The iPad mini appears to be imminent, buttressing Apple’s tablet franchise from lowball, razor blade-focused models such as the Kindle Fire and Google Nexus 7. One way the company can save face in light of its earlier comments rebuking smaller tablets is by going a bit larger. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.7, for example, has been well-received, and I’ve had a good experience with the screen size of the Motorola Xyboard 8.2.
Eddie Cue’s comments that came to light regarding the Apple-Samsung trial regarding the challenging Web experience on such tablets is spot on. Hopefully, Apple can address this with a high-resolution display. Obviously, a new smaller iPad would use the new Lightning connector. And judging from the pictures published by CNET, it appears that Apple may continue with the wider aspect ratio introduced on the iPhone 5. That’s a bit disappointing in some ways as the 4:3 aspect ratio helped the iPad stand out and was superior for photos, magazines and documents.