7-inch iPad coming to Asia in October 2012?

There were rumors about a new 7-inch sized iPad model since literally years, and even though magival Mr. Jobs was always dismissive of the smaller version of the highly successful iPad, we might get a little surprise this October in what we believe will be released next to the new iPhone 5, a 7-inch iPad for 200-250 USD, which converts to 1900 HK$ or 300 SG$.

iPad 7 inch concept by iMore (via www.imore.com)

 The next “Logical Step” – iPad 7 inch

Apple is currently losing cash on the sub-market of small tablet PCs, dominated by Amazon Kindle or the Samsung “Tabs”. Especially in Asia do those smaller tablets find huge demand. Samsung in general is gaining attractive amounts of the Handphone and “mini Tablet” market shares in Hong Kong and Singapore and we believe Apple is trying to approach this with their own version of a downsized tablet.

Application Resizing

One of the main reasons we haven’t seen the 7inch or any other smaller sized version of the iPad yet is definitely the troubles connected with either rewriting apps for the new screen size or reprocessing them internally on the iPad itself. It seems Apple has now overcome this and will automatically render down the apps to the new 7inch sized iPad, avoiding the hustle for the app writer to redo all of their applications.

Aggressive Pricing for Asia Market

While in Europe and the US the market of small tablet PCs is still dominated only by the Kindle Fire and few Samsung Models, in Asia we have a flourishing market of hundreds and hundreds of Android Tablets, being produced cheap in China and shipped to the respective countries. Those are extremely cheap tablets, with common screen sizes of between 5 and 7 inch, running the latest Android versions, and being sold for not more then 50-80 USD. One trip to Shenzhen will show you how many of those tablets are actually being offered in China.

Offering the small 7-inch iPad for 200 to 250USD would definitely be a deal changer for many, especially in those “Apple Obsessed” countries like China, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Source: imore

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