Edible Apple

Rumors that Apple has plans to develop a smaller 7.85-inch iPad continue to trickle, with the latest report coming from Digitimes, which cites a source in the supply chain and relays that Apple will incorporate a slim bezel display for its miniaturized iPad. This iPad Mini, for lack of a better term, will be designed to compete with the Amazon Kindle Fire and smaller form factored tablets from the likes of Samsung.

Notably, the iPad Mini won’t feature the same Retina Display Apple currently employs on the iPhone 4S and the recently announced third generation iPad. This is likely due to cost considerations and to further differentiate the user experience from the more expensive and therefore more profitable iPad.

Although the 7.85-inch iPads may not adopt Retina displays as in the recently released new iPads, the 7.85-inch model is likely to use IPS/FFS panels from LG Display and probably AU Optronics (AUO).

Price wise, Digitimes’ source claims that Apple will price the iPad Mini in the $249-$299 range. Interestingly, Apple has iPad Touch models that cost more than that so it’ll be interesting to see if we’ll see a corresponding drop in those prices. Our guess is that we wont and that the iPad Mini might only come with 8GB of memory to keep the price so low.

via Digitimes