This is just me, but Im thinking a ~ 6 or 7 inch version that I could 'more easily' mount in my car would be nice. Then have my iphone send BT position data to it for moving map display.
or build in GSP chips(what a concept) would be nice too but thats an extra $5 component and antenna.
Iphone screen is way too small for my old eyes to mount and observe while driving, and it appears(one never knows) that Apple wont offer a significanly larger iphone(IMO 4" is not significant)
Does it? What kind of apps will it run? Shrunk down iPad apps? Or blown up iPhone apps? If neither, what kind of apps would you design for this screen size. It's too big for pocket sized apps, and too small for full "page" productivity apps.
This may actually be the "for content consumption only" device that people mistakenly accuse the iPad of being. It's good for reading a book, browsing the web if you don't like the larger iPad size), games, music. But is there enough screen real estate for productivity?
Well let's stop to consider for a moment...perhaps that's all that the vast majority of iPads are used for. How many people do you think are using iPads for "productivity" purposes? I'd wager that most iPads are used almost exclusively for the things you implied were things a smaller iPad would only be good for.
So if Apple can use an even cheaper model to get people locked into the iOS ecosystem, even if they don't make as much money up front, they'll make even more money down the road. Get them hooked on iOS before they invest too much money on Android apps because all they could afford now is a cheap Android tablet.
Also, it seems people seem to think that the developers are Apple's customers. Sure, they are very important. But it's the consumers who will make the purchasing decision. If Apple releases a smaller iPad, does anyone REALLY think that developers won't do whatever it takes to update their apps to make the best use of the screen? Does anyone really think that "shrunk down iPad apps" or "blown up iPhone apps" are going to be the only choices? Hell no! Developers will update their apps just like they did when the iPad first came out. Sure, they may have to do a little work, but if they want to sell their apps, they'll do it and that will be a complete non-issue.
Apple innovates and, as I have read elsewhere on the forum, it seems competition doesn't drive innovation. Therefore Apple will not be putting out a 7" ipad since it isn't innovative and would merely be driven by 'competition'.
You did read elsewhere that competition doesn't drive innovation, but, you might have also have read in other places that conclusions ought to follow logically from premises.
Note that iPhone/Touch apps look like shit on the iPad and that you can't run iPad apps on the iPhone/Touch.
I agree that iPhone/iPod touch apps are best suited for those smaller devices and not the larger iPad, but I just need to point out that I have both the iPad 2 and the iPad 3 and the few iPhone apps that I have look kind of crappy on the iPad 2, but they are vastly improved on the iPad 3. They're very sharp looking, and I bet that most people would never even be able to tell that they were actually iPhone apps. Of course, the design and UI may not be suited for a larger tablet, but the graphics do look pretty sharp.
If you take an iPad and 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.
Why, oh why, do people keep pointing to this one quote and the definitive evidence that there's not a viable market for a tablet in this size range. I have a news flash for you, Steve Jobs is/was not God. He was not all-knowing. He (and Apple) has made mistakes (and some could argue, intentional misleadings to drive the market in the direction he wanted it to go.
- Steve said Apple wasn't interested in being in the living room...before they made the AppleTV
- Steve said the buttonless iPod shuffle was the best shuffle ever...before they reverted back to essentially the exact design they had previously WITH the buttons.
- Steve explained the dropping of Firewire from some laptop models by saying that nothing used them...before they put the port back on several of the models they took it off from.
If you think the above quote is the end of the discussion, you really need to lay off the Kool-Aid. Steve was as much a marketer as anything else. Every CEO praises his company's products while critcizing the competition's. Steve was much more elequent than every other CEO, but at the end of the day, that all that statement can be reliably considered...a CEO saying how great his company's product was vs the competition.
Didn't Jobs say you would need sandpaper? will these ship with sandpaper for your fingers or will that cost extra?Apple was very vocal about the current size of ipad being optimal and a smaller one wasn't going to happen. I think this is just another rumour that won't pan out.
