Apple iPad Mini Could Complicate Things For Windows 8 Tablets 200
Nerval's Lobster writes "Current rumor suggests that Apple is gearing up to unveil its iPad Mini Oct. 17, with invitations to media arriving Oct. 10. That's according to Fortune, which obtained the information from an unnamed Apple investor who, in turn, heard those dates from other unnamed sources. While that attribution might prove a bit too vaporous for some people, it does align with earlier reports from AllThingsD that Apple is planning to reveal a smaller iPad sometime in October. If those rumors prove accurate, the unveiling of an iPad Mini in that timeframe could prove very bad news for the upcoming Windows 8 tablets. (Gizmodo offers a pretty complete rumor rundown on the iPad Mini's possible features here.) Unlike the traditional PC market, Microsoft doesn't dominate the market for mobile-device operating systems. Windows 7 tablets never gained much of a toehold among tablet users, who prefer iPads and Android-based devices by wide margins. When it comes to Windows 8 (and Windows RT, the version of next-generation Windows for ARM architecture), Microsoft is starting out as the underdog."
Re:Doesn't sound likely (Score:5, Informative)
The speculated size is 7.85". Which puts it somewhere in-between. Microsoft's biggest tablet problem is that they haven't learned the HP TouchPad lesson... the only way to compete with Apple today is to massively undercut them on price. Microsoft hasn't even announced official Surface prices yet, but the early rumors suggested they might actually cost more than a full-size iPad.
We can only hope... (Score:5, Informative)
Would it be poor taste to sneak a large Steve Jobs poster onto the outside of Apple's release venue, with his quotes on 7 inch tablets?
"If you take an iPad and hold it upright in portrait view and draw an imaginary horizontal line halfway down the screen, the screens on the seven-inch tablets are a bit smaller than the bottom half of the iPad display. This size isn't sufficient to create great tablet apps in our opinion.
Well, one could increase the resolution of the display to make up for some of the difference. It is meaningless, unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of the present size. Apple's 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 touch screen 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."
Re:We can only hope... (Score:2, Informative)
People have spent quite a bit of time on this already, and if their math is right, the table will actually be 7.85" with a 1024x768 resolution. Why are they so sure of that size? Because it provides the same touch area target sizes as used by the iPhone/iPod. Moving close to 8" also makes a big difference.