“Google is officially in the tablet hardware business,” Matt Burns reports for TechCrunch. “The announcement of the Nexus 7, was spoiled by the Google Play Store.”
“Both 8GB and 16GB models pack a 7-inch 1280×800 HD display (216 ppi) back-lit IPS display covered in ‘Scratch-resistant Corning glass.’ A Terga 3 SoC powers Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) and Google promises the 4325 mAh battery should provide up to 8 hours of use. There’s NFC, GPS and and 1.2MP front-facing camera,” Burns reports. “The 8GB will go for $199 with the 16GB hitting at $249. For a limited time, buyers will get $25 in Google Play store credit with the purchase. Google is taking pre-orders now with shipping expected in 2-3 weeks.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The market for weak-selling tiny screen tablets gets another entry. 45% the screen area of an iPad, 20% less battery life, Wi-Fi-only, and no apps. Yawn.
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 touch 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
Note that Mr. Jobs never said word one about 7.85-inch devices. 😉
Related articles:
Apple’s revolutionary iPad widens lead as tablet sales surge – June 15, 2012
Apple’s massive domination of tablet market unabated as Amazon’s tiny screen Kindle Fire demand tumbles – June 5, 2012
Apple’s iPad remains dominant in Q112 while Amazon’s tiny screen Kindle Fire fizzles – June 4, 2012
Amazon’s tiny screen Kindle Fire shipments have dropped off a cliff – May 9, 2012
Amazon’s Kindle Fire shipments fizzle to anemic 4% market share – May 4, 2012
The iPad mini will eat that thing for breakfast. And I bet it will match its big brother with 10 hours of battery use.
I agree that Apple will do a smaller iPad.
No, no they won’t…
or a big iPod touch- yes they will
7 inch device branded as an IPod, yes. 7 inch device branded as a tablet, no. It’s all in how you brand it!
While Steve J. said that the “current crop” of 7 in. tablets were DOA, he was famous for being right until he was wrong,,, then he would change his mind.
I can see a 7 in. iPad. But there is still much that needs to happen, be developed, etc before its ready. I am sure that when its ready, Apple will release it.
PS, Article on Android 3rd party apps… Author complained how most 3rd party apps do not make proper use out of multi-CPUs. But if you remember, Apple has made several statements as to how OSX was designed to use every CPU that was available, by design.
Yep, there is so much more there under the glass than just the size of the screen. How it works can make all the difference.
en
I think eventually they’ll do it. Not sure it will be a huge market, but might be worthwhile at some point.
Look at the real-world. Once you get outside the pocket, we have “room” in our lives for business docs & magazines (10″ iPad), and we have “room” for pocketbooks (iPad Mini?). A purse-sized iPad.
The Great One did use disinformation and humor, so telling us 7″ requires sand paper all the while making bundles on iPhones and iPods tells me Steve didn’t want us to know what he really believed. If Apple intros a 7. whatever inch iDevice don’t be too surprised. In just means they have resolved whatever held them back.
I don’t think so and here’s why I think this way…
Apple will continue to build on the current design for a few more years. They’ve earned that luxury. The sweet spot is the iPad, not a larger iPod Touch. So, Apple can stroll through the next couple of years, logistically speaking.
Jonathan Ive’s already five-years ahead of everyone else, why go back for the assist when the puck is approaching tangent to line-of-sight on goal? In other words, Steve Jobs has already spoken on the subject, and the iPad screen will become the defining factor upon which the iPad is built, including tossing antiquated technology with each iteration.
Otherwise, Apple should call it something else. But not iPad Mini, simply because miniaturization is the intended objective, and not a course correction, for second-guessers, like Microsoft and HP.
Trust me, Tim Cook is not contemplating the pros and cons of a seven-inch tablet!
By the time the rest of the world figures out HOW TO BUILD AN IPAD, Apple will reap another five-year lead, but only because Jobs underestimated the role of the media and the way it caught the entire industry in its headlamps, mesmerized by Jobs’ audacity to stand up in public and yell at the top of his lungs, HEY LOOK AT WHAT WE GOT!!!
I think the whole world fell in love with this man’s persona the moment they realized he was speaking their language and building great toys, but unfortunately for most, he left too soon. Children born today will come to know and trust the Apple logo just as we Boomers did the Gerber logo.
