What's more, he continued, the iPad may be entering a period when seasonality will begin to affect its sales, with much of the growth in a year being jammed into the fourth quarter. He reasoned that if Apple wants maintain past shipment levels, it's going to have to appeal to mainstream consumers. For them, he continued, $500 for a tablet is a hard sell, even harder in the face of the competition like Amazon's upcoming $199 .

"Amazon's strategy of minimizing its hardware price is set to ignite the entry-level tablet segment and attract more mass-market consumers," Strategy Analytics Director Neil Mawston said in a .

So if Apple wants to compete in that mainstream market, Mainelli maintained, it's going to need to augment its media tablet lineup with lower-priced products. That doesn't necessarily mean introducing something like a seven-inch iPad, as has been suggested by some observers. Apple can simply adopt the strategy it has used for its iPhone lineup, Mainelli noted.

"Following this strategy," he explained, "we might see Apple offer the current $499 16GB/WiFi-only Apple iPad 2 at $399 or less after it launches the iPad 3 at $499 and up."

"Lower-priced iPads would increase Apple's total available market, and would give competitors already reeling from Amazon's $199 product announcement yet another reason to lose sleep at night," he added.