Apple reportedly testing new smaller iPad tablet

by Steven Mostyn - Feb 15 2012, 12:48

Steve Jobs may have been hugely resistant to the creation of a 7.0-inch iPad computer, but it looks as though new Apple chief executive Tim Cook has ever so slightly different plans for the iconic tablet.

More pointedly, a report offered up by the Wall Street Journal suggests Cupertino-based Apple is presently testing a tablet equipped with a smaller screen than the 9.7-inch display used in the existing device.

Citing unnamed sources from within Apple’s supply chain, the report outlines that said tablet has an 8.0-inch test display manufactured by Taiwan-based AU Optronics and South Korea-based LG Display.

If Apple is indeed planning to enhance the portability of its iPad line by introducing a smaller model, the introduction of an 8.0-inch screen would at least show that Cook ‘almost’ agrees with Jobs’ much documented opposition to 7.0-inch devices.

Jobs described 7.0-inch tablet devices as being “too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with the iPad.”

He also said users would need to sandpaper their fingers into points in order to navigate such cramped and shrunken interfaces—which is an aspect of self-inflicted discomfort an 8.0-inch iPad would likely avoid.

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