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7-Inch iPad Rumored
Stoobalou writes "Rumours of a cut-down Apple iPad are ramping up as Taiwanese news outlet Economic Daily News names names. The often-reliable Chinese language newspaper — which correctly predicted the first coming of the iPad when everyone else on the planet was carping on about a sub-$500 netbook from the Cupertino company — has been digging about in the skips behind a number of Chinese factories and reckons it knows who will be making which bit of the much-predicted iPad 2."
I think it's great. I will have my iPhone as a mobile device, the normal big and classy iPad for coffee shops and to impress girls, and the medium size iPhone/iPad variant for things while iPhone isn't enough, but when iPad is too big. I can already think hundreds of different situations where it will fit perfectly.
I can already see how some apple-haters will come here and say "what is the purpose of this medium-sized iPhone?", but if you don't see it you're just not thinking different enough. Just continue to follow the sheep and install your Windows. At least when I see an Apple user I know he is different, intellectual person I can have a good conversation with. He is not just there to talk with me because he has malware on his computer. I am studying art currently and having the iPad makes a complete difference on how other students and professors look at me. They know I'm an artist and an intellectual person.
I can't wait to get this device on my hands.
This is truly news for female nerds. 8 inches is too big and that old 5.5 inch average just isn't satisfying. I will of course be gifting one to the next geeky girl I date, so she will be thoroughly satisfied by seven inches of perfection.
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It will be interesting to see if being smaller will fix some of the problems people have with holding the current model...I also am curious to see how battery life will be affected by this.
Not to mention pricing.
Living With a Nerd
In other news, I just pre-ordered my iPad Nano.
Oh please. This is the same "often-reliable" newspaper that predicted that Apple was going to release an iPhone nano earlier this year.
Also, the idea that anybody expected Apple to release a "sub-$500 netboook" is sheer lunacy. Nobody seriously expected that-- the iPad was widely anticipated by just about everyone for months before it was released.
Too bad she will still be unimpressed by the hamster-sized organ between your legs.
The common hamster can grow to a size of fourteen inches in length, three inches across, and can weigh up to a pound.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Lessie - Apple only updates SKUs once and year - and is having trouble building the current model fast enough. OMG THERE'S ANOTHER ONE COMING TOMORROW!
Fuck you Slashdot.
Obvious jokes aside, I think I'd trade in my 9.7" for the 7" if it became an option. The higher density of the screen with the same specs and a smaller footprint just sounds like win to me. Seeing as I mainly use the iPad for reading, it looks like this could be the perfect size for an e-reader.
It really all depends on how much they want to drop the price, if at all. I certainly wouldn't pay the same amount all over again when I've got a perfectly acceptable, not quite as small device already.
I know the iPad is nice and shiny and oh so good looking, but honestly, a Kindle causes less strain on the eyes and much easier to hold and is now, much cheaper. Perhaps this 7" will remove the arm-strain issues, while still delivering good battery life and sweet color screen that's not so small as to cause eye strain (reading the iPod touch in bed is not conducive to sleep, whereas I have no problems with the iPad).
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The rumor is a bit misleading. Actually the new device is the iPhone 5, basically a new iPhone 4 equipped with a 2 inches bumper.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Maybe this is Apple's way of giving us, the techy crowd, another opportunity to predict how well the iPad is going to sell. I, for one, am going to seize this opportunity:
The 7" iPad is going to flop! You can do everything a 7" iPad can do on a smartphone. Or you could get a netbook and actually have a REAL keyboard, plus it would do everything the 7" iPad does and MORE for $300 less! The 7" iPad won't even have flash, so you won't be able to view 85% of the media on the internet. No camera, no usb ports, walled garden? They aren't going to sell 100 of these. In fact, everyone who actually wants one of these is a wanker!
I think I nailed it this time.
I love Apple's mobile products, I just don't see the point in buying their laptop/desktop machines unless you are an artist. Even then, it's becoming a bit of a stretch of the word "necessary" to have an OS X machine. Their Windows counterparts are just incredibly cheaper and more compatible with devices and other computers around them, usually. 7 is a very good OS, IMO.
The only way I can see a 7" iPad making sense is if it has the same resolution, and is more ruggedized - perfect for giving to kids.
Otherwise it adds too much confusion to the lineup, something Apple doesn't like to do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If anything, I would actually prefer they shoot for a larger screen. My wife uses one to store all of her sheet music that would have otherwise required a suitcase to haul around to performances, its actually faster to sight read off and turn the pages with a touch than a real music book. Her only complaint is that it would be nice if the usable screen was slightly larger. An A4/Legal sized screen would properly rule the world!
The Kindle has other benefits, like battery life - but eyestrain is NOT one of them. I can't read more than a page or two on that grayish low contrast screen without starting to hate it.
People who complain abut eyestrain have not looked at a good LCD with appropriate brightness controls, or are looking at the LCD in conditions they would not have even been able to read a Kindle. Background light is important for LCD use too...
I'm sick to death of hearing people parrot "eyestrain" as a benefit of e-ink over LCD. It's total bullshit. Reading with the low contrast grey on lighter grey e-ink is a MUCH more fatiguing experience in almost every scenario except for bright sunlight. It's almost like the two technologies are good for remarkably different things, with little overlap.
I may be alone, but I actually own BOTH an ipad and a kindle, and use whichever one is best suited to the situation at hand. This works well for me because I'm not some kind of juvenile freak who insists that every device I buy be the wonder tool that does everything, or it's junk. Also, I'm not broke, so I can afford it.
My girlfriend has an iPad. She uses it as a network appliance to check email and websites when we're in restaurants with WiFi. She uses it to entertain her children with games. They all use it to watch movies purchased with iTunes while on airplanes or car rides. And yes, she reads books on it.
I'm with you, I don't see it as useful for any dedicated purpose. But I think that's the key -- it's not dedicated to anything. It's a general purpose machine, and easy enough to use that the masses will be able to find something they like to do with it.
Give me a similar machine that runs on Linux and I'd purchase it tomorrow. I don't know what I'd do with it, but I know that I'll find something.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Seems like we're at:
"An obscure component manufacturer somewhere in the Pacific Rim announces a major order for some bleeding-edge piece of technology that could conceivably become part of an expensive, digital-lifestyle-enhancing nerd toy"
http://www.misterbg.org/AppleProductCycle/