While rumors have been circulating for months that Apple is working on a smaller version of the iPad, Daring Fireball writer and Apple aficionado John Gruber claims that Cupertino currently has a 7.85-inch model in its lab.
Speaking Wednesday on The Talk Show tech podcast {pcmag], Gruber told co-host Dan Benjamin that “numerous” people have told him that Apple has been “noodling with” the size of the iPad, which currently has a 9.7-inch screen. But will Apple ever actually come out with a smaller version of the iPad?
“Well, I don’t know,” Gruber responded. “What I do know is that they have one in the lab…a 7.85 inch iPad that runs at 1024-by-768… it’s just like the 9.7-inch iPad shrunk down a little bit. Apps wouldn’t need to be recompiled or redesigned to work optimally on it. It’s just the iPad smaller.”
Gruber added that you can get an idea of how big a 7.85-inch iPad is by taking a screen shot on a current iPad while holding it in portrait, then rotating the screen shot to landscape – that’s about how big the interface would be. Or, in other words, the height of a 7.85-inch iPad would be about the same as the width of the current iPad, he said.
“It’s usable,” Gruber said. “There’s a couple of areas where text is maybe a little too small, but it’s not ridiculously small.”
But Apple fans shouldn’t get too excited about a smaller iPad just yet. Gruber said he hasn’t heard anything about a timeframe for when such a device would ship, or if it ever will. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if it never came to market.
Last month, however, an unnamed Samsung official reportedly told The Korea Times that Apple is planning to launch a smaller iPad with a 7.85-inch screen by the end of the year.
Want to listen to Gruber’s comments about the 7.85-inch iPad for yourself? They come in around 1 hour, 19 minute mark.
[pcmag]
