Apple's 7.85-inch iPad exists; may not become a reality

The news of Apple launching a smaller iPad has been in the news for quite sometime now. Although the iPad has been the most successful tablet till date, their market share is being cannibalized to some extent by the Amazon Kindle Fire, ever since the 7-inch tablet was introduced to the market. This prompted the rumour mills to get into a frenzy as to what Apple would do to win back their monopoly and claim back their market space, which they now share with Amazon. A report surfaced a few weeks back indicating at Apple gearing up to start production of a 7.85-inch iPad by this quarter with it rumoured to be priced at around the US$249 to $299 mark. A recent report by TNW now claims that Apple does in fact have a prototype of the unit in their labs; further confirming what have been rumours that such a device indeed exists.

Prototype of 7.85-inch iPad in Apple's lab

TNW has got this information via a podcast of The Talk Show by host Dan Benjamin, who was speaking with Dan Grubber of Daring Fireball, who claims, “Well, I don’t know. What I do know is that they [Apple] have one in the lab…a 7.85 inch iPad that runs at 1024×768…it’s just like the regular iPad shrunk down a bit. I’ve heard from multiple people that this is something that they’re kind of noodling with.” This was responded when Dan Benjamin asked Grubber, “Is Apple going to come out with a 7″ iPad, and if not: why not?”

Giving an explanation of how it would be like to use a 7.85-inch iPad, Grubber stated that one can experience it by taking a screenshot of an iPad in portrait mode and then in the photo library while viewing the image, turn the iPad to landscape mode. With the image now viewed in this manner, one can get an idea what the display will look like. The report goes on to state, “He (Grubber) goes on to note that he has heard from ‘nobody’ about whether this smaller prototype will ever hit the market or if Apple has any plans to do anything with it beyond a prototype.”

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