Steve Jobs Criticizes 7-Inch Tablets, No iPad Mini?

In today’s quarterly earnings call, Steve Jobs took time to comment on the avalanche of oncoming Android tablets, which he called “only a trickle.” He commented that the 7-inch screens that most of them use have only 45% of the screen area of the 10-inch ones, which is too small for most users, and not big enough to make great apps. He thinks that increasing the resolution to make up the difference wouldn’t be enough, “unless you include sandpaper so users can sand down their fingers.”

Since most tablet users also have a smartphone, he doesn’t think that giving up space on the tablet to increase portability is worth it.

This appears to be a pretty obvious refutation of the rumored 7-inch iPad, as Steve Jobs seems pretty clear that he thinks the size is too small. I guess this will sink the rumors of a new, smaller version in the New Year.

Of course, this is the same Steve Jobs who adamantly denied Apple was working on a phone to begin with.