I guess I'm not willing to accept that everything Jobs says is gospel - particularly since there are so many cases where he changed his mind after receiving new evidence.
Tens of millions of people use an iPhone without sandpaper, so why would they find it any more difficult to use a tablet with 4 times the surface area?
Now, there are a few apps that work best at iPhone size and some that work best at tablet size. An intermediate size might not be ideal for all of them, but it would certainly work fine for most apps - particularly content creation apps and games. It wouldn't be for everyone, but it would suit the needs of a lot of people. I could see a lot of people getting one for their kids for games, watching video, and reading books - and it would work just fine for that.
Apple innovates and, as I have read elsewhere on the forum, it seems competition doesn't drive innovation. Therefore Apple will not be putting out a 7" ipad since it isn't innovative and would merely be driven by 'competition'.
That's why Apple only sells one size of MBA and one size of MBP, right? And that's why you can't get the iPhone or iPad in different colors and storage capacities, right? And you can only buy one generation of iPhone and iPad, right?
There is apparently a market for 7" tablets and Apple might well decide that it's large enough to make it worthwhile. Your silly handwaving argument doesn't change that.
I am suspicious that alot of the supporters of the mini ipad are also pro android in other threads.
Invalid argument. I think there's a good big of value to producing an iPad in a 7-8" size and that Apple can do so in the $300 price range. I can't stand Android and wish it would disappear.
Do you have any more hasty generalizations you'd care to make?
I asked my wife and she said she would prefer a seven-inch device that would fit in her purse, but it would have to have a long lasting battery. When I asked her what apps she would run, she looked at me funny and said if it could take out the trash and mow the lawn it could replace me! Maybe she was talking about a different device...
But that is costly. You're talking about a 50% increase in the sale price. Perhaps less since Google isn't about having any margin on the Nexus 7, as if that makes sense.
I think this is smart on Google's part. They need to keep it simple for now. If it catches on then they can offer one with cellular chips that is larger, heavier, and costlier. Right now people, especially those in the Android camp, would any cellular capable model to have the bestest LTE in the whole wide world but that adds a lot of issues for this cheap device.
On top of that, I bet a lot of those interested in this device probably have an smartphone already that they can tether with without the cost of a separate data charge. You aren't buying a $200 tablet because you want the best tablet or the most convenience; you buy it because you want something economical.
Bingo!!! While I have a iPad I also have a Galaxy Nexus I can tether with. I'll take a close look at the Nexus 7 simply because of the smaller form factor.
I've always thought the iPad was just too damn big to be truly useful. The size is good for web browsing, but it's unwieldy for pretty much anything else. I've had a play with the 7" Android tablets and the size feels pretty good to me, so good in fact that I'm rather tempted to buy a Nexus 7..
But wouldn't that make them appear to be FOLLOWING Android Manufacturers?
I mean, Apple is a company that LEADS, not FOLLOWS.
That's also the reason I think the iphone will never get a bigger screen cause then that would just show that the android manufacturers were right, people DO want bigger screens on their phones.
Apple....follow Samsung and make a 7 inch tablet.....NOT GONNA HAPPEN
They have already borrowed more than enough for apple fans to be comfortable with. multi-tasking, voice actions, notifications. Now we are hearing NFC too. Enough already.
If you take an iPad and 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.
Since your post is pretty much a summation of the official Apple point of view, I will use it to play devil's advocate.
IMO there are at least two possible exceptions to the scenarios you examine which would make a 7" tablet "sensible."
1) Consumption - As a reader, as a movie watching device, and as a gaming device 7" is arguably either better than 10.5" or at least no serious detriment. One wouldn't have to sandpaper one's fingers just to turn pages in a book or start and stop movies. The kinds of things that will be much harder to do on a 7" tablet are more in the area of productivity software like Pages and Numbers, but since these apps are available for the 3.5" iPhone screen as well, they are still "possible." The main point here is that large categories of things that the iPad is good at and popular for are just as "do-able" on 7" as they are on 10.5".
