Unlike the shooting of grouse, the Apple rumour season is never ended. In the past few weeks we've seen exhaustive specifications of the iPad 3, even before the iPad 2 has arrived, definite steers towards an iPhone Nano and the enticing possibility of a 4in screen on iPhone 5. Now it's the turn of the iPod touch.
According to AppleInsider, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities has been looking into his crystal ball and has come up not only with a 2048×1536 Retina Display for iPad 3 but a new super-sized iPod touch (or iPad mini, whichever way you look at it).
"With a 5 inch screen, a "big iPod touch" at its existing resolution would offer a 230ppi screen density; stretched across a 7 inch screen the same resolution would deliver 164ppi, still higher than the existing iPad's pixel density of 132ppi. Rather than trying to crush the full sized iPad's resolution into a smaller screen, something Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs quipped last fall would require filing down users' fingers, such a device could simply serve as an expansion of the iPod family, offering a larger view of the simpler iPod touch user interface."
Personally, I'm all in favour of this, particularly as a killer device for reading books. Smaller than a Kindle, but offering a similar sized screen, it would appeal to the majority of consumers who would prefer it to e-ink with its current limitations. This device would be no one-trick pony like the current crop of e-ink readers and I am convinced it's a device that would sell in big numbers.
Whether Apple will take this view is a moot point: Steve Jobs has already come down heavily against "tweener" devices and even Samsung seem to have decided that ten inches is better than seven. But put me on the waiting list, please.
Technorati Tags: iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, ebook readers