Android points the way for small tablets

Google's Nexus 7 tablet. Android is saturating the small tablet market with inexpensive designs.

(Credit: CNET)

So, a small, inexpensive Apple tablet-like device could/maybe/possibly be in the works. If true, this may be a market better suited to Android.

NPD DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim told me yesterday that he thinks a small Apple tablet is being planned. (And mainstream reports followed suit. )

Is this really all that likely? Just a cheaper, smaller iPad? That's not a Jobsian approach given the way he felt about a smaller tablet device (and the way Cook has dissed "limited function" tablets in the past).

Granted, Jobs isn't running the show there anymore but I still don't see what it gets Apple aside from stanching the flow of small Android tablets.

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