2) Niche Device - The iOS ecosystem has no "real" (serious) pen input capability yet several forms of mobile computing require it. If mobile devices are to replace desktop computers as well as replace non-computerised mobile use cases like steno pads, art books, sketch books, doodle pads, etc. they will need "proper" pen input. The 7" form factor is identical in size to the typical notebook, steno pad, etc. and would be a perfect ground for a differentiated iOS device that has pen input built in. Apple could then introduce an amazing, killer 18" or 24" 'Art Tablet' later on to fill up the other end of the size spectrum. The pen input would eventually make it's way into the standard model in the middle.
[" url="/t/151067/apples-ipad-mini-rumored-with-7-85-igzo-display-for-250-300/40#post_2139357"]
I agree that iPhone/iPod touch apps are best suited for those smaller devices and not the larger iPad, but I just need to point out that I have both the iPad 2 and the iPad 3 and the few iPhone apps that I have look kind of crappy on the iPad 2, but they are vastly improved on the iPad 3. They're very sharp looking, and I bet that most people would never even be able to tell that they were actually iPhone apps. Of course, the design and UI may not be suited for a larger tablet, but the graphics do look pretty sharp.
Sure, it's better now. With the first two iPads even when you did 2x scaling they still only used the 480x320 resolution so that each pixel was now represented by 4 pixels. This was the case even if that iPhone/Touch app was Retina-capable. With the iPad 3 they finally allowed for Retina iPhone/Touch apps on the iPad/ That mean the 960x640 app will take up a pixel perfect 960x640 resolution when in 1x mode. This is both the iPad display being that much better and Apple just not wanting people to go this route (which isn't the case when you look at the App Store for iPad success).
You did read elsewhere that competition doesn't drive innovation, but, you might have also have read in other places that conclusions ought to follow logically from premises.
Sorry, but i don't see the point of what you are saying unless it is just to be rude or maybe you get points for the quantity of posts?
In reference to using a UI for a 10" tablet on a display with half the way area. Note that Apple first made the iPhone and iPod Touch with a 3.5" display and no sandpaper is needed for that because the UI is designed for the display and input method.
I don't recall Jobs ever saying it would never happen but it certainly won't happen without making the primary I/O ideal for the user. And just because the 10" is an ideal size doesn't mean that you can't have other sizes that fill a somewhat less ideal market segment once you near saturating the ideal market segment. They did with the iPod in size/capabilities, and the Mac and iPhone with price points.
Excellent points! Apple really does think these things through.
THERE WILL NOT BE NOW, NOR WILL THERE EVER BE, A FUCKING "iPadMini"!!!!
THE NEXUS7 & KINDLE FIRE WILL SLUG IT OUT FOR THE PROVERBIAL "RACE TO THE BOTTOM".
CAN WE FUCKING STOP TALKING ABOUT THAT?!?
FOR ****'S SAKE ....
Don't be so sure. Not an iPad mini, but perhaps a larger iPod touch.
I won't presume to predict what the market will do, but if I think I know Apple, they will release a 7.8" touch device IF they have a determined that there is a market for it and they can make money on it. Apple doesn't follow others into minor markets. They create markets where none existed before. They extrapolate a business into a money-making venture.
Perhaps it will have 4G like the iPad? Perhaps it will talk to your TV? Perhaps it will never come out?
It will NOT compete with the Nexus 7 or Fire, but it may overlap their market and inadvertently devour it. If it ever comes out.
Sorry, but i don't see the point of what you are saying unless it is just to be rude or maybe you get points for the quantity of posts? Feel free to actually elucidate next time please.
Well, screamingfist, who has created a second account, he's saying that your conclusion… can't be drawn from your premise.
If you take an iPad and 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.
