It seems as if every year holds something different for tablets. According to Steve Jobs, 2010 was the year of the iPad. 2011, I'd say, was the year of the competitors. Samsung, Motorola, Sony, and many more companies tried to compete with the iPad. But what was 2012 the year of? Not the iPad 3; while its retina display was a significant change, it wasn't as much of a hit as the iPad 2. I'd say 2012 was the year of the budget tablets.
First, some iPad wannabes started surfacing. Though they costed as little as $99, they had awful specs and couldn't compete with Apple's offering at all. Then, Archos started making tablets for the price of just $250; half of the cheapest iPad. While this was quite amazing, the public didn't seem very interested, possibly because Archos isn't a very popular brand. Then, Xtex came out with the My Tablet, a $150 ICS tablet with a 7" screen. It fared slightly better, but the screen was extremely low resolution and the app offerings were few. After that, Amazon and Barnes & Noble upgraded their e-reader line with the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet. Both were $200 7" tablets running heavily overwritten versions of Android. The Nook Tablet fared fine, but the Kindle Fire became a serious iPad competitor and likely the first successful budget tablet. However, both were geared toward bookworms, not the general audience. A few months ago, Microsoft launched its Microsoft Surface, another budget tablet offering hoping to compete with the iPad. And last week, Google came out with the Nexus 7, a tablet that I'd say has true potential; it has specs comparable to a $400 tablet at $200.
Now, you'll notice something interesting here. In the tablet market, Apple was the first to come, and all the other companies followed up with competitors. But with budget tablets, the people who competed with the iPad are coming first. Apple has long said that it would never make a smaller iPad; Steve Jobs himself said that a smaller iPad screen would severely worsen the user experience.
But now, it's time for Apple to admit that they were wrong. Very many 7" tablets have came out by now, and they are all faring extremely well. I own the Kindle Fire myself, and I would strongly disagree with what Steve Jobs said. He's known for being extremely opinionated, and often right, but in this case, he's been proven wrong.
And, believe it or not, Apple is admitting that they made a misstep. They may be behind in the budget tablet market, but they want to catch up. In October 2012, Apple is most likely going to launch the iPad Mini.
Bloomberg and WSJ both reported that this October, Apple will release the "iPad Mini" alongside the iPhone 5. This iPad will have a 7.85" screen, slightly bigger than the 7" screen of the Kindle Fire, Microsoft Surface, and Nexus 7, but significantly smaller than the 9.7" screen of the current iPad.
To keep the cost of this iPad low, it will not include a retina display, and will have a screen resolution of 1024x768, which is about the same is that of other budget tablets. This means that current iPad apps will be able to be used on the iPad Mini without the developers modifying them. However, the report states that Apple plans to make everything on the screen smaller instead of keeping things the same size but not displaying as much information on one screen.
