New Smaller 7-Inch iPad Planned?

Rumour has it a 7-inch iPad is in the works. Proponents of this rumour say that by going down to seven inches, Apple plans to make their iPad much lighter. They also say it will be cheaper to make and that Apple wants to keep control of the market they created by offering more "flavours.”

While this rumour is not so new (it has been circling the web for a while now) it has resurfaced lately, showing up in Digitimies and iLounge's (both big iPhone portals) latest reports. So, is it really possible? iLounge recently claimed that a "highly reliable source" told them of the seven inch gadget, along with "news" of an antenna-fixed iPhone 4, coming out as early as January 2011. They also mentioned an iPod touch with a smaller screen than the iPhone. Likewise, Digitimes has been speaking eagerly of the 7-inch iPad for a long time.

We know that Apple has tried different formats for the iPad before settling on the current 9.7 inch form factor. And there is nothing wrong with that format - if anything, some users claim it is too small for reading things like comic books.

However, it does feel good to handle, and has resulted in more than three million units sold in very little time, when everyone predicted its catastrophic failure. Thus, it doesn't necessarily make any sense to change the winning formula with a screen that will be too small for comfortable reading, while being just double the size of an iPhone.

Moreover, online tech sites claim the market doesn't seem big enough (yet) to have space for another iPad variety. At this point, the only thing that the iPad needs is a higher resolution screen at the same 9.7-inch size. We will probably see this when version 2 of the iPad is released, perhaps in a year from now.

So could the rumour be true? Who knows. It doesn't seem very reasonable, and many newspapers and sites have a history of posting false tech industry stories about Apple products in order to boost their own reputation.

Like with most Apple rumours, especially in the summer, it's better to be highly skeptical until the legendary Steve Jobs actually confirms it on stage.