The above is what is called a 'sales pitch'. The moment a new form factor comes out it is no longer relevant. The new sales pitch will go something like... 'the overwhelming success of the iPad, the iPod Touch and the iPhone has shown us that our customer really love IOS and today we are announcing a brand new device which will blow your minds....' followed by descriptions of amazing specs, great pricing, great versatility and hundreds of thousands of apps, etc.. Adjectives like 'revolutionary' and 'magical' will be interspersed liberally. Even if Steve Jobs really believed what he said, the market has changed dramatically since then.
2) Niche Device - The iOS ecosystem has no "real" (serious) pen input capability yet several forms of mobile computing require it. If mobile devices are to replace desktop computers as well as replace non-computerised mobile use cases like steno pads, art books, sketch books, doodle pads, etc. they will need "proper" pen input. The 7" form factor is identical in size to the typical notebook, steno pad, etc. and would be a perfect ground for a differentiated iOS device that has pen input built in.
Because I have rather large hands sometimes navigation around the touch screen I often press the wrong button by accident. Discarding the sandpaper idea, I have often thought that it would nice to have some alternate cursor. Imagine a pointer arrow that protruded ever so slightly in front of your fingernail to form a very accurate pointing device. It would only appear when summoned and only when there was a single finger on the screen. That could possibly assist with the overly large fingertip issue. I know it is a completely different form of touch interface so it would have to be optional, only as required on an app by app basis.
Has anybody here seen an IGZO display in person? How good do they look, compared to IPS? How does their power consumption compare to IPS? Tallest Skil, please tell us how insanely perfect IGZO is.
I guess I'm not willing to accept that everything Jobs says is gospel - particularly since there are so many cases where he changed his mind after receiving new evidence.
Tens of millions of people use an iPhone without sandpaper, so why would they find it any more difficult to use a tablet with 4 times the surface area?
Now, there are a few apps that work best at iPhone size and some that work best at tablet size. An intermediate size might not be ideal for all of them, but it would certainly work fine for most apps - particularly content creation apps and games. It wouldn't be for everyone, but it would suit the needs of a lot of people. I could see a lot of people getting one for their kids for games, watching video, and reading books - and it would work just fine for that.
That's why Apple only sells one size of MBA and one size of MBP, right? And that's why you can't get the iPhone or iPad in different colors and storage capacities, right? And you can only buy one generation of iPhone and iPad, right?
There is apparently a market for 7" tablets and Apple might well decide that it's large enough to make it worthwhile. Your silly handwaving argument doesn't change that.
Invalid argument. I think there's a good big of value to producing an iPad in a 7-8" size and that Apple can do so in the $300 price range. I can't stand Android and wish it would disappear.
Do you have any more hasty generalizations you'd care to make?
I am only re-iterating what i believe is Apples' stance (and my own since i find the logic of it sound) and do apologize that you feel my posts are 'hand waving' while yours are so obviously not.
Comments
This is just me, but Im thinking a ~ 6 or 7 inch version that I could 'more easily' mount in my car would be nice. Then have my iphone send BT position data to it for moving map display.
or build in GSP chips(what a concept) would be nice too but thats an extra $5 component and antenna.
Iphone screen is way too small for my old eyes to mount and observe while driving, and it appears(one never knows) that Apple wont offer a significanly larger iphone(IMO 4" is not significant)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gustav
Does it? What kind of apps will it run? Shrunk down iPad apps? Or blown up iPhone apps? If neither, what kind of apps would you design for this screen size. It's too big for pocket sized apps, and too small for full "page" productivity apps.
This may actually be the "for content consumption only" device that people mistakenly accuse the iPad of being. It's good for reading a book, browsing the web if you don't like the larger iPad size), games, music. But is there enough screen real estate for productivity?
Well let's stop to consider for a moment...perhaps that's all that the vast majority of iPads are used for. How many people do you think are using iPads for "productivity" purposes? I'd wager that most iPads are used almost exclusively for the things you implied were things a smaller iPad would only be good for.
