iPad mini coming to take on the Kindle Fire, claims Samsung

Could Samsung have just spilled the beans on the 4th iteration of the Apple iPad? Quite possibly, if a Samsung Securities document that has been uncovered by website OLED Display is anything to go by.

And not just any old iPad, but a 7-inch model referred to as the iPad mini that will land in time for Christmas.

The Samsung Securities document states:

"Following the success of its iPad 1 and iPad 2, which have together achieved sales of 55m units, Apple plans in 1Q12 to launch the iPad 3 and in 3Q12 a new 7-inch product temporarily referred to as the iPad mini. The company is reportedly aiming to sell more  than 100m iPads in 2012, and plans to use higher-resolution IPS panels in the iPad 3."

Now, the chances are that the Samsung employee who knocked together the document may be just paying note to the iPad mini rumours of the past - even though the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs said at the end of 2010 that 7-inches for tablets was "too small" and that Apple "believes 10-inch screen is minimum necessary".

But Samsung may know more than the average man of what to expect on the Apple roadmap. After all, despite bickering with the Cupertino giant in courtrooms across the globe, Samsung is still a key manufacturing partner for Apple's devices.

So, although we'd class this one as "not very" on our likely-o-meter, we wouldn't rule it out entirely. And with Amazon and Samsung already enjoying some 7-inch success maybe Apple believes that its former leader was wrong when he said that bigger was better.

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