-ink Kindle. The original Kindle knows what it is: a book reader and does not poorly attempt to be a dozen other things like the Fire does.
MDN just see that 7.85 inch is a lot different than 7.0. It’s over 10% more and makes perfect sense.
And how is ready for release ,Christmas 2012 ? Ready for release would be in the next 30 days .these rumours are to drive sales of iPad 2 down ,it’s a joke .apple may need to comment based on what happen with the iPhone 4s . The rumours are too main stream now ,the average person doesn’t no what to believe .
Exactly! Rumors just to freeze sales.
I was in best buy yesterday and there were 3 returned Kindle Fires on a table taped up for resale at a discount. From the reviews and what I’ve seen The Fire is NOT a gotta have product like the iPad I bought yesterday for my 11 year olds birthday.
Will never happen….as per the words of Steve Jobs and by the fact that currently Apple is in the “trend setting” mode, not in catch-up mode (bother literally and in the mindset of the company).
They would not chase after a market segment that they did not believe in (regardless of what the rest of the market says).
People do not want a small screen real estate tablet, they want an “as big as you can handle” screen size. If I want a 7″ screened tablet, I’ll just go buy an Android flavored smartphone.
I could see an iPod touch maxi. It would NOT run iPad specific apps but only iPhone/iPod touch formatted apps including ALL of the current eBook readers.
+1 Thanks for writing my post for me. 🙂
I fully agree to. Upscaling iPhone apps (especially games) is a great idea. Easier to play but big enough to read on.
Make the iPod Touch HD a consumption device as opposed to the iPad which is more than just consumption.
But what happens to the current iPod Touch. Does it get bigger or are there two versions?
Ps. MDN I cannot scroll within my post section from my iPad. Can you please check it out. Oh the irony!
Will somebody pleeeeese realize that anything we see in the next 2 years (or more) has had Steve’s stamp of approval? All the products that will appear in the next 3-6 quarters has been in the pipe for at least 3-6 quarters. A mini? Such an abrupt turnaround from the founder’s vision in such a short time? What next? 4.873″ iPhone 5? 12.625″ iPad(ded)? Viewmongous!
Thank you. Whatever Apple releases in the next 2-4 years will be products that Steve Jobs put in the pipe. So if this form factor does get a release, it will mean that Steve changed his mind, not Apple countermanding his wishes.
A 7.85 inch table at a lower price point is necessary to compete with Kindle Fires and Nooks. While it may not be perfect a a creation device – it would be the perfect media consumption device like the Kindle but much better. The 7.85 inch size is perfect for portability, watching movies and music, playing casual games, reading a book. At a $299. – $350 price tag it would open up vast new marketing in affordability and addressable markets. The Kindle Fire may stink now but you can bet it will continue to improve and Apple should not let the device eat into their market share.
jeez, Dick, have you used one of those Pieces Of Shit Kindle Fires? They suck the tar outta the linoleum, they’re an elfin joke.
lol, EFFIN’ not elfin…damn autospell.
At least the autocorrect is in a festive mood…
No. I don’t think it is. Apple simply can’t make current iPads, iPhones and iPod touches fast enough — they sell every single one they make. If that were ever to change, (devices not selling out), while a competitor’s 7″ tablets (or 4″ phones) are sell-outs, taking over the market, Apple will NOT make such devices.
If Amazon were to try and sell their Kindle at the same profit margins as Apple is getting for the iPad, it would likely cost some $330 or so. Practically nobody would bother sacrificing over half of screen size in order to save some $170.
There is no way Apple would ever compete with a hardware device that is sold below cost, especially if it is in a category where nobody would buy it if it were priced to make (at least some meager) profit.
It would not be typical of Apple to chase after a competing product in order to gain market share. Apple’s refusal to compete in the netbook market sector is a prime example.
Apple innovates.. others follow.
You guys dont have a clue. If Steve really ment what he said there wouldnt be an ipod touch in the market.
He did mean it. Look at the history of the iPod touch. It appeared AFTER the iPhone, when it was obvious that the platform was capable of ruling the world. There were plenty of markets throughout the world where the iPhone was prohibitively expensive. An iPod running such OS would conquer those.
