Back in October of 2010 Steve Jobs made his thoughts on 7 inch tablets pretty clear during an Apple financial results call. Among the comments he made were these:

7 inch tablets are tweeners – too big to compete with smartphone, too small to compete with tablets

We don’t think you can make a great tablet with a 7 inch screen

Now there’s some evidence emerging (during the never-ending Apple v Samsung court battles) that Jobs’ opinion on smaller tablets may have changed by early 2011. As MacRumors and CNET have recently reported, an email sent by Apple VP Eddy Cue to other senior execs at the company states as much:

Having used a Samsung Galaxy, I tend to agree with many of the comments below (except moving off the iPad). I believe there will be a 7″ market and we should do one. I expressed this to Steve several times since Thanksgiving and he seemed very receptive the last time. I found email, books, facebook and video very compelling on a 7″. Web browsing is definitely the weakest point, but still usable.

It seems a virtual lock that we will be seeing a smaller iPad released this fall / winter, though the general consensus is that it will be much closer to an 8 inch tablet (7.85 to be precise). And probably a big holiday season hit this year too.

Image Source: MacRumors