“Apple may be working on a new entry-level tablet scheduled to launch early next year,” Zach Epstein reports for BGR. “In a note to investors on Wednesday, Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White recounted numerous meetings with technology supply chain companies at a trade show in China this week.”
Epstein reports, “White’s meetings with Apple suppliers has turned up an interesting note… ‘Our research is pointing to the unveiling of a lower priced iPad in the first few months of 2012 that is aimed at expanding the company’s market potential by tapping into a more price sensitive consumer segment’ the analyst wrote. ‘Essentially, this ‘iPad mini’ will also fend off the recently announced Amazon Kindle Fire that addresses the low-end tablet market with a $199 price tag but could lead to bigger tablet ambitions from the online retailer in the future.’ White continued, noting that the ‘mini’ moniker refers to the tablet’s lower price and not necessarily a smaller screen size. ‘We believe this lower priced iPad could be priced in the mid-to-high-$200 range,’ White said. ‘We expect this will be followed by a much more powerful, feature rich standard-priced iPad 3 in 2Q12.'”
Read more in the full article here.
The only way I see this happening is as another poster mentioned they can get an affordable retina display for both a smaller and for the full size iPad. So, as has been speculated before the full size iPad would be bumped up the same way the iPhone 4 was (what was it, twice as dense essentially? But scales up by 4? Something like that). That would make it easy for app makers to scale up their apps. Then a new smaller iPad would use a retina display which would use the same resolution as the original iPad and iPad 2 display. Does that make sense??
I believe this was in the oven for a while. Something in between the 3.5″ iPod touch and the 10″ iPad.
But Steve did bash the 7″ form factor. I’d rather see a lighter and slightly cheaper iPad than a smaller screen. You get resolution problems when you make a device thats about 25% smaller up/down, left/right.. it’s messy.
Apple would be reacting. And in case no one noticed, Apple has never been and will not be a reactionary company. Apple leads by innovating and delivering to market goods that others then copy and/or mimic. The Analyst is simply wrong. You want an example of areactionary establishment, seek out Microsoft.
These idiots are forgetting one MAJOR thing:
Apple is NOT A REACTIVE COMPANY. They don’t create products to compete with other companies products… They don’t care. They come into the game light years ahead, and by the time there is ANYTHING on the market gaining momentum, they come out with something new to blow the industry wide open..
Off all the companies, only ONE, Apple, is a CREATIVE company. The rest are simply reactive. Poorly reactive..
After the moronic shit show we got out of BGR with regards to the 4S, why the Hell does anyone want to send more traffic to these insufferable morons?
Rumors are great if you have literally nothing to do or think about. I don’t believe in everything I read, only what I see.
It’s amazing that a company is willing to pay an idiot to write articles for them. That’s cool. I have a bridge to sell. I should give these dolts a call. lol
“Analyst” is becoming a synonym for “clueless idiot.”
Seriously, who can fail at their basic job more without getting fired – baseball hitters, weather forecasters, CEOs of large multinational corporations, or technology analysts?
After last week, does anybody still pay attention to these “analysts”?
In other news apple may also be working on a flying car. Or not. Why do people report these rumors as if they were fact?