As I said above; Apple will NEVER go into a category where consumers would normally never buy in (small tablets) unless the devices are sold below cost (Kindle Fire).
he ment it as an ipad competitor. The ipad’s size is perfect for reading, web browsing, movies etc, consumer device. Everyone here is forgetting other uses. Like for example car systems on a dash. ipad to big, ipod touch to small. You can fit an ipad mini on the back of seats, in buses, airplanes, taxis. It’s just a blank slate. Diferrent sizes can have different uses. Like a 15″ device would be great for retail, cash registers etc. Apple owns multitouch. Laptops come in 11″, 13″,15″ and 17″ get it ? different tastes.
I’m gonna start giving my measurements diagonally…..
That won’t change things very much…it will still be around 3.5″ ;-P
Shhh…I told you, I was drunk, and that never happened!
You were queen for a night, now move on…..
MDN is going to look really silly if apple does release a mini. They love to quote SJ regarding screen size but the thing is people still buy 7 inch tablets despite what Steve jobs thinks about the user experience.
The thing is… An iPhone has a 3 inch screen and it doesn’t stop me from using it all day every day. If I had an iPad I could comfortably grasp in one hand I’d use the sh*t out of that too.
I know this may be hard for the site admins to believe but even Steve Jobs is wrong sometimes.
As said above, there is only one reason why people are buying 7″ tablets: they cost as much as the 3″ iPod touches. Some people look at two devices side by side and conclude that bigger is clearly better (for the same money).
People were happily buying Yugos in the 80s because they could buy them for $4000 new. If Honda were to give their Civic for $4000 at the time, they would have gladly bought that Civic, even though it is certainly too small for their family.
In other words, nobody is buying a 7″ tablet because they need/want a smaller tablet; they are buying it because for the price of an iPod, they are getting a tablet; a puny one, to be sure, but still — it is a tablet. Obviously, Apple has no interest in competing in categories where real demand does NOT exist, and where fake demand is there only because devices are sold below cost.
you don’t think a 7 inch tablet would allow apple to compete at more price points?
Anyway you are wrong. I want a smaller iPad. I’d love to be able to fit it in the inside pocket of my jacket. Sure it wouldn’t be as nice as the bigger one but it would be more portable.
Some people DO want a smaller more portable device and would prefer an iPad but there is currently no device to compete in that category and that’s a problem.
You want a smaller, pocket sized iPad? Then you’re in luck, because Apple already makes one: it’s called the iPod Touch.
My pocket is bigger than that.
I think you’re skipping the difficult part of why the iPad and iPhone are such different sizes…
When you use an iPhone, your environment and state of mind are very different compared to when you’d want to use an iPad.
Look at the iPhone introduction and the iPad introduction. Remember the call Steve made to Phil and Ive, while checking maps and emailing? It was as if he was on the go. You’d want it to be small, and you put up with it being small without even realizing it.
Now look at the iPad introduction… Sitting on a comfy chair, different environment, different state of mind. You’d want it to be bigger, easier to touch and see, etc.
If they were to introduce a 7in iPad, it should be called the iAdd. As in Attention Deficit Disorder.
iADD: For those with Attention Deficit Disorder, who are always between relaxing and moving.
iADHD: Includes a Retina display.
Wow. people relax.Remember the iPod. It was said the little flash ones sucked because they were to small to gave real controls and couldn’t hold enough music. Then Apple released one once their iPod market share had no where to go. It will be the same this time, has to be and I feel it was their plan all along.
But it will make people say Apple has lost its way without Jobs. Jobs himself did this all the time, Say one thing, then a year or 2 later do exactly what he said he wouldn’t do. Its the Apple Way.
Remember, “people don’t want to watch video on the small screen”?
You don’t need thin fingers to use an iPhone. You can type perfectly accurately just using your thumbs and hitting several tiny keys at once – just try it.
iOS determines the centre of the area that you press, even if you touch several keys simultaneously and only that central part of the target area counts.
There are other reasons why a bigger screen is good, but it’s a complete myth that you would need thin fingers to operate a smaller iPad.
Good point.
Apple will expand the iPhone screen to 4″ because its within the form factor.
A small iPad? No.
Apple won’t expand the screen size of the iPhone… That will fragment all the Apps in a major way.
