“iPad” stands for something distinct, distinguished and in razor sharp focus.

Blurring this focus would be a colossal and very consequential mistake. Maybe not immediately, but definitely in the long term.

Perhaps hoping against hope, and accepting that a smaller “iPad” is a fait accompli, my second pipe dream is that “iPad” is not included in the name of this new product.

: (

P.S. Read anything by authors Al Ries and Jack Trout and you won’t have to take my word for it.

Clearly you are a good sport.

: )

“Smaller tablets are more portable.” Thanks, Kevin, for the edification!

And I have feel little sorrow for someone who finds the iPad’s size and weight so decidedly fatiguing.

Children tote them around with no problem and no spinal injuries.

You make it sound like if you rest your iPad on your chest while on the couch, you need a “spotter” to lift it off, so your chest can expand and you can breathe again. If an iPad poses an existential threat to you, then PLEASE! DO use a 7″ tablet! I’m concerned for you, and I see a class action suit brewing.

“Yes, I need to work out more to carry bigger tablets.” I guess so! May I suggest you start with those pink 1½ pound hand dumbbells and work up from there?

(It was just announced that iPad “Power Lifting” was just approved as an event for the next Summer Olympics.)

“…but as the top mobile company in the world, do you want to cede a segment to a company that’s both a key hardware business parter and you main opposition in the courts?”

Absolutely! Yes! Steve Jobs himself said you [Apple] have to stay out of certain markets and let the players claw each other to death. When he took the reigns at Apple, he reduced the number of products from over 350 to just ten.

Even before Apple has entered the noisy fracas that is the tweener market, there are almost two dozen companies (that I am aware of) offering “Smaller-Than-iPad” tablet devices, as they LEARNED A HARD LESSON when they tried to compete against Apple with devices of the iPad’s size and form factor.

With so very many players in the tweener market, so much consumer confusion, the noisy tweener market will quickly switch from competing on each product’s merits to an un-winnable and deadly price war.

Just ask Dell and the #1 maker of personal computers, HP\Compaq, how competing on those terms goes.

If Apple is “Entrant #25″ in the tweener market, how will that square with Apple’s hard fought reputation as the INVENTOR of markets that never existed before and as an innovator? A leader, not a “wait-and-see” follower?

What damage will be done to the pricier, classier iPad brand and uncompromising UX if Apple cuts technological corners just to have an “also ran” in the tweener market priced at $249 – or even $399.

The price, the sub-par UX (8GB, off-the-shelf, single-core ARM processor, 1024×768, “You can’t download this movie [or game] until you delete some apps or content and free up storage space”) that Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook customers have been complaining about would be AWFUL for the brand image Scott Forstall and others worked SO hard to create.

Apple: DON’T DO IT! YOU’LL NOT ONLY SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF BEING “YET ANOTHER” ENTRANT IN THIS CHEAP-O MARKET, BUT YOU’LL DO IRREPERABLE HARM TO THE iPAD BRAND!!!

Oh – and hire a “service animal” (a spider monkey?) to assist poor Kevin Tofel in transporting his iPad and occasionally saving him from asphyxiation.

(It will make for a touching human interest piece on apple.com)

Peace!

And I have feel little sorrow for someone who finds the iPad’s size and weight so decidedly fatiguing.

Children tote them around with no problem and no spinal injuries.

You make it sound like if you rest your iPad on your chest while on the couch, you need a “spotter” to lift it off, so your chest can expand and you can breathe again. If an iPad poses an existential threat to you, then PLEASE! DO use a 7″ tablet! I’m concerned for you, and I see a class action suit brewing.

“Yes, I need to work out more to carry bigger tablets.” I guess so! May I suggest you start with those pink 1½ pound hand dumbbells and work up from there?

(It was just announced that iPad “Power Lifting” was just approved as an event for the next Summer Olympics.)

“…but as the top mobile company in the world, do you want to cede a segment to a company that’s both a key hardware business parter and you main opposition in the courts?”

Absolutely! Yes! Steve Jobs himself said you [Apple] have to stay out of certain markets and let the players claw each other to death. When he took the reigns at Apple, he reduced the number of products from over 350 to just ten.

Even before Apple has entered the noisy fracas that is the tweener market, there are almost two dozen companies (that I am aware of) offering “Smaller-Than-iPad” mobile devices, as they learned a hard lesson when they tried to compete against Apple with devices of the iPad’s size and form factor.

With so very many players in the tweener market, so much >consumer confusionINVENTORAWFUL< for the brand image Scott Forstall and others worked SO hard to create.

Apple: DON'T DO IT! YOU'LL NOT ONLY SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF BEING "YET ANOTHER" ENTRANT IN THIS CHEAP-O MARKET, BUT YOU'LL DO IRREPERABLE HARM TO THE iPAD BRAND!!!

Oh – and hire a "service animal" (a spider monkey?) to assist poor Kevin Tofel in transporting his iPad and occasionally saving him from asphyxiation.

(It will make for a touching human interest piece on apple.com)

Peace!

Nothing really bad to say about the Fire, other than its not an iPad. But that says everything.

I’ll likely add a 7 inch iPad to my nightstand, too (and recycle the Fire down to a relative). Yes, I am an Apple fanboy, but that’s because since using Apple’s since 1984, flirting occasionally with other platforms, I appreciate technology that simply works. This old timer even loves Mountain Lion — was afraid Apple was dumbing down the OS, but was delighted that the word that comes to mind instead is “streamlined.”

Love my iPad. Love my iPhone. Love my Macs. And will love the MaxiTouch or MiniPad too.