Exactly. Now that the retina iPad is out there they can't keep producing a lower resolution iPad at the same size, as they just look bad. The smaller physical screen size will allow text to be sharp. If priced right they could be great for education, even if they aren't as high spec as the iPad 3.
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There will NOT be an iPad Mini
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Exactly. Now that the retina iPad is out there they can't keep producing a lower resolution iPad at the same size, as they just look bad. The smaller physical screen size will allow text to be sharp. If priced right they could be great for education, even if they aren't as high spec as the iPad 3.
Right I don't understand it. After I have already stated in post #208 that the target on iPad Mini will be slightly smaller than iPad. 0.27" to be exact. But I am glad you "explained" to me something I had already stated.
The point you seem to refuse to comprehend is that 44x44 / 0.27" target on iPad Mini would still be within Apple Human Interface guidelines. Which have proven to be very accurate.
The Fiits law implications are not significant on the scale of the devices we are talking about here. And presumably, 7.85" device can be held with one hand, and closer to one's face than a larger iPad.. Very similar to a smartphone.
I second that. This thread has been an utter waste of time since about page-3.
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Exactly exactly. The iPad 2 currently has the lower cost appeal -- shrink it to mini and it has even lower cost appeal, plus the portability advantage -- plus the stifle the competition in the 7" category appeal to Apple.
No need to keep it simple for me. I can see where you would really need something like that, seeing as you have a hard time understanding the finer points of the definition of "fine" (it's fine with me if you don't (<----Get it? Probably not)) or what size battery would go with a mini iPad...
I'll make it simple for you:
I've told you this a few times, but you just don't seem to able to grasp it -- You don't need to do your little thought experiments (which in your case, seem to be clouded up by visions of sandpaper...). Anyone can do it in reality and see exactly how the scaling fits with Apples Human Interface Guidelines -- and whether their fingers need to be sandpapered or not.
I't already been described several tines, so I won't go into that again, but here's a simple picture so it might start to sink into your head:
![url]](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2F%5Burl%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fi1057.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ft386%2Fk2head%2FSimpleasthis.jpg%5DImage%5B%2Furl%5D&hash=7054e0d5f4ae5775b6a1670b8799b7e9)
It's trivial to check any app this way. I have a few hundred apps, and have been checking them this way for months now -- you're making a big stink over a minor issue.
Among the parade of idiotic claims you've, you stated that a 7" tablet cannot be held in one hand, or fit into a pocket. Here's a 7.85 iPad screen size in both hand and pocket:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1358978/
People can see for themselves how a mini would work for them without all your pointless ramblings.
About all that can be said at this point is that Apple may or may not release a mini this year do later. You have done nothing to prove that they won't.
I would suggest that this thread be locked, as everything worthwhile has already been said, and the OP is just trolling at this point.
You are calling people an idiot, etc. You refuse to believe facts which makes you incredulous.
You must tweak and change the UI on tweeners.
Apple would not let you keep .27" buttons on a screen much larger than the iPhone. They would call for it to be bigger to take account of the fact that the screen needs to be held farther away, in addition to fitts principle, among other things.
None of this can be disputed. It's cemented into UI design and Apple's UI guidelines. There is no escaping it. And UIs must change to account for a different screen size.
i would like a smaller ipad to keep in my car for music and movies n navigation.. the current ipad is toooo big for the car
Seeing as you're so fond of the "sandpaper" quote, tell my why I would need to sandpaper my fingers down to 1/4 of their size to use a 7"er as stated here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFAjfUT8wZI
Edit - And I don't have a way to fact check it yet, but I think I agree with your point about the UI being not quite optimal in the 7.85 scaled size -- It makes sense.
I'm not sure if it would be off enough to keep Apple from releasing it anyway, and have developers adapt over time to it -- It seems a fairly minor issue.
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Let's not forget: add $6 worth of memory and sell an expanded version for $349, at much increased margin. That is pretty much how it works for the iPad and iPhone.
