• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, December 16, 2011

More than ever, hardware and software makers are shaping the playing field for online advertisers. The most obvious example is Apple’s iPad strategy, which advertisers are having to embrace or face certain obsolescence.   

Throwing the marketing community another curse ball, Apple now is working on a new, smaller tablet, according to Taiwanese publication DigiTimes.

“The release of an ‘iPad mini,’ as many have dubbed such a device, would follow an early 2012 release of the iPad 3, which the supply chain sources said would indeed come by the end of the first quarter of 2012,” notes GigOm, citing DigiTimes.

The smaller form factor released later in the year is intended as a way to “cope with increasing market competition, including the 7-inch Kindle Fire,” according to DigiTimes’ sources.

“We speculate that if Apple did launch a smaller iPad, the pricetag [sic] would likely be smaller, as well, if only to compete with Nook and Kindle products in the $250 to $200 range,” writes VentureBeat.

What’s more, as if standard-obsessed marketers didn’t have enough to worry about, Business Insider is also hearing from a source that “Apple is worried about the popularity of smartphones with bigger screens and has been looking at building a 4-inch iPhone.”

“In the past, Apple has shrugged off rumors of developing a smaller iPad,” PC Magazine reminds us. “Just last year, Steve Jobs told reporters in an annual conference call that 7-inch tablets were ‘dead on arrival.’”

That said, PCMag adds: “History has shown that relying on Apple's public statements to divine the company's future product plans is usually a waste of time.”