Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber is the latest to wade into the “mini iPad” rumour mill. Gruber, who has a decent prediction track record, mentioned the oft-rumoured tablet during a The Talk Show podcast, indicating that Apple was “noodling with” a 7.85-inch iPad.
What I do know is that they have one in the lab… a 7.85-inch iPad that runs at 1024×768… it’s just like the 9.7-inch iPad shrunk down a little bit. Apps wouldn’t need to be recompiled or redesigned to work optimally on it. It’s just the iPad smaller.
Gruber is not sure that Apple will actually release the smaller iPad. The company often builds prototypes that never make it to production. Gruber calls it a “maybe” that could be released to hit a lower price point possibly in response to the recent success of smaller tablets (the Kindle Fire in particular).
Gruber also added that he believes that the iPhone 5 will not be out until the fall and will not be unveiled at WWDC.
Read more: The Daily Show podcast (Episode 86)