Bloomberg reports that apple is planning to launch smaller and cheaper version of the iPad by the end of the year. This is no surprise is it will be apples answer to all these new 7 inch tablet appearing on the market.

It is said that they might announce it in October and it will not feature the high def screen that the current iPad has. The price is expected to be around the same as the tablet google recently announced the 7 inch Google Nexus 7 at around $200.

Apple is currently in the lead with market share with a whopping 61%. But with Microsoft and Google coming to play it will be hard for apple to keep it this high. Googles plan was to win the 7 inch tablet market uncontested with its Nexus 7 but now that Apple is entering that market as well they might have an uphill battle ahead of them.

With Google with they Nexus 7 and Microsoft with their Surface coming to the tablet market the competition will be bigger than ever for Apple. In the end more competition is better for us the consumers are prices go down and quality goes up.