Negative press be damned, Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is a success according to at least one company: Apple.
The sporadically-accurate Taiwanese tech news outlet DigiTimes reported Friday that Apple is developing two iPad models for release in 2012.
The first, which is expected within the first quarter of the year, according to DigiTimes is expected to be an iPad 3 on the order of 10 inches, like those that have come before.
The second, more interesting device would be a smaller, cheaper, 7.85-inch iPad designed to go head-to-head with Amazon’s 7-inch Kindle Fire, which retails for $199 compared to the cheapest iPad currently on the market, $499.
The iPad is expected to remain the best-selling tablet into 2012 by a large margin, according to analysts, though the Kindle Fire is expected to become the best-selling Android tablet, selling up to 6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011.