Michael
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No one cared about Tablets before the iPad, which came out in the Spring of 2010. So what tablet were you "living and breathing" in 2009?
Meanwhile, about the Newton, which came out in 1993. What were you doing and where were you (held?) in the sixteen years between 1993 and 2009?
Michael
Initially, there was a strong demand for the Kindle Fire. The reason that sales dropped off and there were a lot of returns I think had more to do with it being a poor product than it had to do with people realizing that they wanted a bigger screen.
The current gen iPod touch will always have inferior specs to the current gen iPhone so I don't understand why they can't do the same thing with an iPad / iPad mini.
The current gen iPod touch will always have inferior specs to the current gen iPhone so I don't understand why they can't do the same thing with an iPad / iPad mini.
"Poor product" is an unfair characterization. It was fair value for what they charged. They packed a decent amount of technology into a $200 package. It wasn't going to offer the iPad experience but it wasn't designed to.
The reason why it failed and the reason why every single tweener has failed is for the reasons I keep mentioning. It's a dead category: nobody needs it. Nobody needs it because it's worse at pretty much everything compared to a smartphone and an iPad 9.7. The sooner you realize the this, the clearer the picture becomes.
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What was I doing with tablets before the iPad?
I was researching them. Prototyping designs for them. As for Newtons, I was using them from back in the 90s. Then I become involved in the Newton community, wrote some technical stuff, hung out with some of the original Newton programmers, that kind of crap.
I've been romanced by tablets for years, by the proposition of Alan Kay's Dynabook. I knew the iPad would come, and when it did, I was pretty happy.
Of course tablets have their limitations but they nicely abstract the computer away.
Since it's a tweener, and since Apple wants .33" button sizes on an iPad, and .27" on an iPhone, the answer lies somewhere in between: on a rough calculation of a 7.85" screen, ~0.31" would be the button sizes Apple would recommend for the Mini.
In other words, to account for the size of the screen and all the stuff that keeps getting repeated:
1. Fitts principle of UI design; and
2. Distance device is held from face...
Doesn't make sense that Apple would recommend to include the same size buttons on a Mini as they are on the iPhone. And again, we haven't scratched the surface of how the UI needs to change in various other aspects.
I don't know about Apple's UI guidelines, but the way I see it, the problem is this:
Some apps - like IMDB and Appshopper are layed out in a way that makes full use of the iPad's screen size. Shrinking that would bring the widgets that much closer together that it wouldn't be so easy to always hit the right one with your finger.
The options then would be:
1 - The iPad mini uses the same UI as the iPad in which case the UI iso compromised as described above - and for some apps developers might adjust the layout accordingly and then they wouldn't be making full use of the larger iPad's size.
2 - the iPad mini uses the same UI as an iPod touch in which case it isn't making the full use of its size.
3 - App developers start developing apps with three different layouts for the three different sizes of iOS devices.
I'm not convinced Apple would find any of these options acceptable.
So iPad Mini is fully functional with 0.31" targets, but unusable and requires apps UI to be redesigned with 0.27" targets? In other words, ~1mm (= 0.04") is the difference between "useable" and "useless"?
Pull out a ruler and see what 1mm looks like - unless you are an ant, this difference is pretty much imperceptible to a human finger touch.
Your problem is - you see all this as complete black and white, while we're talking about slight shades of gray.
No, the iPad Mini UI would not be compromised. Sure interface elements would be scaled down (and touch targets would be slightly smaller as described above), but any properly designed iPad 2 app will still be perfectly useable.
It would be similar to going from 15" MacBook Pro (non-retina 1440x900 resolution) to 13" MacBook Air (same resolution). I have never heard of anyone claiming 13" MBA being "unusable" because Apple decided to squeeze the same resolution from 15" to 13" screen.
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Why wouldn't apple find option 3 acceptable? They chose that when the iPad came out, while also allowing backward compatibility with iPhone apps.
I can see there being another 764x1024 class for the iPad mini, that devs can use, eventually. But I can also see standard iPad apps running as-is. Not that much different from when the iPad came out, really.