You can’t simply expand the apps to fit the screen without losing image quality. That’s quite a few apps to have rewritten for something that’s arbitrary in the first place.
We have been over this before. The current iPhone display could be expanded from 3.5″ to 4″ (14.3% linear increase) without significant impact to the outer mold line of the iPhone. I am not saying that it will happen, but it could happen. There is nothing preventing Apple from doing so.
Under this approach, the display would grow from 2.912″ x 1.941″ to 3.328″ x 2.219″. If the number of pixels remains the same (960×640), then the resolution would drop from 326 ppi to 288 ppi. The display would remain exceptionally sharp and there would be *no* fragmentation resulting from a change in the total number of pixels on the display. Objects (graphics, text, etc.) would become 14.3% larger in linear dimension unless scaled in the software.
How many times do we have to refute the flawed reasoning in this forum? It is possible. It is not impossible. It is not a guaranteed “tweener” failure. It is not evil.
MDN, do you freakin’ hear me? Quit quoting SJ as if he were omniscient. He was a human being with plenty of flaws. When you go overboard you reinforce the “cult of Mac” philosophy that makes us all sound as if we were mindless drones rather than people who made rational and informed choices when selecting Apple products and the Apple ecosystem.
Please stop.
I never said it was impossible or evil… I said Apple won’t do it.
My statement was based on Apple not lowering the resolution of the display, obviously.
Just because there are a few oddball Android phones out there with bigger screens, why does everyone think Apple should follow suit? If HTC ships a phone with a stylus, is everyone going to want that too?
It’s all nothing more than failed attempts to sell “features” that Apple products don’t have, and attempts to differentiate themselves so they don’t look as pathetic as they really are.
It was not so obvious to me. You equated a change in display size with fragmentation. It is also a poor assumption in my opinion. Apple will stick to a small set of display pixel counts to avoid fragmentation until they implement a more flexible, resolution independent graphics API.
The hyperbole was my frustration leaking out at going over the same issues again. Apple does great things. But not everything that Apple does is great, nor does Apple do everything that is great. When people get too fixated on what is and lose sight of what can be…when people expect perfection from Apple and slam the company for every flaw…that is the point at which Apple will begin a downward slide. The Apple community has to remain flexible, willing to try and fail, in order to find other great things. Sometimes that involves a misstep. And we also have to realize that $400B Apple cannot be quite as nimble as it was a decade ago when the expectations were much, much lower.
Of course you could “operate” a smaller iPad, but there is no need to. You can also operate a netbook, but there’s no need to.
The iPhone and iPad are meant for two entirely different settings. You “put up” with using the iPhone because of where and when you use it, without really noticing it.
Not so for an iPad.
From the reactions that I have seen, many people would be glad to “put up” with a mid-size iPad that is both more portable and less expensive. Some people would be glad to put up with a significantly larger iPad – 13″, 15″, or even 17″.
In this case, I strongly advocate letting the market choose what it needs.
Simple fact regarding clues and Apple – and has been such for a LONG long time:
1) It isn’t that Apple doesn’t have a clue about the market – they either create or amplify a market to where they own it – technologically and aesthetically.
2) Apple doesn’t give any clues as to “one more thing” – ever. Unless some field testing engineer happens to leave his phone in a bar.
So, Apple has a clue and doesn’t give any…
iPad “mini” – maybe. And if it happens, it will redefine that market just like the iPod did for portable digital music players.
Cheers.
“So, Apple has a clue.” If only the pundits had a clue instead of a deadline…
The 7-inch tablets are tweeners. Too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad.
These are among the reasons we think the “CURRENT” crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA.
Except that you could wear a 7″ iPad on your wrist or around your neck for some iBling…..whereas a 10″ iPad just looks stupid.
Imagine the iPad hat!
There are few absolutes in this world. There is no requirement that a tablet display *has* to be 9.7″ or greater, nor is there a rule that a cell phone display *has* to be 3.5″. Apple developed and refined its design characteristics over the past decade and incorporated those factors into the dimensions of the iPhone and iPad. But that does not mean that nothing else can possible be useful, or that Apple cannot expand its product lines.
