Small computers: The Difference Engine: Sleeping tablets | The Economist

An excerpt from The Economist’s take on the tablet/slate size-does-matter meme-of-the-week

Perhaps more than anything, Mr Jobs’s sarcasm reveals how concerned he really is about both the coming avalanche of seven-inch tablets and the 3.0 version (Gingerbread) of the Android operating system that most of them will sport. He swears that Apple never had a seven-inch iPad in the works. If it did—as component suppliers in Taiwan insist—you can see why Mr Jobs would want to bury it, at least for the time being. The iPad may not have been the blockbuster product market watchers had anticipated. Even so, an impressive 7.5m units have been bought since it was launched five months ago. Introducing a smaller, cheaper version at this stage would only cannibalise existing iPad sales. At the moment, Apple's profit margins on the iPad, especially the more expensive models, are truly humongous.

Small computers: The Difference Engine: Sleeping tablets | The Economist