Because of the huge gap in the size of the iPod Touch and iPad, 37 to 290 cm2, people are always wondering whether there is room for a device in between these two sizes, with the most popular speculation reserved for a 4:3 iPad with iPhone dpi ( 7.8″, 188 cm2) and a doubled 3:2 iPod Touch ( 7″, 146 cm2).
I find it unlikely that such a device will appear, for the following reasons:
-
The weight of the iPad will come down to the magical 400 grams that makes holding it in one hand comfortable enough. It might take a while, but we should not forget that already more than half the weight of the iPad is its battery. The advancements will be both general IC shrinking, and most importantly screen technology, which currently is only 10 to 20% efficient.
-
With the iPad 2 now available for 400$, and maybe next year for just 319$, there is not much to be gained from a lower price, especially if we consider that an iPad should work fine for three years or more.
-
The iPad is already barely large enough to provide a canvas for doing creative stuff. Should we want to run iPad apps unmodified on this middling device, they would feel cramped — workable, but not really comfortable. After all, 12 point text would shrink to 10 points, and the touch targets would become iPhone sized.
-
Or will we forgo iPad apps, and just do the giant iPhone thing? Not likely, iPhone apps will not work well, with the exception of games maybe.
-
So a middling form factor would require its own specialized software to shine, with Apple providing a killer app that drives sales to get critical mass. But which app? Note taking – no, device too large to always be around, creative stuff – no, canvas is too small, or
-
book reading – interesting, but it is already well enough covered by the retina iPad. And the middling device would be just as bad a performer on the beach as the iPad. So its only advantage here would be the weight. But this was not the main problem for the iPad 2, the lack of a retina display was much worse for reading. And how often do you really read while standing? Because in all other situations you can easily find something to lay the iPad on.
-
Finally it is not in Apple’s interest to split developer attention from the iPad. They want to establish the iPad as a serious computing platform, and a second format would only confuse that goal1. After all it is the apps that make the iPad what it is. And every extra format would require extra resources to support it well, and I, and likely Apple as well, do not believe that such a middling format would be different enough to justify distracting developer attention. They prefer to have one great iPad app to two merely very good apps on both formats.
For all of these reasons, I do not believe that we will see more iOS form factors in the near future, iOS has shown the advantage of clearly optimizing an app for one screen size. More factors might come, but only as an extension of the iPad, once Apple has created the appropriate frameworks to make scaling to different sizes easy. And a 12″ iPad, once they get the weight down to 600g/1.3lbs, could well be the first extension, as growing software is easier than shrinking.
-
The iPhone does not count, it is a platform for small bite computing↩