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

[Swift]

On the other hand...

If Steve built many prototypes testing different sizes with Jonny Ive, and they decided on the 10", then my money's on the 7" models being much cheaper. Until you can do one cheaper, there's no discernible reason why a 7" would gain much success in the marketplace. As in, the Fire. When it's free, it might take over the world supported by sales and advertising for the goods you can purchase on Amazon. But it's not the best size.

 

[hayden1250]

I think the screen size now is perfect.

 

[thenewyorkgod]

I got a good laugh reading the comments from this 2003 article about Apple not making a "cell phone"

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/28026/

So many of the comments can be transplanted into the recent comments about apple producing a TV

"do you remember your last phone? i mean, seriously, there are a million manufactures out there, making new phones every month, no way apple can compete with that"

Just switch the word phone for TV and you have this new argument 9 years later , about an Apple TV

 

[skellener]

Apple got the aspect ratio right. The iPad is closer to paper/magazine/book ratio. Yet 16x9 movies and older 4:3 QuickTime and YouTube videos still look fine. It's a size that can accommodate many different things (since the iPad is supposed to do many different things). The smaller 16x10 devices seem awkward. Guess what? Some movies (2.35:1) will always be letterboxed. Apple's solution makes more sense.

To the guy that keeps wanting a device without a bezel - have you ever used a touch screen before? If you had, you'd realize how absurd that request is. You need to be able to hold it somehow.

 

[samcraig]

I got a good laugh reading the comments from this 2003 article about Apple not making a "cell phone"

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/28026/

So many of the comments can be transplanted into the recent comments about apple producing a TV

"do you remember your last phone? i mean, seriously, there are a million manufactures out there, making new phones every month, no way apple can compete with that"

Just switch the word phone for TV and you have this new argument 9 years later , about an Apple TV

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

TVs are a long term purchase - well beyond the 1-2 year cycle.

Also - this thread has NOTHING to do with TVs. So why start that diversion?

 

[thenewyorkgod]

Because this article referred to that thread in pointing out that apple has a history of "changing it's mind". Feel free to ignore my post and continue posting on your narrow view of what this thread should be about.

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

TVs are a long term purchase - well beyond the 1-2 year cycle.

Also - this thread has NOTHING to do with TVs. So why start that diversion?

 

[samcraig]

Because this article referred to that thread in pointing out that apple has a history of "changing it's mind". Feel free to ignore my post and continue posting on your narrow view of what this thread should be about.

Yes. Because I clearly didn't respond to your post regardless. In either event - I disagree with your parallel for the reason I mentioned. Happy Holidays!

 

[Mr Bigs]

Jobs also said that no one reads books any more and then proceeded to open up the iBookstore.

While simultaneously working on his biography.

 

[Robin4]

^ Maybe I'm the only one, but to me all of these products are luxury goods. You can't make a practical argument for any of them if you already own a PC capable of... you know, browsing the web. If you love books and are on a budget, take your $200 to the used book store and see how much you get, read, and sell back to them. Or here's an idea: go to the Library.

Go to the library? Guess what, the library is coming to you!

My local library is setting up intro classes on how to borrow books on your iPad.

 

[extensor]

A 7.85" iPod Touch sounds like a great idea. I'd get one. But, as Steve said, an iPad of that size would clearly be useless.

Your comment would only make sense if Steve had said iPod Touch. Duh!

 

[PCClone]

This would be awesome with a retina display. The (presumably) lower weight would make a big difference for me. Love my iPad 2, but that sucker is surprisingly heavy.

Maybe you are surprisingly weak...

 

[donnaw]

First if Apple did go this route it will be a device with a retina display. That won't be cheap, but size does matter here. A larger LCD is just harder to get perfect. In any event the LCD should impact pricing significantly.


size makes the displays expensive. The larger the display the harder it is to get perfect. However internal part might not be the same. I'm still expecting Apple to split SoC manufacture into two devices, one chip for phones and a more powerful unit for iPads. So they can vary the hardware and actually have several choices or ways to cheapen the hardware. The fact is with a smaller battery they would have to do something.

As a side note I could see Apple coming out with an HD ratio iPod. This would be a device to effectively be a member of the Apple TV initiative that is coming. They will call it an iPod or AppleTV to distinguish it from the iPad. Another variant might be a iOS device optimized for gaming. In the context of a seven inch device that would mean an iPad with buttons. I'm also convince that a wider aspect ratio works better here.

a smaller case, screen and battery would impact price. Apple could also use older chip sets. Or conversely they might go with an even higher integration device. The smaller PCB would be ideal for the smaller device.

In the end though you don't need a huge price differential. The selling point isn't price, Apple wouldn't be effectively competing against anybody. Instead it is size that will attract people. In this regards I still think a device close to 8" is way to big, rather the device should be sub 7". I suspect Apple would be able to adjust price enough to get people to buy.
Why? Not that i think it would be exactly the same but if the only real difference is the screen then it could easily be sold for a few bucks less. Look at the LCD monitor business, thoose screens are often very close in price ebben if the only feature difference is the screen People buy features for the most part

So, to me, the question is, is Apple willing to make a lesser profit?[/QUOTE]

They will likely shoot for a $50 differential. Even that might be too much. Knowing Apple they would arrange the feature set so that you would have to buy one or the othEr based on features. For example the seven inch device might have 20 or 40GB of flash where as the iPad might have 32, 64 & 128 GB of flash. There are all sorts of way to rig the product line up.[/QUOTE]

Good post, exactly the type of thoughts I was hoping to see. Thanks

 

[h4ck]

In a way yes.

