Apple Preps for Smaller Tablet

[Sil_liS]

From here:

Apple Inc.'s component suppliers in Asia are preparing for mass production in September of a tablet computer with a smaller screen than the iPad, people familiar with the situation said, suggesting a launch for the device is near.

Two of the people said that the tablet's screen will likely be smaller than eight inches. The iPad's screen measures 9.7 inches, unchanged since the first model was released in 2010.

Any bets on the size?

[stonetools]

Heard this before. Believe it when I see it.

[danskmacabre]

For me 9.7 inches is as small as I want a tablet.
They're great for reading large manuals and stuff like that.

[murraypaul]

I think Amazon has proved there is a mass market for a smaller tablet, the question is whether Apple want to move into a market segment where there is already lively competition, and it would likely have to settle for a lower margin?
(I would certainly be tempted if a 6-7 inch iPad was released)
Another question would be: Is is a big iPod Touch, or a small iPad?
Apple have chosen different aspect ratios for the two different devices, so which would they choose for an in-between one?

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Heard this before. Believe it when I see it.

Maybe there will be one when Amazon makes a 10" Fire.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Another question would be: Is is a big iPod Touch, or a small iPad?

Maybe they would just call it iPed, iPid or iPud.

[din155]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Maybe they would just call it iPed, iPid or iPud.

I think Pad will remain so it could be named 1/3iPad or 1/2iPad.

[JSWolf]

iPad Mini if it really does come out which it very well may not given that Jobs thinks any tablet of 7" is too small for a good touch experience. But that would mean then that the iPhones have a poor touch experience since they are way smaller then 7". Way to dis the competition and yourself in the same silly statement.

[Lastblade]

iPad Air.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Maybe they would just call it iPed, iPid or iPud.

Given the propensity for patent lawsuits, they could call it mLud?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

iPad Mini if it really does come out which it very well may not given that Jobs thinks any tablet of 7" is too small for a good touch experience. But that would mean then that the iPhones have a poor touch experience since they are way smaller then 7". Way to dis the competition and yourself in the same silly statement.

The iPhone isn't a tablet.
He didn't say you couldn't have a smaller touchscreen.
He said that 7 inch was too small to do a tablet style interface, rather than a phone style interface.
Hmm, hasn't it just been discovered that the new Google 7 inch tablet will be using their phone interface rather than their tablet one? Maybe they don't think Jobs was such a fool after all.

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.

[Dylrob]

*deleted*

[Dulin's Books]

how exactly is the UI different between an iphone and an ipad? especially the home screen launcher(besides the aspect ratio)

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

how exactly is the UI different between an iphone and an ipad? especially the home screen launcher(besides the aspect ratio)

The UI elements of an app optimized for the iPad are proportionally smaller and there tend to be many more on screen at once. If displayed on an iPhone screen generally these apps would be pretty much impossible to interact with, unless you have very tiny fingers.

The point is that a finger driven interface needs finger sized controls. It's not like a desktop or laptop, were you are controlling a mouse cursor with an external device. With tablets the display and interface device are one in the same.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

how exactly is the UI different between an iphone and an ipad? especially the home screen launcher(besides the aspect ratio)

You can probably search for some screenshots of the two different home screens, but I can give a quick summary.

The iPod Touch has a grid of 4x4 icons with 4 favourites at the bottom. The gap between the icons is only maybe a third of the width of one icon.
The aim of the design is to get as much in as possible without reducing the size of any one icon to smaller than a fingertip, and allowing you to clearly select your target icon rather than an adjacent one.

The iPad has a grid of only 4x5 icons plus 6 favourites at the bottom, despite the much much larger screen. The gap between icons is close to two times the icon width. Each icon is maybe only 1.5 times bigger than the iPod Touch icons.
The aim of the design to to have a more comfortably spaced out look, and avoid squeezing things in too much.

If you added as many icons to the iPad screen as possible, using the iPod Touch icon size and spacing, you would be looking at close to 100 icons per page, and it would look hopelessly fussy.
If you scaled the iPad screen down to iPod Touch size, each icon would be minuscule and it would be difficult to tell different icons apart.