Google isn’t fooling me. Until they can deliver iPad’s equal, they’re just praying Apple will introduce a 7-inch tablet, thereby legitimizing Google’s Knockoff Mini. It will be the developers who will vocalize what Steve Jobs already knew: the 10-inch screen is second to none.
In the time it would take Apple to pull a plan from the shelf and start manufacturing a seven-inch tablet, get It into the channel, and on the shelf, 36-months will have passed, and all It would get Apple is a corral full of developers plotting their exit strategies! Chaos would ensue, for failure to work the plan!
So what’s next? Thin film!
We will be witness to the first film-thin device that can be rolled up as thin as a cigar and it will bear the name iPad. It’s Nan0 battery will be near-perpetual, capitalizing on OTA transmissions from public utilities. I say, let Google blaze their own trail and we’ll meet on the other side to compare journeys.
Good luck with your new toy Google. Take good care of it and don’t let it fracture and we could have a spot of competition between your idea, and Steve Jobs’ Vision.
Cao!
Why the OEM love for 1280×800? That’s such an awkward resolution..and severely limits the overall use..especially when trying to use it for work/enterprise (Citrix, VNC/RDP). The great thing about the iPad is its ideal for consumption..and enterprise ready out of the box!
I don’t know my Macbook Pro 13 has the exact same resolution. Granted for a tablet its more of a widescreen format so I’m not sure how well it will work in portrait mode.
Landscape mode its not a bad res at all.
It’s dirt cheap!
Awwwww, man, Apple is surely doomed. Google pulled the wool over their eyes with this brilliant product. Guess I better prepare to be dominated by the G-Men…
Sarcasm I assume?
Will seven inches be enough?
My wife says she wishes she had 7 inches.
So urs 2 or 3 inches?
Me thinks one’s pride is too high. Is there not room in the market for 7 inch device ?
A 7 inch device??? Of course there is room. 7 in. tablets have sold in the hundreds of thousands.. There are several models.
The question is will they take off and compete with the iPad.
er….. don’t think so. Check out the Kindle fire , current sales.
Just a thought.
Methinks that Apple will release an iPad mini. A tweener device for people not inclined to lug a full-size iPad yet who don’t wish to go blind staring at a tiny iPhone screen.
Hmmm… Isn’t ‘pinch-to-zoom’ an Apple patent?
Well, if Steve Jobs said 7-inch devices are failures then they are failures.
There are a fair number of recorded instances where SJ changed his mind about a product. Any quote about needing to sand down fingers to use a smaller iPad is instantly rendered rubbish when you look at how well people manage to use a device with a screen smaller than 4″, without resorting to a stylus.
Or haven’t you tried using an iPhone or Touch?
A 7.85″ screen would be a perfect size for an everyday pocketable iPad mini, or re-vamped Touch Maxi.
Perfect ebook reader, as that’s the size of a paperback page, decent size for web browsing, excellent size as a navigation device, as it could be usable in a car, especially dash-mounted. I’d love one.
Heretic.
That’s the beauty of Jobs. He was a realist. When the facts on the ground changed, so did his mind. When they could solve the problems he outlined, he changed his mind.
Multifunction devices, video on iPods, Intel Macs, apps on iPhone, iTunes on Windows, go-to-market for a TV solution, small tablets, etc. etc.
When the problems he outlines have been solved, you know he’s going to change his mind. Good leaders change their minds.
Steve Jobs is no longer here, so he can’t really change his mind, can he?
And we’re all better off for it, too!
Yeah, all those Kindle things you see people reading on the train or in the canteen. They will never catch on. Why are they not lugging about a huge $600 device with a retina display? Fools!
You see cheap eInk kindles. They are popular and people live them. The color fire is a complete belly flop, with a cherry on top. Check Craig’s list you can find fires for under 100, less than half price not 6 months from when they came out, the eInk ones are not being dumped the same way, nor the iPad.
Good Bye RIMM PLAYBOOK!
This won’t hold up well against what Apple will release in the Fall.
They even copy Apple’s style for promo video’s?
Can’t they do ANYTHING original?
yes, I noticed the same thing. It seems so inauthentic to copy the way apple is authentic. Turned me off.
Google and Microsoft quite seriously have descended into cargo cults.
I had to look up the term cargo cult, hillarious and apt description of both companies!
