"Will this broaden Apple's market share? Absolutely," said Gottheil. "Will they do a 'Mini? That's absolutely true. No one, not even Apple, can afford to produce only the highest-priced product. They've shown that with the way they're pricing the iPhone and iPad, they're willing to follow the price curve down."

Gottheil was referring to Apple's now-standard practice of retaining two older iPhone models when it launches a new smartphone, with prices discounted by half and reduced to zero for the second- and third-oldest models, respectively. Apple followed suit last March when it retained the iPad 2 at $399 as it launched a new higher-resolution tablet at the usual $499 entry-level price point.

A new, smaller iPad does, of course, bring up concerns of cannibalization -- buyers who purchase the less-expensive Mini in lieu of the full-figured iPad -- but most analysts contacted today discounted the threat to Apple's revenue.

White estimated that a Mini would cannibalize 10% to 20% of iPad unit sales, meaning that one or two out of every ten committed iPad buyers would pick a cheaper Mini instead.

"Actually, that's not that high [a cannibalization rate]," argued White. "And a lot of people will own both."