Quote:
Originally Posted by
I am a Zither Zather Zuzz 
If that were a good reason to decide against a product, then the 11 inch MBA would not have been released based upon a fear that it might be used for video editing.
Not the same thing. If what you want to do is video editing, you know full well going in that it requires all the horsepower and memory you can manage. Tablets, being a relatively new form factor is largely an unknown from the consumer's perspective. It would be likely that an iPad would still, for many consumers, be their first encounter with a tablet.
Look, as much as there might be an advantage in terms of weight in having a smaller form factor, that is absolutely the only advantage that size has over the 9.7-inch version. List off the activities that are carried out on a tablet and performing those activities on a 9.7-inch device will work more effectively than doing the same on a smaller screen.
So if Apple is focused on establishing the tablet, it matters that the first of those tablets, especially, expose consumers to what such a device is capable of doing with as few compromises as possible. And if developers have designed a program to run a 9.7-inch device yet that software is running on a much smaller unit, no good can come from that.
The key to making this work is lowering weight and price as we move along. I think having a lighter iPad should be a priority, as I'm sure it would have been were Jobs still with us. As for price, there is a simple solution. Build two grades of iPad. An iPad 2 selling for close to $400, for example, would sit well with consumers at this time.
Instead of a 7-inch iPad, an upsizing of the Touch seems like a better fit. Even moving up from let's say 3.5 inches to 4.5 inches would go a long way towards making the Touch a viable device as a tablet that is pocket-friendly. You don't have the same problem using software designed for a 3.5-inch unit on a 4.5-inch screen that you would have when trying to work software meant for a 9.7-inch device on a 7-inch unit.
By the way, apart from the weight advantage, no one seems to be able to come up with any reason why a seven-inch device would be preferable to the current iPad form factor. I can list many activities, on the other hand, that would simply work better on the larger screen.
It doesn't seem to me that a good case for a 7-inch tablet is being made. Competitors offer such devices because they don't know how to build a unit with a screen sized like the iPad and compete effectively on price. Apple can't build the 9.7-inch iPads fast enough and I suspect we are about to see the iPad splintered off with the iPad 2 soldiering on to hit a lower price point while the iPad 3 takes up the battle at a higher price point. Tweak the Touch and Apple has all the bases covered, especially as the iPad becomes progressively lighter.
