Ugg. The iPad Mini, one of the most persistent and obnoxious rumors around, just keeps on getting fueled. Today, a report from Taiwanese newspaper UDN is stoking the flame about 8-inch screen manufactoring.
Steve Shen over at DigiTimes had this to say:
AU Optronics (AUO) has landed LCD panel orders for Apple’s planned 7.85-inch iPads, which are expected to be launched in the third quarter of 2012, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report[…] Backlit unit (BLU) maker Forhouse, an associate company of AUO, is also expected to enter the supply chain of the 7.85-inch iPads along side with AUO’s flat panels, the paper added.
Many of us in the Apple community see these reports as substantial evidence that Apple will be releasing an iPad with a smaller screen this year. The big issue is that no one has come up with a solution for the problems a new screen size would introduce. Would Apple fragment the development of apps into three different sizes? That seems less than optimal. If they’re just scaling up iPhone apps, they’re going to look bad, and function even worse. Scaling down iPad apps would be an even bigger disaster when the touch targets become impossible to hit. Unless Apple has developed a solution that will blow us all away, this just doesn’t seem to hold water. Suboptimal user experiences for a quick cash in isn’t Apple’s MO.
What do you think? Is Apple really going to make a smaller iPad? Wanna make bets in Vegas? Sound off in the comment section below this post.
Source: UDN (Translation)
Image Credit: Travis Hornung
