This is What a 7.85-Inch iPad Looks and Feels Like

[vitzr]

My, my. We don't seem to be interested in discussing topics on a "discussion forum", are we?

IMO, telling people to "go away or shut up" should rank up there with direct personal insults as violations of forum rules.

The point of a forum is discussion - not to have a bunch of mindless drones nodding in unison.

It's very refreshing to hear from the voice of reason. I'm here to enjoy the candid exchange of information and experiences through discussions.

As a long time Apple loyalist, at no time have I ever wavered in my position as a very solid supporter. Yet I also have no qualms about sharing my opinions both positive and negative. I like many others here enjoy a good discussion. I don't attack others, I simply share my take on things.

If we go back several months, there was overwhelming negativity from others regarding what a bad idea a 7" iPad would be. When I was POSITIVE and upbeat about it, I got down-voted. I was criticized repeatedly for expressing enthusiasm about it.

It's easy to have a discussion in the MacBook forum here. But when in the News forum or those for the iPhone & iPad it's a different experience.

I believe in freedom of speech & the benefits of good frank discussions about products.

So many people here choose to call others names, or label them in negative ways simply because of differing opinions. There's no need for this since it incites arguments not discussions.

At the end of the day, this is a fine forum that would be even better if more people would act like adults.

 

[Judas1]

The 7+ inch ipad is coming. Its so obvious, I giggle when I hear people say it won't happen. Its not even Apple's choice really. Its strategic suicide not to do it. Amazon will not be sitting still. They tested the water with the fire, and found it nice and comfortable. They will expand, eventually coming out with a 10 inch tablet. If you think that Apple has nothing to fear from Amazon, you will be in for a ride.

 

[juliusaugustus]

I don't get why a smaller screen it would be a difficult thing for Apple to implement as long as Apple keeps the the resolution and Aspect ratio mostly the same their wouldn't be any problems. A smaller screen isn't a paradigm switch or anything drastic as people would make it out to be.

 

[macgeek18]

I don't see why people complain about the iPads size. I pack mine everywhere and it's so light I just tuck it under my arm and do my thing.

 

[chirpie]

Oh they learned magic wand tool too then. They post this story like it's so difficult to imagine what a smaller device would be in your hands. It's not some scientific diagram that is very useful. It's a quick cut/paste photoshop job.

It'd be the lasso tool, not magic wand, since you're keen on lording it over others with belittling posts.

 

[iamacat]

It feels pointless

Either you want a pocket-sized device, or a laptop alternative. A 7 inch device is neither, so the only point is price. However, if you can not spare $400 for a refurbished iPad 1, you are better off consolidating your money to buy a real laptop.

 

[juliusaugustus]

I don't see why people complain about the iPads size. I pack mine everywhere and it's so light I just tuck it under my arm and do my thing.

Because some people want a different size than other people

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Either you want a pocket-sized device, or a laptop alternative. A 7 inch device is neither, so the only point is price. However, if you can not spare $400 for a refurbished iPad 1, you are better off consolidating your money to buy a real laptop.

I carry my HTC flyer in my pocket all the time

 

[vitzr]

I have
17" MBP
15" MBP
13" MBA
11" MBA
iPad 1
iPad 2

My point?
A) I'm a huge Apple user / enthusiast / engineer who uses OS X, for work & personal.

B) I work in an office, also a lab, and travel for work, therefore I like choices of size and variety as well.

I have a 7" Galaxy Tab, it's a very nice size, yet I'd rather have an iPad that size. I'd still keep my full size iPads, but the 7" would instantly be a favorite for mobile use. Especially since I always have a MacBook with me, the smaller lighter 7 iPad would be ideal.

 

[Judas1]

I'm getting tired of people blindly following the status quo and not being able to see the benefits of a 7+ inch tablet. You're not being asked to like it, or to prefer it over the current size. Just to acknowledge that it has its usefulness. The most obvious one being a lighter weight. If you don't prefer the smaller size, fine, go with current size. It won't bother anybody even the people that prefer the smaller size.

