Apple's Jobs was 'receptive' to the idea of a smaller iPad

Former Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs was "very receptive" to the idea of a 7-inch iPad by early 2011, according to evidence submitted during the patent-infringement trial between Apple and Samsung Electronics.

Steve jobs apple

Jobs

Apple executive Eddy Cue, now the company's senior vice president of Internet software and services, said in a January 2011 email to top executives that he had spoken with Jobs in recent months about the idea and that Jobs "seemed very receptive the last time." The disclosure is notable because in October 2010 Jobs lambasted the idea of a 7-inch tablet. However, the company is reportedly at work on a smaller iPad.

The mini-iPad disclosure was just one of a wave of Apple secrets that have flooded into public view since the trial began last week. The famously secretive company, through testimony from executives and document disclosures, has revealed how much it has spent on marketing its top-selling mobile devices and how the iPhone and iPad first came into being. Apple's legal strategy of describing in detail how the iPhone was designed, for example, is aimed at showing how Samsung has copied--"ripped off" in the words of Apple executives--its devices. Samsung is countering that it has not copied Apple, that Apple itself was inspired by designs from Sony, and that Apple is trying to stifle competition.

On Friday, Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, discussed the push to design the iPhone as well as how much Apple has spent on marketing the iPhone and iPad. According to Schiller, Apple spent $647 million advertising the iPhone in the United States from its 2007 release through Apple's fiscal year 2011. He said the company has spent $457.2 million marketing the iPad during that same period.

Scott Forstall, Apple's iOS chief, took the stand as well, and described in detail how the iPhone went from a proof-of-concept in 2004 dubbed "Project Purple," to the iPhone in 2007. Jobs told Forstall he couldn't hire anyone from outside of Apple to work on the design of the device, and Forstall testified how an entire floor at Apple's campus was locked down for the employees working on the gadget, who had to have their badges read by special readers. "We wanted something that was a great phone," he said. "We wanted to do it from whole cloth."

For more:
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this AllThingsD article
- see this Reuters article
- see this separate AllThingsD article
- see this The Verge article

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