Google must be selling these at a loss, or break-even at best–sign of desperation?
I’m looking forward to Apple’s 7″ tablet coming out in the fall, probably for $299 (though $249 would be amazing).
I think $299 is perfect. Just the right amount of separation between the iPod touch and iPad.
$199 iPod touch
$299 iPad mini
$399 iPad prev Gen
$499 iPad current Gen.
It’s the lineup of my dreams.
And should more people elect to buy the iPad mini than the iPad over time, then at least Apple is once again obsoleting their own product.
I still think Apple will benefit from a smaller/cheaper tablet form. Anyone thinking otherwise is putting blinders on like Bill Gates and his obsession with keyboards.
If Apple thought iPads could be smaller they already would be.
Apple doesn’t rush things out the door. I think that’s what you’re seeing at the moment.
I beg to differ. These things take time, especially when you’re devoting most of your resources to the 10″ iPad.
Look how long it took for them to make the iPod mini.
It took a year to design the hockey puck mouse, so what’s your point? =;-)
A retina display will make all the difference in a 7 inch tablet. All the reasons Steve had for not digging a small tablet are eliminated when you factor in the sharpness and scalability with a retina display.
Retina displays don’t negate the need to file your fingers into pencil-like objects. 7″ screens don’t work very well for grown adults.
and yet we all use iPhones.
Google doesn’t have the nads to directly take on the iPad.
RE: “MacDailyNews Take: The market for weak-selling tiny screen tablets gets another entry. 45% the screen area of an iPad, 20% less battery life, Wi-Fi-only, and no apps. Yawn.”
The reason for the weak sales is not the size… it’s the absence of iOS and it’s breadth of functionality, MDN. Steve Jobs knew when to change his tune.. you don’t.
True, lol, but Steve himself wouldn’t have changed his tune until he walked on stage wielding the iPad mini in his hand. So you really can’t blame MDN for their posture. They’re doing exactly what he would’ve done.
+1 I agree
See the last sentence of MDN’s Take: “Note that Mr. Jobs never said word one about 7.85-inch devices. ;-)”
7-inch ≠ 7.85-inch
That product demo video just isn’t very original. I feel like I’ve seen it before somewhere. I really expect more from innovators like Google.
Sorry, Other Steve, you beat me to it.
Im expecting the iPad mini 7.85″ to wipe the floor with this copycat ripoff.
They mention front facing camera, no rear facing. Picture of back seems to not have camera. WiFi only 720 p . Only positive I see was GPS so it will likely do navigation if you download the maps, which will take a lot of memory. No live traffic. Guess you can use it with a mi fi type router. I used my rear facing camera a lot during a recent trip, especially after my point and shoot charging cable broke.
Bests the Kindle. Will suck in a few iPad wanabes like the Kindle did. BKS tablet dead.
Really 16GB only – that isn’t enough to take any content on…. 3 songs and a movie don’t make your entertainment last long..
Looks like Google is trying to compete with Amazon and Samsung, not Apple. It’s hard to see what Google is planning to get out of this. I guess small potatoes are still potatoes.
All Apple will do is drop the price of the current 10 inch iPad sometime next year to 325-350, and introduce a new 12 inch iPad that weighs same or less than the present iPad game over case closed. A 7 inch iPad is a waste of time.
The designers talking about how they obsessed over the details . . . and how it had to be this or had to be that. Gosh that can make a really compelling story . . . the only problem is they are just naming details of an iPad. It had to have rounded corners so it fits nicely in the hand . . . sheeezzz
Where is the kickstand with the high-quality sound of an expensive car door?
+2 When I heard them say that I just laughed. I remember when Detroit auto used to say that they worked hard to make the door slam sound solid……… er…… why not work hard to make it solid ?????
OMG!
1. Google copies Apple’s R&D videos.
2. They even talk the same.
3. Google talks about the existing technologies as if they haven’t yet been discovered.
4. The darn thing looks just like an iPad!!
There should be an award show for the best iPad knockoffs/ripoffs already.
Looks pretty good to me!
The big story To me is the Nexus Q @$300 looks DOA to me. Like an overpriced Apple TV without Netflix.
The Fire snuffed out…
The iPad will be fine.
It’s not a tablet, it’s a suppository
I think it will do just fine. How could it not? After all, the creators like it and want to carry it with them.