Apple, Suppliers Test Tablet With Smaller Screen
Apple Working with Suppliers on 8-Inch iPad
Human beings who invest their deficient self-esteem in another person will go to great lengths to support, defend, and most importantly, believe that person.
Such was the case with Steve Jobs.
Steve said that flash-based music players were crap and the chorus backed him up. Until he decided Apple should do a flash-based player.
Steve said that people don’t read anymore and the entire idea of eBooks was brain-dead. Until he decided Apple should “stand on the shoulders of Amazon” and debuted the iBookstore and iBooks.
Steve said that the iPad was the minimal size for a “tablet experience” and people have spit and shit on anything smaller since. Despite the success of the Kindle Fire.
What is that Chorus of Steve saying today?
That Tim Cook is some sort of traitor to Steve’s Vision, I bet.
When all Tim Cook is doing is following what Steve Jobs’ own plan has been all along.
Apple’s recent Steve Jobs playbook has been this: Grab the high-end first and there’s time to take care of the low-end afterwards.
So we had the iPod first. Then flash-based iPods.
So we had the iPhone first. Then the iPod Touch.
So we had the 9.8″ iPad first. And, perhaps this year, a smaller iPad.
It’s never been about the “tablet experience.”
It’s been getting you to believe what Steve Jobs said.
And all of you have, over and over.
Look, don’t give me any excuses about how the UI elements of the iPad won’t scale to a smaller screen. Figuring out that is not your concern. That is the job of Apple. And they will figure it out.
Don’t go worrying about how that might “fragment” iOS with different UI element codebases. That’s not your worry. That is the worry of Apple. And they will figure it out.
And even if it does fragment UIs, guess what? Do you really think any developer is going to stop creating iOS software? Every single one of them will man up and do what needs to be done to sell to the new tens of millions of people who buy that smaller iPad. And then all that singing from the Chorus of Steve will finally come to an end. Thank the Lord.
Don’t argue with me. Don’t leave a Comment pointing real or imagined out flaws in this post. Your silly logic just does not apply.
All you’ll be doing is proving what Steve Jobs believed you were.
A bozo.
Mike Cane’s xBlog 
The iPad won’t get smaller. The iPod Touch will get bigger.
“Steve said that the iPad was the minimal size for a “tablet experience” and people have spit and shit on anything smaller since. Despite the success of the Kindle Fire.”
The Kindle Fire is an eBook reader. It has a color screen and multi-touch, but it is not comparable to the iPad, which has been bought by consumers, educators, businesses, and governments, as replacements for notebook PCs (something that the Fire would never be suitable for).
On the other hand, it’s quite possible… even likely, that Apple will eventually come out with a mid-sized iPad.
Remember that the main reason that Steve Jobs gave for not having a smaller iPad, was because he felt that iOS does not scale well for smaller screens.
But…
We have tens of millions of iPhones and iPod Touches that run iOS on 3.5″ displays, so a 7″ or 8″ iPad would be well within reason.
Also, Apple is now making millions of dollars from its iBooks business. A 9.7″ display is great for many apps that require that large work area, but not so great as a portable eBook (or iBook) reader.
People want/need a smaller, more portable device that is focused on reading eBooks. A 7″ or 8″ iPad would be a more suitable size for those who are focused on reading their iBooks.
Steve Jobs has said many times that Apple is not interested in something, only to later turn around and produce that very thing. This is nothing new. When these things are said, it is not because Steve Jobs (or whoever else at Apple) has suddenly changed their mind. It is because, similar to playing poker, you don’t give your hand away until you finally lay down your cards. Sometimes bluffing, or misdirection, is all part of the game.
Perhaps the lesson is that there are no absolutes. Absolute statements are inevitably shown to be invalid.
Or perhaps statements have to be considered in context. Apple often waits to use a particular technology or enter a market until they can do it with excellence. When Jobs criticizes something, its often because the time is not right, and all the pieces aren’t in place to do it well. You can argue that maybe Steve should have come right out and said that instead of dissing the idea entirely. But Apple doesn’t like to show its hand. That’s just the way they roll.
Subterfuge. Misdirection. Sun Tzu. Everyone copies Apple. Don’t let yourself be copied until it doesn’t matter. Jeez, how hard can this be?
I think you’re right that what’s going on is an unfolding of a long-term Steve Jobs plan. You’re also quite right that Steve was the master of mis-direction.
