iPad Mini: Apple Launches Smaller Tablet

Apple unveils mini iPad tablet with prices starting at $329 (£269 in the UK) to compete with Amazon and Google's tablets

Apple made its play to dominate the fast-growing tablet market on Tuesday by unveiling an "iPad mini" - a new tablet half the size of its existing iPad - to compete with Google's Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire.

But the price may prove a barrier for potential buyers considering it against its rivals: the iPad mini will start at $329 (£269 in the UK), against $159 for the cheapest Kindle Fire and $249 for the Nexus 7.

Even so, Apple chief executive Tim Cook pointed to the momentum that Apple has built up in the tablet market, saying that two weeks ago the company had sold its 100 millionth iPad - "unprecedented for a new product in this category," he said. The first iPad went on sale in April 2010.

"Others have tried to make tablets smaller than the iPad and they have failed miserably," said Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice-president of worldwide marketing, who introduced the iPad mini in San Jose, USA.

The new iPad mini, which can be held in one hand, has a 7.9 inch (20cm) display, weighs in at 0.68 pounds (0.3kg) and is 7.2mm (0.3 inches) thick, a quarter thinner than the new fourth generation iPad which was launched at the same event.

Apple has had about 70% of the entire tablet market up to now, but the launch in the summer of Google's 7in Nexus 7 tablet - estimated to have sold around a million in three months - and of the Kindle Fire, launched in the US in October 2011, has pointed to huge potential in the market.

While PC sales have been stuttering and even shrinking by double-digit amounts in the US, those of tablets have rocketed since Apple introduced the iPad, followed by a number of rivals using Google's Android mobile software.

Now Apple is trying to dominate the whole space as it did with the iPod in the digital music player market, where its top-end iPod was broadened to the iPod mini and nano.

A research group is forecasting that sales of smaller tablets will double this year. IHS iSuppli expects about 34m smaller tablets – with screens …Read more:

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