In addition, if the rumors of the iPhone 5 are correct that will probably be the same thing: old iPhone apps will run as-is, apps written for the iPhone 5 will take advantage of the new screen (with perhaps an added "stretch" mode if the user chooses to enable it--for old iPhone apps).
Michael
Yeah - I got the part about an intermediate button size "making sense", just not sure how important that is that it would be a barrier to introduction. It seems like it would hardly be more than a minor inconvenience that most users would hardly notice, while developers can take their time getting around to adapting to.
On point No. 2 -- the distance the device is held from face is so easily adjustable with a handheld device, I don't see where that could be considered much of a problem either.
... and I still don't see where having to grind my finger tips down to 1/4 size comes in at all in any of this ...
Yeah - IMDB and Appshopper came up a while ago, and I downscaled both of them at the time. IMDB touch targets look to stay on or above the iPhone size, and Appshopper drops below a bit. So far, Appshopper is the only app I've seen that does that -- I'm sure there must be some others -- doesn't seem to be such a big deal...
I can visually downsize the apps perfectly and easily, and I can simulate the downsized touch targets using zoom on webpages as mentioned in post 95 here:https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1364089/ but I can't get the whole working experience of the downsized apps working without working prototype in my hands. I do think I have a pretty good sense that it's workable to downscale iPad apps to 7.85".
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Show us how a big touch would scale up, and we'll listen.
The reason is because 2 screens at polar opposites is one thing: iPhones vs. iPad 9.7s are much different in many respects. Each has some already established UI standards and patterns that people follow. For instance, list view is very popular and makes sense on small screens like on the iPhone, but it breaks down on larger screens like the iPad 9.7 because there's lots of dead space. Not that it's not possible but grids are much more the norm and make sense on the iPad 9.7.
The tweener is smacked right in the middle of the two. It demands UI reworks and some different thinking. If you had any idea how much it takes to develop good Apps, you'd realize yet another screen size added into the mix would piss developers off. Yes, you think it's an opportunity but it's very expensive and time consuming to develop good Apps, especially when your developing for a deadend category.
I'n not a developer - so I hope some might offer some input on this - but it it seems to me that you're confusing developing from scratch with tweaking.
For all the reasons already discussed, everything gets cramped on the smaller screen. All of it, even small decreases in button sizes are noticeable. It is a big deal. If you had actually truly used tweener tablets, for real. Used them heavily, you'd realize how terrible they are... you'd also realize how 9/10" tablet Apps don't scale well on them at all. Android has had this complaint since forever.
Second, no, it is not easy to force a user to change the way they use their device. That is, people hold a device with a bigger screen farther away from their eyes for a reason. It's not something arbitrarily done, it's done because people naturally need to hold it that far because X is the distance of optimal eye focus at Y screen size, where X changes as a function of Y.
No, this difference is not imperceptible. It's vital. 2 mm is the difference between the size of an iPhone button and the size of the recommended .33" on an iPad. Have you seen how small 2 mm is on a ruler? It's small. Granted it's not as small a difference as 1 mm. However, it's shaving off 1 mm around the total surface of the button, not just 1 side.
Second, it is a fact that the button size of .27" inches on the Mini does not meet Apple's UI guidelines full stop. It doesn't meet it because the min. button size is a function of the screen size. That's because the bigger the screen, the farther away you hold it from the face, and the larger the button needs to be.
Yes, the iPad Mini's UI would be comprised. It's already been discussed in this thread. Go hijack somewhere else.
Also, the Air's screensize is much bigger than the tweener's. The difference isn't as noticeable. It's also got 35 less ppi than the tweener, meaning its pixels are larger. It has 18 ppi more than the MacBook Pro 15", whereas the tweener has 31 more ppi than the iPad. Thus, the Air's pixel size decrease compared to the 15" isn't as pronounced as it is with the Mini and the iPad.
And people do notice the Air's smaller pixels and complain about it.