However, I take issue with the go after the high-end first, at least historically. Apple repeatedly remains there and only recently has recognized the smarts of getting customers into the Apple world at lower price points (e.g., older iPhones at little or no cost).
If you check, won’t you find that the iPod Touch and iPhone were introduced at the same time? Even if the IPT came a bit later, it wasn’t to go after the low end, but a different slice of the market.
What helped make the iPad a success was that it was a scaling up of the IPT and iPhone experience.
Finally, I think you’re too dismissive of the problem with developers– or rather how consumers will react. One wants a new device to have a good set of apps ready made to run on. Hence, ensuring that all or most all current apps will run on a mini-iPad is important– and they need to make sure that the experience is better than what happened with the 2x blow up the iPhone apps on the iPad. While some worked well, others looked atrocious. Still, I think you are right, that no matter the scaling, display issues, developers will rise to the occasion and users will flock to the product.
8″ iPad here we come!
You can judge a person’s prejudice as to how “challenged” it is by a very simple method… What you do is take what ever the opposite view is from one or two or 5 or 10 years ago (what ever time frame they are referring to), and do a “what if that person instead invested all his/her money in this opposite view, what would the difference be?”, and if the net result is that the person could have retired on an island, AND BOUGHT THAT ISLAND, then the person’s prejudice is just really a delusion of excuses of why they are not on that island. but what ever floats their boat i guess… we have to have poor people too…
Wow! All I can say is wow! You did have to ask not to be argued with as it is obvious you’ve already have your mind closed on the matter and no amount of logic would be able to penetrate! A bit of advice: Try to let go some of that hate. Ulcers are not a fun thing.
I totally agree. The too small argument has always amused me. Hello iPod touch and iPhone. For a long time I wanted a 7 or 8 inch ebook reader. Something bigger than 6″ but smaller than 10″.
People learn and change their views and goals!!! If a person can not and change his/her views, that person is a vegetable!!!
Steve Jobs learnt and grew up to make Apple what it is today!!!
Hmmm? When did Apple do a flash-based player?
Yes everyone is a bozo and brain dead including you Mike.
Knocking the dead now? Not surprising given your usual juvenile commentary.
You are also lying about what Jobs did and did not say to fit your screed.
ha!
I still believe Jobs, honestly. The argument that “a seven-inch iPad can’t be too small because the iPhone/iPod Touch is even smaller” doesn’t hold water because developers write apps differently for the smaller screen than they do for the iPad.
There are apps that will do fine at the medium size, of course, like games and content viewers. There are others that won’t, and they’re the ones built for content creation. Yes, I know that Numbers and Pages were rewritten for the iPhone, but here’s the thing — it’s easy enough to type on an iPhone keyboard with your thumbs, and typing on the full-width iPad keyboard is entirely manageable, but with a middle size, you would have to choose to use a keyboard that’s both too wide to use your thumbs and too narrow to use both hands comfortably.
It’s really about the size of our hands. It’s the same reason we’ve not had an Apple laptop/notebook smaller than an Air or the 12″ PowerBook. Two-handed typing on a small keyboard just sucks.
Once again, it comes down to the user experience. The iPhone works fine with one hand — you can reach across the whole thing with your thumb (unlike a Kindle Fire, Nook, or even a Galaxy Note, which my Korean brother-in-law already has). The iPad needs two hands to hold it, but it’s also big enough for both hands to type on it. A medium size fits neither of those scenarios.
After saying all that, however, my wife has said that she’d like one, and I think she’d be perfectly happy with it considering how she uses our iPad 2. I wouldn’t want one at all, though.
I forget which, but one of the Mac sites did a PDF mockup of a 7″ iPad. It seemed to me all the UI elements would still work, even the keyboard. And whatever doesn’t work, they’ll noodle with so it doesn’t break on the larger iPad too.
EDIT: Also, 7″ wasn’t mentioned in the report. The screen was actually a little bit larger. Samsung’s 8.9 is noticeably smaller than its 10.1 and seems much friendler to the hand and for carrying.
Found the PDF mockup —
They forgot to draw it with a landscape keyboard. Turn it sideways and imagine trying to fit both hands on it. In portrait mode, it’s really no better than the full size iPad — one-handed typing is clumsy, and “two-thumbed” typing is a stretch. Thumb typing would be better with a split keyboard, yet the iPad already does this, too.
