Jobs: 7” tablets will be dead on arrival

Back in August reports came out of Asia that involved deals and sightings of a new iPad with a 7” touchscreen.

Speaking at Apple’s earning calls yesterday, Jobs said, “We think the current crop of 7” tablets are going to be DOA, dead on arrival.”

Jobs called 7” tablets such as Dell’s Streak (pictured) “tweeners” describing them as too big to compete with an iPhone and too small to compete with an iPad.

“Their manufacturers will learn the painful lessons, that their tablets are too small and increase the size next year, thereby abandoning customers and developers who jumped on the 7” bandwagon with an orphan product,” he said before concluding, “Sounds like lots of fun ahead.”

Spurred along by the might of Apple’s iPad, sales of tablets are expected to reach 19.5 million units worldwide this year, according to research firm Gartner.

Read the full transcript here.