We have seen a real boom in the Tablet PC arena in recent months. it seems every man and his dog wants to build a competitor to the iPad. Even manufacturers that have long been out of the pc hardware game have stepped back into the arena, namely Microsoft with their Surface Tablet PC. Now it seems we are about to get a look at the iPad mini, why?
The 7 inch niche is a large and quickly growing market. In my opinion the Galaxy tab 7 defined the niche but tablets like the Kindle Fire brought it to a new audience. The tablets have sold like hot cakes. However having said that they haven’t rivalled the iPad’s run away success. The Google Nexus 7 has already set records since being released in the USA and I can’t think of anyone in 
my group of friends who doesn’t want one. It is a great little tablet but to be totally honest is basically a Galaxy Tab with Jelly Bean installed. It hasn’t really pushed the boundaries of what has already be done in the 7 inch niche. Google has it’s fanboys and girls and that is probably a factor. To be fair the Google is the strength behind Android and that gives consumers a clear connection between the hardware and the software and gives the Nexus 7 a kind applesk feel.
So what would happen if the iPad mini came in at a cheap enough price to compete with all these Android 7 inch tablets?
Imagine an iPad mini (will it really be called a mini? you would have to think iPad nano is another option) that comes on the market at $250. That will not only be a game changer it will be a rampant bulldozer that pushes over the old stadium and tears up the field and rebuilds the whole niche in a completely new image! A cheap iPad mini will quite frankly annihilate the competition. I am not an Apple fanboy, not by a long shot, however I am a realist! a 7 inch iPad will do that ebd of the tablet pc market, what email did to snail mail, what Facebook did to Myspace, what Reddit did to Digg.
If Apple manage to get the price of the iPad mini down to $200 then it will completely obliterate every other competitor. Apple will have basically done to all other tablet pc manufacturers what Hannibal did to the Romans at the battle of Cannae. Surrounded the enemy, left them no chance of escaping and hacked and chopped until no one was left alive. Personally I hope this doesn’t happen, I am a believer in competition.
