Apple Working with Suppliers on 8-Inch iPad

[JS77]

Can somebody please explain something to me... the majority seem to be negative towards the idea of an 8" iPad on the basis that it would be "unusable"...

...but the iPhone is less than half that size and it's pretty damn usable!

So, is this "hate" just irrational fanboyism or have I missed something?

 

[Confuzzzed]

For what it's worth, I would be a buyer of a smaller iPad if one was available as long as there wasn't too much battery life loss. But that's a personal choice because I find the iPad 2 too heavy after more than 10 minutes use in bed! Which is the location of more than 50% of my iPad 2 usage.

 

[Rogifan]

Based on unofficial Kindle Fire sales, there is a nice developing market for a lower cost, limited functionality tablet. Most people looking to buy a compact econo car do not drive away from the dealership in a luxury sedan or vice versa. There is a base for each, so why dismiss either it if it leads to sales and profit growth?

Apple has indicated for sometime now that tablets are the future and PCs are a dead end so it makes sense it would be studying a broader tablet line to catch the lower end customers. Apple has iCloud, Amazon Cloud Drive. Apple has iBooks, Amazon the Kindle Store. Apple has iTunes, Amazon the MP3 Music store + Cloud Player. We know Apple is kind of like the old BASF ad -- they don't make X, they make it better. Makes sense they would come out with a Cloud-based iPad similar to the Fire, just with AppleMagic inside.

An Apple iPad Cloud tab might be a loss leader, just like the Fire is for Amazon. But it gets customers to buy exclusive Apple content - iBooks & iApps so that when they are ready to graduate to a full featured tablet or expand their hardware it only makes sense to stick w/ Apple lest they have to rebuy so much content again.

I can see them keeping iPad 2 around and dropping the price or making a slightly bigger iPod Touch. But a smaller iPad would essentially be telling the market 'Kindle Fire is a threat' and there's no evidence to suggest Apple does. If they feel they need to compete on the low end they'll drop the price on iPad 2 when iPad 3 comes out.

 

[Crissov]

One minute of arc pixel

What makes you think a 264 PPI iPad is not a "retina" display ? Remember, the "Retina" marketing is not just about a fixed PPI, but a given PPI for a viewing distance.

Yes, Steve Jobs at WWDC 2010 talked about a “magic number” of 300 px/in at ”10 or 12 inches”, i.e. 25 to 30 cm. The slides didn’t include that precondition and it is hardly repeated elsewhere.

What’s the typical viewing distance for …?

• small handheld devices like smartphones (iPhone, iPod)
• large handheld devices like tablets (iPad)
• desktop screens (iMac)
• television screens
• hardcover books
• broadsheet newspapers

Except for TVs that should range between 20 cm and 60 cm, usually 30 cm to 40 cm for anything handheld.

If Apple believes you hold the iPad from farther away than your typical smartphone, then 264 PPI could very well fit into the "retina" marketing

That won’t be that easy, because they’ve established the “magic number” 300 and haven’t mentioned viewing distance all that much until now – they could have talked about human physiology, e.g. 1' pixel size, instead, which is an long-established rule of thumb, but no journalist understands that. The CSS reference pixel is about 1.28', by the way, and all but high resolution (96 px/in at arm’s length).

Not surprisingly, 1' at 30 cm is 87 µm/px or 291 px/in, i.e. close to the “magic number”. (10 cm → 873 px/in, 20 cm → 437 px/in, 25 cm → 349 px/in, 40 cm → 218 px/in, 50 cm → 175 px/in, 2.5 m → 35 px/in.)
A 42" 16:9 1080 lines HDTV set has about 52 px/in and would have to be just 1.66 m apart for 1' pixels. A QXGA iPad with current display size would have to be hold at a regular distance of 33 cm for 1' pixels.

At QXGA resolution (264 px/in) the iPad 3 then must have a regular viewing distance of ca. 1.14 times that of the iPhone by Apple’s Retina standards (i.e. 300 px/in at 10in minimum distance), or 1.24 times it if their appearance were to match. That’s a minimum distance anywhere between 28.5 cm and 37 cm.

 

[E.Lizardo]

Fine,as long as I can have the original size.

 

[iSee]

Referencing the iPad 2:

It was launched late last year.

Inspires lots of confidence in this rumor, doesn't it!

 

[Crissov]

Vram

Processing power... processing power... I remember running a 1600x1200 desktop, double buffered at 60 hz off a 4 MB Matrox Millennium II back in 1996.

Yeah, we used to be limited by VRAM back then: 1600px × 1200px × 8 bit/color × 4 color/px / 8 bit/B / 1024 B/KiB = 7500 KiB. That’s not a problem any more.

 

[Lesser Evets]

It's only time before we see a MaxiPad.

 

[KnightWRX]

That won’t be that easy, because they’ve established the “magic number” 300 and haven’t mentioned viewing distance all that much until now

In that very first presentation you linked to, Steve mentions the viewing distance. It's very much part of the definition.

