ignore the code: iPad mini: “While this is true, there’s something else to consider: not everybody has the same hands. The iPad works well for the average adult man, but children and women often have smaller hands and fingers. Decreasing the screen size from a diagonal of 9.7 inch to 7.85 would only decrease the width and height of each touch target by about 20% — this difference is way smaller than the size difference between the hands of an adult man and a child.”
(via. ignorethecode.net)
I hope this discussion doesn’t devolve into a “small iPads are for girls and kids” argument across the Internet. Especially since the rumored smaller iPad will be cheaper and less powerful than its big brother.
I get what Lukas is saying, though. Regardless of gender or age, people do have different physical attributes that make variations in device size a consideration.
Maybe eventually some boutique company will offer custom made tablets with screen resolutions tailored to your ideal hand measurements? Why not? We already have custom-furniture and clothing shops.
Another thing to consider, and that’s being largely overlooked in discussions about this rumored smaller iPad, is that different people also have different levels of nearsightedness. I’m perfectly fine with an 11-inch MacBook Air, for instance, and I would definitely set that new MacBook Pro with Retina display (if I had one) to the “more space” setting. But a lot of people find tighter resolutions harder to read.
(Notice, I didn’t suggest older folks in particular would be more likely to have a problem with tighter resolutions.)
We must, then, consider that a smaller iPad might be better for a person’s hands, but worse for his or her eyes.