This is where more research and less posting would be helpful. Look up iPad in Corporations, iPads in medical, iPads in the field. These are real world uses where lugging a PC is less desirable.

add airlines to that list - pilot manuals are now going iPad too. it was approved by the FAA or whatever a couple weeks ago iirc.

Your stuck in 1980. Replace your calendar (that's the problem with printed items, they get stale.)

you're. your is a possessive pronoun. you're is a contraction of 'you are'

 

[leukotriene]

The iPad's screen size is 9.6" and the bezel is additional space. A 7.85" iPad without a bezel would still have a 7.85" screen, amd be venerable to Steve's criticisms.

Hey, I get exactly what you are saying, but your comment in no way addresses the point I am making, namely the possibility of a bezel-less 7.85 inch iPad. Open up the Macrumors-commissioned mockup of the 7.85 inch iPad on the current 9.6 inch iPad, and you'll see that the viewport of today's iPad perfectly encompasses both the bezel AND the viewport of the hypothetical 7.85 inch iPad.

So hypothetically, a 7.85 inch iPad that is edge-to-edge screen could display the current iPad GUI with no scaling at all. I find that to be an interesting coincidence.

Would I actually prefer a 7.85 inch iPad with no bezel? I like having a physical home button, so I'd lean to saying no I would not prefer it. But you have to admit that it's interesting that what some rumors are claiming to be a "new" mini iPad may in fact be the iPad 2 without a bezel. And who am I to say that Jony Ives's team couldn't invent a better way to get back to the home screen than having a physical button. That's why they're the designers and we're not

Edit: And by the way, a hypothetical bezel-less 7.85 inch iPad absolutely would avoid Jobs' criticism. He was complaining about software on-screen touch targets, and what I am suggesting would retain current tap target size because the viewport's dimensions and size are perfectly retained. It's just the bezel that is eliminated. It's kind of hard to explain in words, but do you get it?

 

[Epic Xbox Revie]

They should announce that they are making something ridiculous, like a 15" iPad, see if Google copies them, and sue them again.. (Don't really make a 15" iPad, just get the patents for it!)

 

[samcraig]

They should announce that they are making something ridiculous, like a 15" iPad, see if Google copies them, and sue them again.. (Don't really make a 15" iPad, just get the patents for it!)

and that would accomplish what?

 

[leukotriene]

The iPad's screen size is 9.6" and the bezel is additional space. A 7.85" iPad without a bezel would still have a 7.85" screen, amd be venerable to Steve's criticisms.

Oh and clearly Apple is working on a bezel-less iPad in the labs. They've filed patents based on their work:

You can read about it here: http://www.patentlyapple.com/patent...mart-bezels-live-reconfigurable-macbooks.html

Obvious disclaimer: 99% of what Apple patents never makes it into a final product. But the fact that they've filed patents on a bezel-less system DOES mean that they've thought about how a bezel-less iPad would work. And if they were to make a bezel-less iPad, it would likely retain the same sized viewport as today's iPad (so as to avoid scaling the on-screen elements), yielding almost exactly a 7.85 inch iPad. Which is interesting considering the 7.85 inch iPad rumors. Just bringing the point up, I don't necessarily believe the rumors one way or the other.

 

[imageWIS]

Nope. You are also wrong. Apple doesn't like the use of the word mini for devices. It would be the iPad Nano

I stand corrected... unless Apple decides to come up with a whole new name to denote a miniature device.

 

[carmenodie]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

The trolls are out today. Write up a rumor about a mini iPad and all of a sudden the original iPad is too big. So now imagine that there had been a mini iPad in the beggining, now followed up with rumors of a larger iPad. The mini would now been seen as being to damn small.

 

[David085]

Hopefully the mini iPad 3 is much less then $499 since it will be smaller in size and probably will buy it when is ready this coming February 2012

 

[louis Fashion]

Bigger is better!!!!

 

[fertilized-egg]

Hopefully the mini iPad 3 is much less then $499 since it will be smaller in size and probably will buy it when is ready this coming February 2012

My guess is that we can probably assume it's not coming Feb 2012. Apple will almost certainly not release such device without having apps optimized for that screen size first. Many of the current iPad apps made for the 10" display will feel too cramped there.

 

[Can't Stop]

Your forgetting this isn't competing against the iPad really and moreso the other 7" tablets.

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

----------

Why would a 399 "of course" have a smaller margin than a device at 499?

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

Plus, people are forgetting added sales. McDonalds et co. make a fortune out of plus-sizing. Apple do the same. Get the customer in with a cheap baseline, then once hooked, get them to buy more things (larger SSD, Apple care, you name it).

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?

 

[The Mad Hatter]

Yes...
I want more portability than an iPad.
I want something you can hold in one hand comfortably.
I want to thumb type.

if your hands are too small to "thumb type", then pull the keyboard apart, and use it in split keyboard mode.

 

[lilo777]

Bad marketing

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.