“Apple watcher Ryan Jones, who blogs at IAmConcise, has an interesting graphical argument for a smaller, less expensive iPad. In his post today, The Reason for the iPad Mini, Jones refers to Tim Cook’s recent statement that Apple will ‘one thing we’ll make sure is that we don’t leave a price umbrella for people’ in the tablet space,” Anthony Wing Kosner writes for Forbes. “A price umbrella is the cover that a market leader provides other companies by establishing a premium price for their products. Competitors can enter the market at lower price points and disrupt the leader’s dominance, in Jones words, ‘from the bottom up.’”

“Apple has effectively defended itself from bottom up competition twice before, Jones points out, with the iPod and iPhone,” Kosner writes. “In the case of the iPod, it filled the bottom niche with the Nano and Shuffle. With the iPhone, Apple has been able to get the price down to $0 by continuing to sell the 3GS with its $400 price tag fully subsidized by the carriers.”

Kosner writes, “Jones makes his point by charting every current model of iPhone, iPod, and iPad by price (see above). It’s a very compelling visualization because he lets the data—the missing triangle in the iPad cluster—make his argument for him.”

Read more in the full article here.

Related articles:
The iPad mini: Why now is the perfect time for a small Apple tablet – July 19, 2012
NYT: Apple developing 7.85-inch iPad to be announced this year – July 15, 2012
Bloomberg: Apple preps smaller iPad, sources say – July 5, 2012
WSJ: Apple’s ‘iPad mini’ launch nears – July 5, 2012