Apple Testing Larger Screen Sizes For The iPad

Wall Street Journal:

In recent months, Apple has asked for prototype smartphone screens larger than 4 inches and has also asked for screen designs for a new tablet device measuring slightly less than 13 inches diagonally, they said. The current iPhone 5 has a four-inch screen, while the iPad has a 9.7-inch screen. The iPad Mini, a stripped-down version of its tablet computer, has a 7.9-inch screen.

Oh goody, I can’t wait to have even more whitespace surrounding my 9 icon-at-a-time folder!

A larger iPad is useful only if applications can optimise for the larger screen canvas. The Mini got away with it because it had other advantages ergonomically. A 13 inch iPad, on the other hand, will compete much more closely (in both form factor and use case) with the ultrabook market and needs additional functional utility to be a worthwhile product.