I recall using a 9.5″ PowerBook in the mid-1990s with a passive matrix LCD display. It worked. So did the original Mac with its tiny B&W display. I have no doubt that people will find many uses for a less expensive and more portable version of the iPad. What I fail to understand is why so many people seem to believe that 3.5″ and 9.7″ are some sort of modern “golden rule.”
The iPad2 is 1024×768 pixels (4:3 ratio) @ 132 ppi. The iPhone 4/4S is 960×640 (3:2 ratio) @ 326 ppi. Many people are comfortable accessing email, reading books, watching video, and playing games on both devices, despite their disparate sizes and resolutions. Note that neither of these devices is capable of displaying native HD, not even 720p. So why would an “iPad mini” in the range of 7″ or so necessarily become a dismal failure? True vision demands flexibility. SJ was known to change his mind and even acted contrary to prior fervent public statements from time to time. Informed and well-reasoned flexibility is a virtue.
Actually, the ‘Golden Rule‘ would be (sqrt(5)+1):2.
😆
Thanks for the link. I should have said ‘golden ratio’ or ‘golden section.’ Many designers, including Jony, incorporate this approximate ratio in aspects of their designs.
I got a little longwinded in my previous post. My point was that there is nothing magical about the dimensions of the current Apple iOS products. They are a combination of human interface design (e.g., fitting a wide range of hand sizes) and practical considerations, such as the cost of a high quality display that can be purchased in large volume. If you had to choose two display sizes to kick of a pair of product lines (iPhone and iPad), then Apple very likely picked just about the ideal sizes to balance usability and cost. But that doesn’t mean that no other size is useful or will be a success.
I don’t want to see Apple lose its focus by bloating its product lines like back in the early 1990s. But a ~7″ iPad? I say go for it, Apple.
Answer 1 – reintroduce iPad 1 32GB and sell it for $299. Still has a spec vastly superior to the Fire.
Answer 2 – takes time, but as economies of scale rise, and prices of older parts fall, when the Retina iPad 3 arrives, reduce the iPad 2 32GB price to $349 and iPad 1 32GB to $199.
Suck out all the oxygen around competitors.
If it’s working well with the iPhone versions, it will work with iPad.
No complications with multiple form factors and all the production capability is there, established and proven.
I doubt that the components for the original iPad are still available. Regardless, Apple could not reduce the price to $299 unless it was willing to significantly reduce its profit margin and cannibalize iPad 2 sales. I can’t go along with your Answer 1.
Answer 2 is partially possible if Apple plans ahead of time to continue production of the iPad 2 when the iPad 3 arrives. But I don’t see it happening and, even if it did, the cost would not drop to $349.
Got to say that an iPadMini would be interesting to me.
I find that for email and standard web page columns, the existing iPad is a “touch” big and I don’t like carrying large items. The iPhone is too small for reading many docs with columns that are wide.
Apple has every incentive to push the pad field as fast and far as it can to decimate all the companies who are still in the prototype pad stage. That is how they will get and keep customers through the whole range of end user needs/wants. A high res screen could be just the ticket to allow usability of an iPadMini, so that screen size aspect is ruled out as a limiting factor, at least for those with good eyes.
We will see!
Are we forgetting the terrible reviews given to the Kindle Fire? Why would Apple need to undertake such a drastic attempt at competing??? I call Bull$#!+…….
The smaller fingers comment is BS, I can do everthing I do on my iPhone I do on my iPad.
People, think! 57 comments so far and no one has figured out that Siri will be far advanced in capability a year from now? Don’t worry about the size of fingers — think about a new device that is primarily voice operated.
As to size, there is an inherent advantage to a device with a 7.5 – 8″ screen. This happens to be the size of a pocket book page which has evolved over many years of trial and error as a good compromise of font size and enough text on a page so turning pages isn’t a distraction and pictures and diagrams don’t need to be split across pages.
Think a bit further about the possibility of a flexible device that could bend a bit and fit a whole lot of pockets and purse sizes like a wallet does. Most of the technology is already in production for flexible circuit boards, flexible batteries, flexible cases and flexible displays — just not yet in a single device with the functionality of an iPhone or iPad.
Now that’s some good thinking, Sparky! Keep it up.