Submitted by: Submitted by kdhyper14
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Category: Science and Technology
Date Submitted: 10/18/2010 08:13 PM
Jobs savages 7-inch tablet competition
Rik Myslewski
If you've been putting off buying an iPad because you're waiting for a more-affordable seven-inch version, or if you've been considering getting an upcoming seven-incher from a non-Cupertinian source, Apple CEO Steve Jobs would like to set you straight.
"We think the current crop of seven-inch tablets are going to be DOA — dead on arrival," Jobs told reporters and analysts listening in on a conference call announcing Apple's fourth fiscal quarter financial results.
Jobs' reasons for the seven-inchers' impending demise should also put to rest those iPad mini rumors that have cropped up from time to time — that is, if his dissing of the seven-inch form factor wasn't merely a cleverly calculated bit of One Infinite Loopy sandbagging.
Jobs' vehement reasoning, however, sounded sincere — if that term can ever be applied to the public utterances of any corporate CEO.
"I'd like to comment on the 'avalanche' of tablets poised to enter the market in the coming months," Jobs told his listeners. "First, it appears to be just a handful of credible entrants — not exactly an avalanche."
His main argument — among many — against seven-inchers was their seven-inchness. "One naturally thinks that a seven-inch screen would offer 70 per cent of the benefits of a 10-inch screen," he said. "Unfortunately, this is far from the truth."
Giving his audience a refresher course in plane geometry, he continued: "The screen measurements are diagonal, so that a seven-inch screen is only 45 per cent as large as iPad's 10-inch screen. You heard me right — just 45 per cent as large."
A display less than half the size of the iPad's — or, in Cupertinoese, "less than half the size of iPad's" — "isn't sufficient to create great tablet apps, in our opinion," Jobs said in royal third-person locution.
He did, however, make one suggestion that might mitigate the challenge of a smaller screen — albeit a painful one: "While one could...