If I were Apple, I wouldn’t make a medium-sized iPad. Typewriter keyboards are the same size for a reason — human hands haven’t changed in a long time. Even the 10″ iPad’s landscape keyboard is about as small as I would tolerate, and if it were any smaller, my fingers would be stumbling over each other.
I’ve been focusing on the keyboard because I think that’s where the screen size makes the most difference. All the other UI elements can fit on anything. Apple’s been trying to say that the iPad does more than merely view content (hence the iWork suite being ported over), and making a less usable—or, more appropriately, “less type-able”—size like the Kindle defeats that effort. Just because the smaller screen can be manufactured doesn’t mean it’s a great idea.
>>>Typewriter keyboards are the same size for a reason — human hands haven’t changed in a long time.
Typewriters, yes. But who uses those? And you forget that the first netbooks that started the revolution from Asus came with 7″ screens. Were those ideal? No. But at the time people still bought them. Go figure. And who ever imagined we’d one day speak of “Blackberry Thumb”?
Don’t forget too, parents might give their kids a smaller iPad and perhaps the smaller “keys” won’t matter to them.
My point was that typewriter keyboards were sized to fit our hands, and because our hands haven’t changed, keyboards have always been roughly the same size ever since.
Blackberrys were always an abomination, but we put up with them because there wasn’t an alternative, and they’re small enough to potentially use with one hand. The small netbooks never made it out of geekdom, to be honest, because they were just too darned small (I wanted to like them, but never could convince myself to take one home).
The best possible use might be for kids after all. But I kinda think that that would limit the market, too, unless parents decide to buy one so they can get their “grownup” iPads back — and that could mean that the medium iPad would sell almost as many as the original. Of course, this would require parents to decide that an iPod touch is too small, inexpensive, and relatively disposable (I’d be less upset if my child lost an iPod touch rather than a mini iPad).
Even so, I’m still not sold on the idea.
“If Apple decides to come out with the mythical seven inch version of the iPad, they win.”
So it comes down to capability vs. mobility, then. Even he says that he uses the iPad for a lot of things that he did with his laptop, and, “In fact, the main reason I use the iPad as much as I do is because it has some currently useful apps missing from the Android market and the increased screen size.” My question is whether the iOS-only apps in a smaller size will still be as appealing.
Maybe Apple will release it instead of continuing to muck around with a prototype (you know they’ve been trying different sizes over the years in their offices; Tim Cook said earlier this week that they were using iPads behind closed doors for daily activities long before its initial release) and maybe I’ll buy one anyway, but I’ve got to be thoroughly convinced that it’ll be as good as people hope it will. It took a few months for me to decide on an iPad 1, after all, and it was the productivity apps, specifically Numbers and Pages, that pushed me over the fence.
That’s been the argument all along, though: Something smaller that’s easier to tote. All of this angst over whether UI elements or the keyboard can be used — people will find that out for themselves. And I don’t think it’s a risk for Apple or something that will fail.
I think consumers have been finding out for themselves already. Plenty of small and mid-sized tablets out there, in each size range you can think of, and none of them are catching on as ridiculously big as the iPad has.
My brother-in-law in Korea has a Galaxy Note (to be fair, a lot smaller than 8″), and after I got to try it myself, I don’t think it knows what it should be — it’s too big to be a phone and too small to be a tablet. Great-looking display, good enough interface, plays Angry Birds smoothly, but I can’t do much with it one-handed because my thumb has to help hold it instead of being free to access the screen. The Nook Color pushes in the other direction, being much too big for one hand but still cramped for two hands. It won’t even lie across my lap like the iPad does.
I just feel that, if a device would be too big to use with one hand, why not make it big enough to accommodate both hands? I figure that Apple’s built prototypes in a bunch of sizes for themselves and chose 10″ for that reason.
I appreciate the level-headed discussion, though.
Well, the G Note is only like 5″. And it’s Android. Android just doesn’t have the range or quality of apps of iOS, so of course it won’t sell as well. But if you want a better idea of what a 7″ tablet would be like, try to track down the Pandigital Novel or Cruz Reader. Those are 4:3 aspect ratio, like the iPad. And we don’t know that Apple would do 7″. It could be 7.8″, which would also made a difference.
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2010/08/18/review-black-pandigital-novel/