Thoughts On the iPad Mini 214
John Gruber at Daring Fireball has a thoughtful piece about the design of Apple's smaller iPad, which the company is expected to announce on September 12. Simply shrinking the current iPad's dimensions to a new form factor is unlikely, he says, and the bezel surrounding the display is more likely to be a cross between an iPad and an iPhone. He also discusses evidence of Apple's PR team getting the rumor mill going immediately after the announcement of Google's Nexus 7, and how Apple has probably bet on having a thinner and lighter tablet than Google, rather than worrying about a better display. Quoting:
"Apple product designs are true to themselves. Each thing has proportions suited to its own nature. Consider how the iPad doesn’t look like a blown up iPhone. They share a few similar design elements — a family resemblance, if you will — but the proportions are different. The iPad has a thick bezel surrounding all four sides of the display; the iPhone does not. Why? Because you need a place to rest your thumbs while holding an iPad. ... Should not the iPad Mini fall somewhere in between? Not as close to the aspect ratio of its display as the iPad-as-we-know-it, but also not as far away from its display aspect ratio as the iPhone. You might need more thumb-rest room on the sides than you do on the iPhone, but not nearly as much as you do on the full-size iPad. If that assumption is right, the proportions of a 7.85-inch 4:3-aspect-ratio display iPad Mini are likely not the same as the proportions of the 9.7-inch 4:3-aspect-ratio display iPad."
Re:Look, it's a smaller iPad (Score:5, Interesting)
The other question is the size. The Nexus 7 is just barely small enough to fit in the pocket of a pair of men's pants. It's got a 7" screen and a 16:10 aspect ratio. This is one of the major features of a mini-tablet versus a full-size one: you don't need to carry a backpack or manpurse or whatever in order to have a place to put away the device.
If Apple is pulling a 7.85" screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, it's going to be significantly wider. If it doesn't fit in a damn pocket, there's really no point in getting one over a full-size iPad.
We don't know anything (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it is fair to say we don't know anything. Gruber along with everyone else is just guessing. His point about this not shipping in September but being announced in September is a good one, we don't know enough so this isn't a few weeks from going on sale. October/November sale date seems more likely.
Here are the resolutions:
iPad 1/2: 1024 x 768
iPad 3: 2048 x 1536 (doubled)
iPhone 4S: 640 x 960
iPhone 5 (rumor): 640 x 1136
earlier iPhone: 320 x 480
I'm going with a bigger version of the iPhone 5 resolution. 1136x640 is close to what the original iPad had, allows for a cheap screen, doesn't require developers to support yet another resolution... But no one really knows.
The other big question for September is whether there will be a 13" inch retina macbook pro.
This story jumps the shark (Score:2, Interesting)
This whole thing reminds me of the Hindi Ambassador. Basically it was an obsolete car design bought from the UK that had very few real improvements in its long life. Every year all Indian motoring journalists had to write about was minute changes to the tail light shape or the door handles.
Journalists should stop writing off RIM. Both Apple and Android products are getting so mature that, if RIM doesn't release BB 10 phones next year, there is going to be significant unemployment in the obsessing-over-gadgets industry.
Welcome to fragmentation Apple people (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming all these rumours turn out to be true..
If Apple finally kill off the iPhone 3GS, it leaves us with three models the iPhone 5, 4S, and 4. For people with loads of cash of course (and people in the US stuck on the absurd $0/$99/$199+$2400 over two years pricing) you just get the latest one. For the rest, have fun making sense of it. The iPhone 5 has a bigger screen. How much does it matter? Will people build their apps targeting the larger screen? Probably not to begin with. So do you lose out by getting an iPhone 4S? Then why not get the iPhone 4? Oh wait, no Siri or new Maps or new iPhoto. So the 4S has those? Yes. But so does the 5? Yup. So will the 4S not get the next cool thing Apple introduce? Maybe. Will they work better on the bigger screen? Don't know. Won't it be better to just get the smaller screen until developers actually get around to building apps for the larger screen?
It gets even more fun with the iPads. Do you buy an iPad 2 or an iPad mini? The former isn't getting the new maps or Siri, while the latter probably will. But the iPad 2 has a bigger screen. But the Mini screen will look better even at the same resolution as the iPad 2. So wait, doesn't that mean everything - the buttons controls etc carefully designed on apps for the big iPad will be shrunk on the Mini, making it much less convenient to use? Will the Mini get Siri? Yes - perfect, why spend loads more on a bigger less portable iPad or a far more expensive iPhone to get Siri. No - doesn't make logical sense, a new product that's already crippled.
Then we have the iPod touch, which is supposed to get an update. It should remain at $199 or so. Will it get Siri? Probably not, it's too cheap. So what exactly is the point of it?
I am not saying Apple can't find their way around it. But if they've given into giving their customers choice instead of saying that their devices are the perfect size, it's going to bring inevitable issues. Just like the profit focused planned obsolescence approach which artificially limits features like Siri and iOS Maps. There will have to be some degree of compromise on the core Apple values of apps just working and looking the same on every Apple device. We would already be looking at 4-5 different screen sizes and resolutions that developers will have to think about.
Re:iPad/iPhone all the same (Score:3, Interesting)
There was no keynote with Jobs citing how cool it was. iPad Mini will flop.