8-inch iPad: Apple to take on Kindle Fire?
Source: Stacy Cowley
Apple is in the process of testing a smaller version of its iPad tablet, a product that could help it steal away market share from smaller tablets like the Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy Tab.
While the iPad is still by far the number one selling tablet in the world, Amazon’s 7-inch Kindle Fire has had a relatively strong debut ― though Amazon refuses to tell anyone exactly how many units it has sold. And then there are other smaller tablets in the market like the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet and Motorola’s Xyboard tablets. Arguably, Apple has a good opportunity to create a smaller tablet to compete against these other devices.
Apple’s latest 10-inch iPad tablet, the iPad 3, will almost certainly be announced the first week of March and see release in the middle of that month. The iPad 3 is rumored to have a 2048-by-1536-pixel Retina display, a quad-core A6 processor, and 4G LTE networking. But we may not see a small-screened iPad debuting alongside the iPad 3 since Apple is still in the early stages of the development process. However, there has been previous speculation from Taiwanese publication Digitimes about a smaller iPad form factor would start production in mid-2012 and see release late in the year.
The Wall Street Journal report suggests that Apple has shown a new smaller tablet to suppliers that has a screen around 8 inches in size. The company is also reportedly working with Taiwan’s AU Optronics Co. and South Korea’s LG to create the test panels.
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