A good read for you before you start arguing about Retina marketing :

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1315586/

Don't be a Gentlefury.

 

[stevemiller]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I have an iPhone 4S/iPhone 5 simultaneous release rumor I'd like to sell you…

No? Ok how about this: iPad2 and iPad3 in 2011??

PowerBook g5 next Tuesday????

 

[KnightWRX]

Yeah, we used to be limited by VRAM back then: 1600px × 1200px × 8 bit/color × 4 color/px / 8 bit/B / 1024 B/KiB = 7500 KiB. That’s not a problem any more.

x 3 color/px. Alpha channel is not held in the framebuffer, it is only used to calculate the final color of the pixel by doing blending in the graphics processor. 24 bit color is what is held in the final framebuffer, thus 3 bytes per pixels.

 

[Nielsenius]

Please, no! The iPad is fine as it is. Having an 8-inch model will only complicate things for developers. Doesn't Apple pride its lack of fragmentation? Well, having another display to deal with makes devs' jobs harder and makes the consumer's search for compatible apps a pain, also.

 

[coolspot18]

Now that Steve Jobs is gone, we're finally seeing innovation again at Apple!

I think I'll switch to the smaller size iPad provided it has comparable specs. The larger iPad can get a bit heavy and cumbersome for travel.

Please, no! The iPad is fine as it is. Having an 8-inch model will only complicate things for developers.

App developers already have to deal with iPhone vs iPad and soon iPad 1/2 vs Retina iPad 3.

Hardware will probably be similar, so it's only screen resolution that needs to be dealt with.

And if Apple uses a iPad 1/2 resolution display in there, there may no changes needed, just consider this an iPad mini.

 

[hstewart]

Personally I would not mind smaller size, as long as they are cheaper and with limited functionality. This will compete with cheaper tablets out there in the field. Not sure how it would fit in the market, maybe as a device aim at competing with the eReader - after all Apple is aim at the education market.

This is also true with phones, but the key on that is making it smart like phone for people who don't care about smart phones stuff - simple stuff calls, text message, maybe email, and maps would be nice - but not much to do with apps.

I would love a larger iPad - that was aim more at the professional graphics mark. - It probably better to have this one be in the Mac OS X line instead iOS and use Intel CPU instead of the slow ARM cpu.

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Can somebody please explain something to me... the majority seem to be negative towards the idea of an 8" iPad on the basis that it would be "unusable"...

...but the iPhone is less than half that size and it's pretty damn usable!

So, is this "hate" just irrational fanboyism or have I missed something?

Personally I think the main issue is that it will cause confusing in the market and cause hassle for the developers of apps. Only way I see that it could removed the confusions is by limiting it functionality and charging cheaper price for it. This will likely be ok for the phone market - but not sure for tablet.

 

[SactoGuy18]

I do think that Apple is seriously looking at an 8" iPad at 1024x768 resolution that is Wi-Fi only that will be much less costly than the current iPad 2. It will use almost identical internals as the iPad 2 except the A5 CPU/GPU and all related chipsets will be reduced in size to reduce power usage.

Don't be surprised if Apple releases two models, a 16 GB for US$299 and and a 32 GB for 349.

 

[tbrinkma]

x 3 color/px. Alpha channel is not held in the framebuffer, it is only used to calculate the final color of the pixel by doing blending in the graphics processor. 24 bit color is what is held in the final framebuffer, thus 3 bytes per pixels.

No, he was right. The Alpha channel may or may not be held in the framebuffer, but to aid fast memory access the format is still 32bpp, with a 'dead' byte when the alpha channel isn't maintained in the framebuffer. 24bpp was a common thing back when memory was more expensive, and before hardware accellerated graphics were common, but as memory got cheap enough, it was pretty much dropped because it is more time consuming to grab memory chunks at 3-byte offsets than it is to do so at 4-byte offsets.

At a 4-byte offset, I can use a single processor instruction to fetch a 32-bit value, and the same portion of the value will always be in the same 8-bit register segment. At a 3-byte offset, I have to do a lot of work behind the scenes to determine whether I need to do 2 fetches, and where each portion of the value will end up. (Or I can do single-byte fetch and store operations to build the same 32-bit value, which is only slightly less expensive than the 2-fetch and parse method.)

 

[Stente]

hmm still not convinced....

Hmm I still think 7" is too small, but 8" is maybe viable..... they need to hit 199 dollars or something like that in order to give it traction. IF this will launch, then I think will probably be in continuation of iPad 4 - an iPad mini would make sense in countries such as China, Brazil, India or alike.....maybe a smart move if they really want to revolutionize textbooks all around the world?

Bom bom.....I might chance my mind on the fact that a smaller iPad doesn't make sense.....8" could be usable in some situations.

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By the way - wouldn't it be possible if an 8" iPad mini running the same resolution as the current iPads, just functioning right of the bat, but with a
smaller screen? I mean, do developers really need to adjust for an 8" size iPad if the resolution is the same as the current iPad?

