US Edition 
Apple's Jobs was open to making smaller iPad
Steve Jobs was receptive to Apple making a smaller tablet, a senior executive said in a 2011 email, fanning speculation that Apple plans to make a mini-iPad and take on Google and Amazon products.
Vice President Eddy Cue urged then-chief operating officer Tim Cook in January 2011 to build a 7-inch tablet, according to an email from Mr Cue that Samsung Electronics introduced as evidence in a US patent trial.
In an email addressed also to software chief Scott Forstall and marketing head Phil Schiller, Cue said he believed there was a market for a 7-inch tablet and that "we should do one".
Speculation intensified in 2012 that Apple is preparing to launch a 7-inch version of the market-dominating 10-inch iPad, to counter increasing inroads made by smaller tablets such as the Kindle Fire, and most recently, Google's Nexus 7. But the company has never confirmed such talk.
The email was introduced on Friday as an exhibit in a high-wattage trial being played out in San Jose this summer before much of the technology industry. Apple and Samsung are going toe-to-toe in a patent dispute that mirrors a global struggle for industry supremacy between two rivals that together control more than half of worldwide smartphone sales.
Apple accuses Samsung of copying the design and some features of its iPad and iPhone, and is asking for billions of dollars in damages and a sales ban. The Korean company, which is trying to expand in the U.S. market, accuses Apple of infringing on some of its key wireless technology patents.