Rumors of iPad mini return

Could Apple be working on a device with a 5-inch or 7-inch screen? This question continues to get stirred up with other speculation, like the leaves at the bottom of a tea cup -- and everyone tries to read them.

In today’s edition of “As the Apple Turns,� momentum appears to be coming out of China with stories attributed to “reliable sources� about the company developing Retina display screens for a smaller tablet.

Macotakara is reporting that 2013 is the year of the pocket-sized tablet and feature resolution of 1,600 by 960 pixels or 1,280 by 960 pixels.

And Eric Jou of Kotaku wrote that Chinese site NetEase is claiming a mini iPad would be released in the third quarter of this year to combat a potential debut of a Windows tablet. The report, which appears in Chinese, puts the cost of these devices under $300, according to Jou.

Talk of both smaller and bigger screens pops up almost weekly. Earlier this month, reports from Korea Times and Venture Beat highlighted the possibility of a smaller screen. And last week, an analyst note started a flurry of speculation about the next iPhone screen growing a smidge to 4 inches.

The genesis of the 7-inch iPad appears to have come from an iLounge report in 2009, citing an anonymous source. Apple had created several versions of the iPad, including a 7-inch model that was dismissed as being too small, according to the iLounge report. (Wired does a good job of tracking the rumor from birth to maturity.)

Apple respectfully declined to comment on rumors.

The current iPad, aka “new iPad,� features a 9.5-inch display with 2048-by-1536-pixel resolution at 264 pixels per inch.

And with Apple apparently going through a renaming renaissance, one is left to wonder: Would a tablet with a smaller screen be an iPad mini along the lines of the Mac Mini, or would it be an iPad Nano like the watch-sized iPod? Or maybe it’d be an iPhone Maxi.

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Rumors of iPad mini return