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The entry level iPad costs $399, not $499. That makes it twice as expensive as the N7, but it also has twice the screen area. http://store.apple.com/us/buy/hom

The entry level iPad costs $399, not $499. That makes it twice as expensive as the N7, but it also has twice the screen area. http://store.apple.com/us/buy/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad/ipad2 http://store.apple.com/us/buy/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad/ipa...

gjm11 14y ago
> twice the screen area I have never understood this way of thinking. (Nor, likewise, the idea that the right way to compare laptop screens or monitors is by how big they are across the diagonal.) The Nexus 7 has a smaller screen area than the iPad 2, but it has more pixels. If for some purpose the physical size is the limiting factor for you, you can hold it closer to your head. Of course this stops being true at the point where you can't easily focus on it any closer (which gets further and further out as your eyes age), or where having it closer makes touch interactions uncomfortable somehow. But is either of these really the limiting factor for a lot of tablet users? (I'm in my 40s -- some way above the median of the market for these things, according to the stats I've seen -- and for me a 7" screen at the closest point where I can easily focus occupies about the same amount of my visual field as my (home) desktop monitor at normal operating distance.)
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  Devices with capacitive touchscreens are made to be operated with your fingers. Once a target is smaller than 44x44 points, it becomes very hard to hit accurately. That's why screen size is important for tablets. A 10" tablet can simply accommodate more UI elements than a 3,5" or 7" screen, and thus you can use more complicated programs on them.
  - gjm11 14y ago
    That's a fair point. But in practice the target sizes on typical iPad apps aren't close to the lower limit of practicality, and the UIs of such apps are constrained more by not being ugly and confusing than by how many touch targets can fit on the screen. Hence, e.g., all the speculation that Apple will produce an 8" tablet that's basically an iPad 2 scaled down somewhat, to have the same pixel size as the (old) iPhone -- whose target sizes don't seem to be too small.
    - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
      I agree and Gruber wrote a good post about that [1]. However, if Apple releases a smaller 7.85" iPad, it will still have a 40% larger screen area than 7" tablets do [2]. [1] http://daringfireball.net/2012/07/this_ipad_mini_thing http://daringfireball.net/2012/07/this_ipad_mini_thing [2] http://a.yfrog.com/img615/4234/6j2n.png http://a.yfrog.com/img615/4234/6j2n.png

gjm11 14y ago

> twice the screen area I have never understood this way of thinking. (Nor, likewise, the idea that the right way to compare laptop screens or monitors is by how big they are across the diagonal.) The Nexus 7 has a smaller screen area than the iPad 2, but it has more pixels. If for some purpose the physical size is the limiting factor for you, you can hold it closer to your head. Of course this stops being true at the point where you can't easily focus on it any closer (which gets further and further out as your eyes age), or where having it closer makes touch interactions uncomfortable somehow. But is either of these really the limiting factor for a lot of tablet users? (I'm in my 40s -- some way above the median of the market for these things, according to the stats I've seen -- and for me a 7" screen at the closest point where I can easily focus occupies about the same amount of my visual field as my (home) desktop monitor at normal operating distance.)

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
Devices with capacitive touchscreens are made to be operated with your fingers. Once a target is smaller than 44x44 points, it becomes very hard to hit accurately. That's why screen size is important for tablets. A 10" tablet can simply accommodate more UI elements than a 3,5" or 7" screen, and thus you can use more complicated programs on them.
- gjm11 14y ago
  That's a fair point. But in practice the target sizes on typical iPad apps aren't close to the lower limit of practicality, and the UIs of such apps are constrained more by not being ugly and confusing than by how many touch targets can fit on the screen. Hence, e.g., all the speculation that Apple will produce an 8" tablet that's basically an iPad 2 scaled down somewhat, to have the same pixel size as the (old) iPhone -- whose target sizes don't seem to be too small.
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    I agree and Gruber wrote a good post about that [1]. However, if Apple releases a smaller 7.85" iPad, it will still have a 40% larger screen area than 7" tablets do [2]. [1] http://daringfireball.net/2012/07/this_ipad_mini_thing http://daringfireball.net/2012/07/this_ipad_mini_thing [2] http://a.yfrog.com/img615/4234/6j2n.png http://a.yfrog.com/img615/4234/6j2n.png