We have heard rumors in the past that claim Apple is working on a 7.85-inch iPad. Some even point to production beginning as early as Q2 2012. However, a translated report from Japanese blog Macotakara today claimed Apple’s suppliers are readying 5-inch Retina displays for a device in 2013 (coincidentally, Samsung announced selling 3 million 5-inch Galaxy Notes in just four weeks today):
The publication cited “reliable sources” in China that are presumably close to display suppliers, but there is good reason to doubt Apple will launch a 5-inch iOS device.
To know why a 5-inch iOS device would not work, we simply have to look at why a 7.85-inch iPad would.
AppAdvice pointed us to calculations it did showing a 7.85-inch 1024-by-768 display results in a PPI of 163, which is the same as non-Retina iPhones and the first-generation iPad. This means existing apps would translate perfectly to a 7.85-inch iPad’s 1024-by-768 screen under Apple’s UI guidelines. The same cannot be said for a 5-inch device with a display at the resolutions noted in today’s report. As for usability of the apps on the smaller display, which is something Steve Jobs said would be an issue for 7-inch tablets, AppAdvice explained:
That 163PPI is a long way from confirming the existence of an additional device, but Apple will have to take on the Kindle Fires and Nook touches of the word if it wants to totally dominate the tablet space, because they seem to have found a low-priced niche.
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- The new iPad is here and it’s got a Retina Display packing a million more pixels than your HD TV (9to5mac.com)
- Oh the irony. Samsung is the sole initial supplier of the iPad Retina Display – Bloomberg/iSuppli (9to5mac.com)
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