 

[ghostlines]

These guys rocked the same iPhone size for 5 years!
The iPad is still very young, and Steve didn't even see a need for a smaller iPad. They own the tablet market, they don't have to release a smaller iPad to compete.

Apple change much things between generations. iPad3 will probably be the same size and just boast a retina display and better performance.

 

[Dbrown]

Says who?

Says anyone who's a serious gamer. touch controls suck compared to physical buttons.

 

[swingerofbirch]

I have never owned an iPad or used one for long periods of time. When I use them in stores, I am actually always shocked at how small the screen seems to me against my expectations. I suppose it's because I use a 13" MBP fairly close to my eyes (I use it in bed).

However, I will say that I think the mind really becomes accustomed to any size screen after some time, making the size somewhat irrelevant for things like watching movies. If you get engrossed in a movie you forget what size screen you're looking at and it sort of fills your field of vision unless you stop to force yourself to consider what's off to the side of the screen. Having extra screen real estate for more UI elements or larger sized UI elements is different than watching a movie, though.

 

[Lesser Evets]

I think the size vs. enthusiasm depends on what the user intends to do with an iPad.

If you just want some traveling movie-music-email machine, a 7" would be enough. If you are creating documents and reading lots of files, the 10" is better.

The 10" is the minimum for someone using the iPad as a "serious computer" and not as a diddle-machine. The future of the iPad is to become a home-away computer and not just a glorified iPod; that future is still a few years away. All the iOS devices have benefits and limitations, size creating that factor in most, so doing an intermediate between phone and pad would make sense if there was a market for it.

 

[Nostromo]

Interesting comparison would be:

Image size on iPad - discounting the wide bezel.

If a 7" iPad had a thinner bezel, or none at all, like a huge iPhone.

 

[divinox]

And why that matters? Slow is still slow, ugly is still ugly, bad software is still bad software.

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Why wouldn't it. I think it makes perfect sense.

It doesn't. To maintain the same (baseline) margin at 399, they need to get below 185. Going down to 8GB gets you a quarter of the way. Smaller screen gets you pretty much there.

Yes, added sales ... somehow i think Apple want to sell you 10" iPad for 499 and then hook you up to buy an iMac than 7" iPad for 399 and an iMac. Don't you agree?

Not what i were going after, and even if i did you're not seeing the volume aspect (would you rather sell 100 x 7"+imac bundles or 50 x 10" and iMac bundles?).

Anyway, just look at your own chart. Apple adds $30 worth of NAND, ups the price $100. Or, even better, add "3G" costing you ~$25, up the price $130 more. This is Apples "plus/super size", something highly affected by volume sales. Do the same to the 7" 8GB (go to 16GB), sell it at 459. Maintain same margin as your charted 32GB. Simple.

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Kinect is incapable of recognizing small gestures. With kinect, articulating with your arms, you'll get wasted by the time you finished scrolling through all your channels

Somewhat incorrect. The bottle neck is the dated implementation (and the xbox), not the tech itself. Tech itself is capable of finger tracking, actually.

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The "Minority Report" UI.

Trivia: MSFT were involved in doing the UI for Minority Report. Think it was the Surface team. Not entirely sure.

 

[Can't Stop]

Says anyone who's a serious gamer. touch controls suck compared to physical buttons.

Serious gamer? I think Apple will think about normal people first and 'serious gamers" in the 3rd place (if they are lucky).

 

[divinox]

I miss the days when the word "ecosystem" was only used in relation to wetlands. What with alligators eating deer, then pooping out the deer so Mimosa trees could grow in the newly fertilized swampy soil. Yeah. Nature's about damn disgusting. But whatever. The word made sense then. And only people who knew what it meant used it.

But nowadays? It's more this marketing buzzword, repeated by people who want to make their chosen product sound better to the Doubting Thomases or the universally loathed User Of Competing Hardware.

