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A bit like Google Drive, which was rumoured for ages, year after year, then finally emerged last month, Apple’s supposed iPad mini has plagued our gossip channels for years. Now, according to iMore, Apple’s going to fire a roughly 7-inch iPad across our bows this October for around £200, plus a new iPhone to boot too.
Take this with a handy pinch of anonymous source-shaped salt, but iMore reckons the iPad mini, which will be around 7-inches, will just be a shrunken new iPad, with a similar pixel density. It’d run the same apps as the 9.7-inch iPad, just scaled down, but it won’t replace the iPod touch.
Personally I have difficulty swallowing a £200 price tag for anything iPad, especially if it’s got a Retina display. I also wonder why Apple would even bother going after anything other the premium 10-inch market, but then never say never — Jobs did famously say 7-inch tablets were horrid, and we all know how Apple protests too much before launching precisely what it’s crapping on. [iMore]
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“Jobs did famously say 7-inch tablets were horrid”
Jobs is also famously dead. Whilst I imagine there is some form of plan Apple are working to, I wonder how much they’ll deviate from it given time.
Will it come with the sandpaper that Jobs promised we would need? If this rumour has any truth in it it will be the first time Post Jobs Apple will be directly going against his publicly stated wishes. This of course doesn’t mean that he wasn’t planning a 7″ iPad all along, since (as the article says) Apple has a history of disparaging something before launching their own version. As to why they are thinking of launching it now, well Apple owns the tablet market right now, but Android is chipping away at it, especially with the smaller form factor devices. Maybe having had the rug pulled from under them once by Android, they are trying to avoid it happening again.
7-inch tablets are dead on arrical, there is no future in them.
Damn it, speeling mistake.
I meant to say, Dead on Arrival.
Actually I’ve just returned from a trip to the planet Arrical and nothing could be further from the truth. 7″ tablets are very popular with the Arricalans due to their small stature and spindly fingers.
My playbook begs to differ. Despite the lack of apps I use it more than my iPad.
I’ve been sick of waiting around for the Note 10.1, and was thinking of getting the 5″ Note as I can pick one on the auctions new for around £350 now, and have ICS. So I went on the old video channel to see what users are saying, very surprising. Many reviewers hated the idea of it then after a few days fell in love saying it is the only way and the future – I tend to think they make a good point. Culture has informed use what a tablet is, and what a phone is, and what each is suppose to do, yet the size and function of things have mostly been controlled by what we can do rather than what it can do and what we what it to be – like we made phones as small as we could, but then the phone had become a powerful mobile media device which means having a screen 4.5″+ for practical use and function of the media on that mobile device.
And I think a 5″ Note would be killer for Apple – good phone and tablet features with a stylus in a slim 5″ frame is an interesting place.
But I’ll wait for the 10.1″ Note but if they get quad and 2gb in a 5″ Note then I’d be tempted to move on that also.
I’m using the Galalaxy Note – I Love it. I can’t ever imagine going back to anything smaller. The S-Pen works like a dream and I never use my fingers now – Like I did with the Iphake – Then again, it all depends on what you want your phone to do, or what you need it to do. Once you use it – there is no going back.
That is what everyone said on youtube reviews, some didn’t use the stylus, some thought it the best feature, but they all said it is about having a powerful device with a big screen in your pocket that means you can’t go back to anything else. The browser speed is brilliant, and without all that pinching rubbish, yet it zooms beautifully. I am temped to move on a Note already, but I get a feeling the 5″ Note may be a few months away from a SIII style upgrade of hardware and software. People talk of that the SII was the flagship product of Samsung, I think it may be the Note – unconventional, but great.