Steve Jobs considered 7-inch Apple iPad, claims exec
Apple's late CEO was open to the idea of a smaller iPad, reveals leaked email.


Apple CEO Steve Jobs was open to the idea of making a smaller tablet, a senior executive said in a 2011 email, fanning speculation it plans to make a mini-iPad to take on cheaper gadgets from Google and Amazon.
A mini-version of the market-dominating 10-inch iPad could counter increasing inroads made by tablets such as the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7, but the company has never confirmed the intensifying talk of such a launch.
Vice president Eddy Cue urged then-chief operating officer Tim Cook in January 2011 to build a 7-inch tablet, according to an email from Cue that Samsung presented as evidence in a US patent trial.
I found email, books, Facebook, and video very compelling on a 7-inch.
In an email addressed also to software chief Scott Forstall and marketing head Phil Schiller, Cue said he believed there was a market for a 7-inch tablet and that "we should do one."
Cue's brief email was introduced on Friday as part of a high-wattage trial that will play out in a San Jose courtroom this summer and is expected to transfix the technology industry.
"There will be a 7-inch market and we should do one. I expressed this to Steve several times since Thanksgiving and he seemed very receptive the last time," the executive wrote in the email.
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"I found email, books, Facebook, and video very compelling on a 7-inch. Web browsing is definitely the weakest point, but still usable."
Cue had previously forwarded an article entitled "Why I just dumped the iPad (hint: size matters)". He wrote: "Having used a Samsung Galaxy, I tend to agree with many of the comments below (except actually moving off the iPad)."
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