"You know, man. You can keep your HP crap. Apple has an ecosystem now. It came out with the iPad, and is this magical thing that changed everything...again. It just works."

Derp.

I agree on the misuse. I disagree on the rest. The concepts are quite analogous in practice, its just that you rarely see someone well-wersed in the lingo - at which point it just becomes... derp.

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I have
17" MBP
15" MBP
13" MBA
11" MBA
iPad 1
iPad 2

My point?
A) I'm a huge Apple user / enthusiast / engineer who uses OS X, for work & personal.

B) I work in an office, also a lab, and travel for work, therefore I like choices of size and variety as well.

I have a 7" Galaxy Tab, it's a very nice size, yet I'd rather have an iPad that size. I'd still keep my full size iPads, but the 7" would instantly be a favorite for mobile use. Especially since I always have a MacBook with me, the smaller lighter 7 iPad would be ideal.

Exactly. At 10" theres too much redundancy going on. 7" is different.
(Still unsure if a 4:3 device could ever be the solution though...)

----------

Says anyone who's a serious gamer. touch controls suck compared to physical buttons.

no need to turn to gamers, just turn to science. Furthermore, touch gaming is generally a big bag of hurt. few games if any are designed with touch in mind, and even fewer do so in a way that really breaks out of the box.

 

[Westside guy]

I want a 60" iPad for my living room!

I'll hang it on the wall. And I'll get a telescopic foam finger to be able to use it while sitting on my couch.

And you can call that telescoping foam finger the "Fing-longer".

 

[allmIne]

Compete against a device that they've already far outclassed? We don't even know how many of these Amazon actually sold and what % share they have. The Kindle Fire has been a massive disappointment.

LTD in disappointed by non-Apple product shocker!

With the greatest of respect, your posts necessarily lose value by refusing to consider both sides of any debate. Every one of them, so far as I've seen.

 

[*LTD*]

LTD in disappointed by non-Apple product shocker!

With the greatest of respect, your posts necessarily lose value by refusing to consider both sides of any debate. Every one of them, so far as I've seen.

The facts tend to have a pro-Apple bias. Not much I can do about that.

 

[MythicFrost]

This is all I've got to say about an iPad Mini:

1) The iPad Mini would have a very similar bill of materials to the iPad, so if Apple lowered the price they would be making less money than they do now.

2) It would add additional cost for design (laying out the internals, etc.) and actual production for a smaller device. (Plus they also sell out of iPad's after release, so they would need to decrease the amount of iPad's they produce to make room for the iPad Mini.)

3) The iPad Mini would be lighter, but not by much. It would also have a lot less battery life and it would get hotter unlike the current iPad which doesn't seem to get hot at all and has amazing battery life.

4) The market for those who will buy a 7.85 inch iPad Mini but not a 9.7 inch iPad is quite likely very small. The iPad Mini would also eat away at the sales of the iPad as the majority of buyers would have already been going to buy an iPad.

5) Developers have to support another device. It's potentially problematic for the iPad Mini to retain the same 1024x768 resolution as the iPad as well as small UI elements on the iPad may be too small on the iPad Mini. But, it's more problematic for them to change the resolution.

A lot of what I say is speculation but it makes sense to me. I only see this costing them more money, adding more work for developers, all whilst bringing in few new customers and hacking away at the already successful iPad.

I can understand why someone would want a 7.85 inch iPad, but I just don't believe there's a large enough market of people who want that and only that, for Apple to make any money out of it.

 

[JAT]

Listen - I love how books look on my iPad. But for long reads - I don't like the iPad screen. Hurts my eyes. I much prefer long reads on my Kindle.

Have you altered brightness and turned on Sepia? Apple was way behind in functionality for iBooks. I have other apps that are far superior, even to the current version of iBooks, and I prefer them to a Kindle as I don't need external devices (lamp) to control my lighting.

