Reflecting on Steve's NO to a seven-in iPad, I got to wondering about his reasoning. According to Steve, an iPad with a seven-inch screen would offer only 45% of the screen area of the existing 9.7-in device, not the 70% you might imagine. I'll accept that, but I don't understand the maths. Nevertheless, he goes on to lambast all smaller tablets and says that only ten inches is good enough for the tablet experience. I wonder, though, where this leaves the iPhone and iPod touch which, in my mind, are both mini tablets. Most people manage to navigate applications on these devices without having to have their fingers sandpapered down, as Jobs suggests would be the case with seven-inch tablets.
I find my iPhone perfectly adequate as a productivity tool, especially for emails and Safari browsing, and I can imagine a mid-size tablet would be even better. Certainly for book reading six or seven inches is probably the ideal size. It looks like we're not going to find out, so I will continue to use my Kindle for reading and my iPad will be a coffee-table enhancement for use at home.