So if Apple can use an even cheaper model to get people locked into the iOS ecosystem, even if they don't make as much money up front, they'll make even more money down the road. Get them hooked on iOS before they invest too much money on Android apps because all they could afford now is a cheap Android tablet.
Also, it seems people seem to think that the developers are Apple's customers. Sure, they are very important. But it's the consumers who will make the purchasing decision. If Apple releases a smaller iPad, does anyone REALLY think that developers won't do whatever it takes to update their apps to make the best use of the screen? Does anyone really think that "shrunk down iPad apps" or "blown up iPhone apps" are going to be the only choices? Hell no! Developers will update their apps just like they did when the iPad first came out. Sure, they may have to do a little work, but if they want to sell their apps, they'll do it and that will be a complete non-issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pytho
Apple innovates and, as I have read elsewhere on the forum, it seems competition doesn't drive innovation. Therefore Apple will not be putting out a 7" ipad since it isn't innovative and would merely be driven by 'competition'.You did read elsewhere that competition doesn't drive innovation, but, you might have also have read in other places that conclusions ought to follow logically from premises.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
Note that iPhone/Touch apps look like shit on the iPad and that you can't run iPad apps on the iPhone/Touch.
I agree that iPhone/iPod touch apps are best suited for those smaller devices and not the larger iPad, but I just need to point out that I have both the iPad 2 and the iPad 3 and the few iPhone apps that I have look kind of crappy on the iPad 2, but they are vastly improved on the iPad 3. They're very sharp looking, and I bet that most people would never even be able to tell that they were actually iPhone apps. Of course, the design and UI may not be suited for a larger tablet, but the graphics do look pretty sharp.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markbriton
Steve Jobs quote, October 2010:
If you take an iPad and 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.
Why, oh why, do people keep pointing to this one quote and the definitive evidence that there's not a viable market for a tablet in this size range. I have a news flash for you, Steve Jobs is/was not God. He was not all-knowing. He (and Apple) has made mistakes (and some could argue, intentional misleadings to drive the market in the direction he wanted it to go.
- Steve said Apple wasn't interested in being in the living room...before they made the AppleTV
- Steve said the buttonless iPod shuffle was the best shuffle ever...before they reverted back to essentially the exact design they had previously WITH the buttons.
- Steve explained the dropping of Firewire from some laptop models by saying that nothing used them...before they put the port back on several of the models they took it off from.
If you think the above quote is the end of the discussion, you really need to lay off the Kool-Aid. Steve was as much a marketer as anything else. Every CEO praises his company's products while critcizing the competition's. Steve was much more elequent than every other CEO, but at the end of the day, that all that statement can be reliably considered...a CEO saying how great his company's product was vs the competition.
I guess I'm not willing to accept that everything Jobs says is gospel - particularly since there are so many cases where he changed his mind after receiving new evidence.
Tens of millions of people use an iPhone without sandpaper, so why would they find it any more difficult to use a tablet with 4 times the surface area?
Now, there are a few apps that work best at iPhone size and some that work best at tablet size. An intermediate size might not be ideal for all of them, but it would certainly work fine for most apps - particularly content creation apps and games. It wouldn't be for everyone, but it would suit the needs of a lot of people. I could see a lot of people getting one for their kids for games, watching video, and reading books - and it would work just fine for that.
That's why Apple only sells one size of MBA and one size of MBP, right? And that's why you can't get the iPhone or iPad in different colors and storage capacities, right? And you can only buy one generation of iPhone and iPad, right?
There is apparently a market for 7" tablets and Apple might well decide that it's large enough to make it worthwhile. Your silly handwaving argument doesn't change that.
Invalid argument. I think there's a good big of value to producing an iPad in a 7-8" size and that Apple can do so in the $300 price range. I can't stand Android and wish it would disappear.
Do you have any more hasty generalizations you'd care to make?
