Till now we knew that the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was dismissive of a 7-inch iPad Mini, but contrary to what we believed, a recent court document, that was furnished during Apple and Samsung's ongoing patent trial, establishes that Jobs was "very receptive" towards the possibility of a 7-inch Apple iPad.
An internal company email, introduced by Samsung on Friday during a cross-examination of Forstall as part of the trial, revealed that the Vice President Eddy Cue urged then-chief operating officer Tim Cook in January 2011 to build a 7-inch tablet, reports The Verge.
"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," Cue wrote in the email. "I found email, books, Facebook, and video very compelling on a 7-inch. Web browsing is definitely the weakest point, but still usable."
The email sharply counters what Jobs told analysts in a conference call in 2010.
"There are clear limits of how close you can physically place elements on a touch screen before users cannot reliably tap, flick, or pinch them," Jobs said at the time.
"This is one of the key reasons we think the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet Apps."
Speculations regarding a 7-inch iPad started flying high in 2012 when companies like Amazon and Google entered the smaller tablet space.
In April, TechnoBuffalo, quoting John Gruber of Daring Fireball, reported that Apple had 7.85-inch iPad prototypes in its labs. While Gruber did not talk about the release date of the device, various rumors that time indicated a Q3 launch of mini iPad.
In June, Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves also announced that Apple is prepping a 7.85-inch iPad with 8 GB of flash memory for $299. He even said to believe that the Cupertino tech giant would sell as many as 10 million of the Minis by the end of 2012.
"We anticipate an entry-level 7.80-inch iPad with 8GB of NAND capacity to price at $299 with an initial gross margin of 31%," mentioned Hargreaves in his research note.
Recently iMore also reported that Apple will launch the iPad along with its much-hyped iPhone 5 as soon as in September.
Apple, however, remained tight-lipped about any such rumor of the iPad Mini till now. But the leaked internal email, that stated Jobs himself seemed open to the idea of a small iPad, will certainly fuel the anticipations and expectations of millions of Apple fanboys.
