Will 7-inch tablets sell, or will they just be received as tweeners

The first 15 minutes of Apple’s earnings call today were not all that surprising, although vgp-bps21a the numbers were impressive. Quarterly revenue at the end of the company’s fiscal year (late September) was $20.34 billion, making this the vgp-bps21 company’s biggest quarter ever. This exceeded analyst expectations and predictions, so big score for Apple. Then things got really interesting when Steve Jobs got on the call and started ripping his competitors vgp-bps13/b a new one.

First Jobs turned to RIM, crowing that the iPhone’s sales have once again outstripped BlackBerry. And VGP-BPS13 with the introduction of the PlayBook, Jobs said that RIM has a “high mountain” to climb back to superiority in the mobile space. VGP-BPS13A/B Jobs left his choicest comments for Google’s Android platform, all while taking a swipe at 7-inch tablets like the Galaxy Tab.

He slammed the search giant for positioning Android as open as opposed to Apple’s system, which is closed. Mind, he did not deny VGP-BPS9 that this was true, exactly. Instead, he reframed the argument in terms of fragmented vs. integrated systems.

There are hundreds of Android handsets on the Global market and 100 different versions VGP-BPS9/B of the OS when you account for proprietary tweaks (such as HTC Sense). With iPhone, there are really just two operating systems users VGP-BPS9/S and developers need to concern themselves with: the current iOS version and the previous one. Most iPhone users have the current version, the previous generation, and maybe the generation before that. A max of three iPhones to worry about as opposed to a sea VGP-BPS9A/B of Android phones.Plus, there are now about to be major competing Android Markets, including Amazon’s rumored entry. According to Jobs, how is PA3534U-1BRS a developer supposed to keep up?

This is a significant problem for developers, of course,pa3535u-1brs but Jobs also says that this isn’t great for users, either. With the iPhone, the “user isn’t forced to be the systems integrator,” as Apple does that work for them. “Users want products that just work.” Without actually denying that Android is an open system, Jobs dell studio 17 battery essentially said that this position is a smokescreen for the real problem of fragmentation. It was an artful dell studio 1737 battery swerve.

Next Jobs turned his attention dell studio 1535 battery to the tablets out to challenge the iPad’s dominance in the burgeoning tablet market. Though his comments seemed general, Jobs’ focus on tearing down 7-inch tablets left the impression that he was speaking mainly of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which is one of the most high-profile Dell inspiron 1545 battery of the 7-inchers hitting shelves this holiday season. He not only dismissed these tablets for their Android operating system, but also Dell studio 15 battery for having screens that are too small.

That you lose screen real estate when going Dell latitude d620 battery from 9.7 to 7 inches is obvious, but Jobs painted a dire picture by saying that a 7-inch screen is only 45 percent as large as an iPad. This is due not only to the size, but the aspect ratio; the iPad is still 4:3, while the Galaxy Tab and a couple of other models are 16:9. Even good battery if manufacturers were to up the screen resolution to make up for the lost inches, Jobs said that this is “meaningless unless your tablet also includes good batteries sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size.” Ouch.

As graphic as this metaphor is, we’re not convinced that the experience on a 7-inch screen is dell battery just so much more horrible than a 9.7-incher. Samsung, for example, has done a lot of its own integration work on the Galaxy Tab sony battery to optimize is apps for that size display, including its Media Hub store for downloading movies and TV shows. In the end, Jobs was unequivocal in his disdain for 7-inch tablets, claiming that they will be DOA, vgp-bps13/q and that manufacturers will then turn to a more iPad-like size, further fragmenting Android and enraging both developers and users in the process. Jobs also pointed to a statement by a Google employee that Froyo was not optimized vgp-bps13a/q tablet friendly.

Though the iPad’s sales numbers were lower than some analysts predicted — 4.19 million in the last sony vgp-bps21a/b quarter instead of the 4.7 – 5.5 million that some experts estimated — Jobs betrayed no hint of disappointment in his magical vgp-bps21/b tablet. He claims that he was surprised by how many businesses are using it, and speaking to the product’s trajectory over the new two years, he said that the iPad offered a new model of computing, and that since Apple already has tens of millions of people trained to use it (via the iPhone) vgp-bps21/s “The iPad is clearly going to affect notebook computers. It’s not a question of if, but vgp-bps13b/q of when.”

So what do you think? Will 7-inch tablets sell, or will they just be received apple battery as tweeners