Bingo!!! While I have a iPad I also have a Galaxy Nexus I can tether with. I'll take a close look at the Nexus 7 simply because of the smaller form factor.
I've always thought the iPad was just too damn big to be truly useful. The size is good for web browsing, but it's unwieldy for pretty much anything else. I've had a play with the 7" Android tablets and the size feels pretty good to me, so good in fact that I'm rather tempted to buy a Nexus 7..
But wouldn't that make them appear to be FOLLOWING Android Manufacturers?
I mean, Apple is a company that LEADS, not FOLLOWS.
That's also the reason I think the iphone will never get a bigger screen cause then that would just show that the android manufacturers were right, people DO want bigger screens on their phones.
Apple....follow Samsung and make a 7 inch tablet.....NOT GONNA HAPPEN
They have already borrowed more than enough for apple fans to be comfortable with. multi-tasking, voice actions, notifications. Now we are hearing NFC too. Enough already.
What's next, burst shot mode on the cameras?
Quote:
Originally Posted by markbriton
Steve Jobs quote, October 2010:
If you take an iPad and 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.
Since your post is pretty much a summation of the official Apple point of view, I will use it to play devil's advocate.
IMO there are at least two possible exceptions to the scenarios you examine which would make a 7" tablet "sensible."
1) Consumption - As a reader, as a movie watching device, and as a gaming device 7" is arguably either better than 10.5" or at least no serious detriment. One wouldn't have to sandpaper one's fingers just to turn pages in a book or start and stop movies. The kinds of things that will be much harder to do on a 7" tablet are more in the area of productivity software like Pages and Numbers, but since these apps are available for the 3.5" iPhone screen as well, they are still "possible." The main point here is that large categories of things that the iPad is good at and popular for are just as "do-able" on 7" as they are on 10.5".
2) Niche Device - The iOS ecosystem has no "real" (serious) pen input capability yet several forms of mobile computing require it. If mobile devices are to replace desktop computers as well as replace non-computerised mobile use cases like steno pads, art books, sketch books, doodle pads, etc. they will need "proper" pen input. The 7" form factor is identical in size to the typical notebook, steno pad, etc. and would be a perfect ground for a differentiated iOS device that has pen input built in. Apple could then introduce an amazing, killer 18" or 24" 'Art Tablet' later on to fill up the other end of the size spectrum. The pen input would eventually make it's way into the standard model in the middle.
Sure, it's better now. With the first two iPads even when you did 2x scaling they still only used the 480x320 resolution so that each pixel was now represented by 4 pixels. This was the case even if that iPhone/Touch app was Retina-capable. With the iPad 3 they finally allowed for Retina iPhone/Touch apps on the iPad/ That mean the 960x640 app will take up a pixel perfect 960x640 resolution when in 1x mode. This is both the iPad display being that much better and Apple just not wanting people to go this route (which isn't the case when you look at the App Store for iPad success).
Quote:
Originally Posted by anonymouse
You did read elsewhere that competition doesn't drive innovation, but, you might have also have read in other places that conclusions ought to follow logically from premises.
Sorry, but i don't see the point of what you are saying unless it is just to be rude or maybe you get points for the quantity of posts?
Feel free to actually elucidate next time please.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
In reference to using a UI for a 10" tablet on a display with half the way area. Note that Apple first made the iPhone and iPod Touch with a 3.5" display and no sandpaper is needed for that because the UI is designed for the display and input method.
I don't recall Jobs ever saying it would never happen but it certainly won't happen without making the primary I/O ideal for the user. And just because the 10" is an ideal size doesn't mean that you can't have other sizes that fill a somewhat less ideal market segment once you near saturating the ideal market segment. They did with the iPod in size/capabilities, and the Mac and iPhone with price points.
Excellent points! Apple really does think these things through.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BoxMacCary
THERE WILL NOT BE NOW, NOR WILL THERE EVER BE, A FUCKING "iPadMini"!!!!
