The Register’s Tony Smith reports that Asian OEM industry moles are claiming that Apple is working on an 8-inch version of the iPad
The sources, quoted by a Wall Street Journal article, say Apple has been shopping the 8-inch tablet design around component suppliers seeking partners to produce parts for the product.
Reportedly, the ‘iPad mini’, which would launch later in 2012, has the same 1024 x 768 resolution as the iPad 2 – while the iPad 3 expected next month is projected to have 2048 x 1536 res.
Smith suggests that the evident success of Amazon’s 7-inch Kindle Fire tablet may have focused Apple’s attention on a smaller form factor, and that going with an 8-inch display would allow it to rationalize that Steve Jobs’ caustic dismissal of the 7-inch form-factor October 2010 still holds.
Mr. Jobs then observed, among other things, that a seven-inch screen is only 45% as large in area as iPad’s 10-inch screen, and forcefully contended that a 10-inch screen size is the minimum required to create great tablet apps, summarizing that “seven-inch tablets are tweeners. Too big to compete with a smartphone; too small to compete with a iPad.”
Full transcript and audio of Jobs’ complete comments here:
http://on.wsj.com/zMUu8b
So Would You Buy An 8-inch iPad?
BetaNews’s Joe Wilcox has posted an online poll and commentary, asking whether you would buy an 8-inch iPad were Apple to offer one. The vote was split about 50-50 the last time I looked.
Wilcox observes that there are differing schools of thought as to whether or not tablets are PCs, with market research firms Canalys and DisplaySearch saying they are, while the rival Gartner and IDC metrics crunchers contend otherwise, but suggests that from Apple’s perspective the debate is meaningless.
He says the operarive question is “Does the buyer benefit more from an 8-inch iPad versus 9.7 inches,” noting that the iPad 3 could amount to the answer if rumors about a high-resolution display are true, observing that from that perspective an 8-inch iPad makes lots of sense, with the high-res. iPad 3 selling at the same price points as the iPad 2 does today, while a smaller tablet retaining the current 1064 x 768 resolution could cost less, maybe as low as $299.
You can check it out at:
Http://Bit.ly/Wr7p88