Compete against a device that they've already far outclassed? We don't even know how many of these Amazon actually sold and what % share they have. The Kindle Fire has been a massive disappointment.

Oh, please. You need to filter your devotion occasionally.

The same Apple that always talks down everything until they do it themselves and then its magical and "just right"?

Well, it would be nice to avoid forum wars over nothing.

What bothers me the most is how many people decide not to be frugal consumers and fall into mindless loyalty or corpo-sycophancy.

Why don't you name names instead of complaining about "many". Otherwise, you sound like another teenager that "knows everything".

I disagree. The phone market is extremely transient and people upgrade phones like they change their underwear.

That may be too close to true. Eww.

Adding the third screen size to iOS lineup would be a very bad marketing move by Apple. It would deprive iOS fans of the sense of victimhood that so many Apple fans attain by buying into iOS ecosystem with its 2 screen sizes vs 57 sizes for Android.

No doubt. I mean, if Heinz 57 sauce is 95% catsup, just use catsup.

Says me and the whole history of TV remote control development where not a single serious company ever released a remote control without hard buttons. Even remotes with touch screens always had physical buttons for Volume +/- and Channel +/-. Touch screen paradigm just does no offer a good way for quick input. One needs to "activate" a touch screen first (it can't be held always ON because of battery life issues) and then start entering the commands. Also, touch screen works well when you touch what you are looking at. When you are staring at the TV screen (say, TV guide) and have to touch another screen to input the commands it feels very awkward.

Many remotes have overcome this with accelerometers, when you pick it up, it is ready due to the motion. Although I do agree about touchscreen remotes. The Philips Pronto was quite popular for awhile, but they've (all touchscreen) basically faded to nonexistance.

Funny how the level of denial & hate skyrockets if the voice of experience & truth speaks up.

The only expressions welcome here are those that suck up to Apple, blindly praising them. Honest evaluations, and real life experience is down voted.

Your view is personal and one-sided. I am often accused of sucking up to Apple, and get downvoted for that. Frequently. Ridiculously ****ing frequently.

 

[charlituna]

Mac Rumors keeps saying "it would be to compete with the Fire." Really? The Fire isn't selling because it's a great tablet... it's a good tablet that's cheap.

for that matter how much is it selling. They keep putting out numbers saying thinks like "1 million units in our Kindle lineup" which means they are talking all Kindles not just the Fire. And yes they say the Fire is the best selling of all Kindles released but how many does that really mean. Seems to me that could mean less than 1-2 million sold and lets face it, the iPad does that in a week pretty much every week. And that's after 6-7 times that on launch weekend. The iPad 3, whatever it looks like, could do 10 times the Fire has done over all (depending on the numbers) on the opening day.

So does the iPad really need to compete with the Fire? The true numbers may say not at all

 

[nickgri]

bezel

That bezel is there for gripping purposes. It should be there.

on the iPhone, since it's held in your palm with fingers wrapped around the device, it could be done, but the iPad needs the 1" bezel.

If you used a hand glove on the back of the ipad you would not need to get your fingers on the screen-and a whole inch is too big anyway bring it down to 1/2 inch at least and gain all that space

 

[wkadamsjr]

Apple couldn't care less about the success of the Fire. So a lot of people are buying it. I seem to remember a few "iPhone killers" that initially sold like crazy and turned out to be huge disappointments after the fact (see Palm Pre, Samsung Instinct, just to name a couple). Apple does not over-react to its competitors successes.

I have never cared for the larger screens I see on android phones, and I certainly see no use for a smaller iPad. While some may have interest in buying a smaller iPad, it would cannibalize Apple's other products, and we all know Apple wouldn't want to risk that.

Likewise, Apple has no desire to make a more "price-friendly" option. If that were the case, wouldn't Apple make a 7- or 8-inch notebook? I call this "rumor" wishful thinking at best. I would be shocked to see Apple actually release this.