Steve Jobs was very vocal on smaller screen tablets and made it clear that a 7-inch tablet would be “DOA” (dead on arrival). However with the latest reports suggesting that the Cupertino-based company has received a display measuring in at 7.85-inches for testing purposes, this strange sizing seems to have a hint of truth in it.
iPad Mini to join New iPad 3 with a 7.85″ screen?
The folks over at MacRumors pointed out the reason Steve Jobs criticized the 7-inch display on the Samsung Galaxy Tab when it first went up against the original iPad:
“There are clear limits to how close elements can be on the screen before users can’t touch accurately. We believe 10-inch screen is minimum necessary.”
A little digging around by MR revealed a study by AppAdvice which found something very unique about the 7.85-inch screen size:
“The site calculates the points per inch (PPI) of such an imaginary 7.85″ 1024×768 display and finds it to be 163 PPI. This is the exact same pixel density as the original iPhone and iPod Touch before the Retina Display. Apple’s human interface guidelines for iOS development for both iPad and iPhone outline that the minimum size for tappable user interface elements at 44 x 44 points (0.27 x 0.27 inches on the original iPhone screen).”
So what MacRumors was trying to get at was that if Apple were to launch a New iPad Mini with a screen size of 7.85-inches, it would meet the Apple guidelines and never fall below the 44 x 44 point (0.27 x 0.27 inches) touch radius problem.
Now that we know a 7.85-inch New iPad Mini would still be ‘tappable’, the next question is when does Apple expect to introduce it given that apps should technically play nice with them.
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