 

[nickgri]

Bezel

Reduce the edge bezel and get more of that real estate to begin with.

 

[KnightWRX]

No, he was right. The Alpha channel may or may not be held in the framebuffer, but to aid fast memory access the format is still 32bpp, with a 'dead' byte when the alpha channel isn't maintained in the framebuffer. 24bpp was a common thing back when memory was more expensive, and before hardware accellerated graphics were common, but as memory got cheap enough, it was pretty much dropped because it is more time consuming to grab memory chunks at 3-byte offsets than it is to do so at 4-byte offsets.

We were talking about a 1996 GPU here you know...

 

[Geekbabe]

I have a 10.1 inch Galaxy Tab & recently acquired the 8.9 version. I can tell you that the 8.9 is a bit easier to handle when out and about on the train during my commute.

Have also talked to a lot of friends who like the idea of tablets but don't have one yet, the big stopper appears to be the price tag. lots of regular people view tablets as toys, luxury items that would be nice to have but they balk at paying $500 or more for one. The thinking seems to be that once you're looking at a price tag of $500 or more, you could buy a notebook. $300 -$350 for a tablet seems to be the sweet spot among folks I know. Granted, my experiences aren't global but my friends are all employed, professional folks who make fairly decent money.

There's a difference between what people like us who are devoted to tech will pay for a device & what the average consumer will go for. If Apple makes a smaller ipad & prices it accordingly I'm betting it would sell like crazy, bringing more new consumers into the Apple ecosystem.

I'll use myself as an example, I was gifted with my MacBook Air for Xmas, having seen how nicely it works & what a pleasure using my itouch with it has been, I'm now interested in an ipad 3. Getting those
price sensitive consumers in the door, putting that first Apple device in their hands could be a brilliant move on Apple's part.

 

[Andronicus]

For the most part things would "just work". Experimentation with our mockups suggests that most interface elements are still usable at the slightly smaller size. Certainly not any smaller than what's already widely used on the iPhone.

It'd require a little getting used to, but it seems like it would be okay for those who want a smaller screen. Give the mockups a try.

Or test it out on your iPhone. See, an iPad can work with a smaller screen.

 

[Bear]

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They should wait until a retina display is feasable imo, to avoid developers sticking to the legacy resolution and just upscaling on the iPad 3.

But the resolution they're talking about is the resolution that the current iPad has, therefore it's no real extra work, except for applications that had very busy interfaces possibly.

Can't see the need for a smaller iPad personally but 8inch would make an amazing touch screen remote for a television.

Well apparently some people do see the need. Everybody has different needs/wants. Also, in theory it would be be at a lower price point.

Why the heck would an 8" iPad need to exist. That's just too close to 9.7"

7" maybe. It's kinda hard to tell where the line should be drawn when these devices are already so small. But even then, 8" seems slightly too close.

Again, lower price. And slightly smaller is less weight.

So then there'd be 3 screen sizes iOS apps would have to take into consideration. 4 if rumors the iPhone 5 will have a bigger screen. Why does everyone want iPhones to have bigger screens and iPads to have smaller screens? Maybe people from both camps of thought should just swap devices.

However, with a smaller iPad having the same screen resolution as the iPad 2, it wouldn't be much work at all for the developers.

 

[ugahairydawgs]

I would personally love an 8" iPad. I think 7" is too small and 9.7" is a little too big (that said I prefer 9.7 over 7). I think an 8" tablet would be the sweet spot for it. Big enough for browsing, a bit more comfortable to hold one handed, and about the right size to serve as an e-reader.

I would be very interested in getting one, but I'm not holding my breath that Apple is actually going to release it.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

I can see them keeping iPad 2 around and dropping the price or making a slightly bigger iPod Touch. But a smaller iPad would essentially be telling the market 'Kindle Fire is a threat' and there's no evidence to suggest Apple does. If they feel they need to compete on the low end they'll drop the price on iPad 2 when iPad 3 comes out.

It's not about direct "threats," its about expanding market share. Imagine if BMW had the mindset you suggest -- there would only be a 3 series. But, in fact, BMW goes way upscale from there with the $90K+ 7 series (and Rolls Royce to the extreme) all the way down to the $31K+ 1 series, and soon the $20K-something 0 series.

BMW has gone downscale from the 3 in recent years to capture the entry market w/ the idea of converting them later in life to higher end products. Remember the iPod originally was meant to get people hooked on Apple products to the point they buy a Mac. That largely worked but now Apple needs to pull people into the iWorld before they are too invested in Amazon or Android.

 

[Meandmunch]

This is the same strategy Apple followed with the iPod lineup. Once you've become the dominate device in the category you offer a more "Budget" model (Nano) to steal back and dominate that Budget space that devices like the Kindle Fire chip away at occupy.

The earliest we something like this is Xmas or a full year from now.