THE NEXUS7 & KINDLE FIRE WILL SLUG IT OUT FOR THE PROVERBIAL "RACE TO THE BOTTOM".
CAN WE FUCKING STOP TALKING ABOUT THAT?!?
FOR ****'S SAKE ....
Don't be so sure. Not an iPad mini, but perhaps a larger iPod touch.
I won't presume to predict what the market will do, but if I think I know Apple, they will release a 7.8" touch device IF they have a determined that there is a market for it and they can make money on it. Apple doesn't follow others into minor markets. They create markets where none existed before. They extrapolate a business into a money-making venture.
Perhaps it will have 4G like the iPad? Perhaps it will talk to your TV? Perhaps it will never come out?
It will NOT compete with the Nexus 7 or Fire, but it may overlap their market and inadvertently devour it. If it ever comes out.
Or not.
Well, screamingfist, who has created a second account, he's saying that your conclusion… can't be drawn from your premise.
Which is pretty darn clear if you read his post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markbriton
Steve Jobs quote, October 2010:
If you take an iPad and 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.
The above is what is called a 'sales pitch'. The moment a new form factor comes out it is no longer relevant. The new sales pitch will go something like... 'the overwhelming success of the iPad, the iPod Touch and the iPhone has shown us that our customer really love IOS and today we are announcing a brand new device which will blow your minds....' followed by descriptions of amazing specs, great pricing, great versatility and hundreds of thousands of apps, etc.. Adjectives like 'revolutionary' and 'magical' will be interspersed liberally. Even if Steve Jobs really believed what he said, the market has changed dramatically since then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
2) Niche Device - The iOS ecosystem has no "real" (serious) pen input capability yet several forms of mobile computing require it. If mobile devices are to replace desktop computers as well as replace non-computerised mobile use cases like steno pads, art books, sketch books, doodle pads, etc. they will need "proper" pen input. The 7" form factor is identical in size to the typical notebook, steno pad, etc. and would be a perfect ground for a differentiated iOS device that has pen input built in.
Because I have rather large hands sometimes navigation around the touch screen I often press the wrong button by accident. Discarding the sandpaper idea, I have often thought that it would nice to have some alternate cursor. Imagine a pointer arrow that protruded ever so slightly in front of your fingernail to form a very accurate pointing device. It would only appear when summoned and only when there was a single finger on the screen. That could possibly assist with the overly large fingertip issue. I know it is a completely different form of touch interface so it would have to be optional, only as required on an app by app basis.
Has anybody here seen an IGZO display in person? How good do they look, compared to IPS? How does their power consumption compare to IPS? Tallest Skil, please tell us how insanely perfect IGZO is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
I guess I'm not willing to accept that everything Jobs says is gospel - particularly since there are so many cases where he changed his mind after receiving new evidence.
Tens of millions of people use an iPhone without sandpaper, so why would they find it any more difficult to use a tablet with 4 times the surface area?
Now, there are a few apps that work best at iPhone size and some that work best at tablet size. An intermediate size might not be ideal for all of them, but it would certainly work fine for most apps - particularly content creation apps and games. It wouldn't be for everyone, but it would suit the needs of a lot of people. I could see a lot of people getting one for their kids for games, watching video, and reading books - and it would work just fine for that.
That's why Apple only sells one size of MBA and one size of MBP, right? And that's why you can't get the iPhone or iPad in different colors and storage capacities, right? And you can only buy one generation of iPhone and iPad, right?
There is apparently a market for 7" tablets and Apple might well decide that it's large enough to make it worthwhile. Your silly handwaving argument doesn't change that.
Invalid argument. I think there's a good big of value to producing an iPad in a 7-8" size and that Apple can do so in the $300 price range. I can't stand Android and wish it would disappear.
Do you have any more hasty generalizations you'd care to make?
I am only re-iterating what i believe is Apples' stance (and my own since i find the logic of it sound) and do apologize that you feel my posts are 'hand waving' while yours are so obviously not.