Apple: Our Newest Product Catalyst Coming

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has sent out media invites to an event on October 23 for what is widely expected to be the launch of the company’s new iPad Mini. The invitation, featuring the line “We’ve got a little more to show you”, is at least a little reminiscent of the company’s invites before the announcement of the first iPad in January 2010. The announcement will be held at 10 a.m. Pacific Time at the California Theatre in San Jose, California.

The iPad Mini is predicted to sport a 7.85-inch and 1024×768 non-Retina display in a lighter body and be priced below $300 to rival some of the cheaper tablet devices from Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). Apple’s current iPad lineup starts at $399 for the iPad 2 and $499 for the third-generation iPad, both featuring a 9.7-inch screen. While Apple held a 70 percent share of the tablet market in the second quarter, the new and cheaper devices have the potential of hurting that domination and analysts see the iPad Mini as a quick reaction from Apple to undercut that. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is also set to release its Windows 8-powered Surface tablet on October 26, though that is priced closer to the range of the full-size iPad.

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Last week week, a German-language website posted an image of what appeared to be a list of supposed iPad Mini models and pricing. According to that, the device was likely to start from $250 for an 8 GB Wi-Fi model to $550 for a 64 GB model.

According to more recent rumors, the same event may also see Apple announcing a 13-inch version of the MacBook Pro with Retina display, a thinner iMac, and a new Mac mini model. The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple was the first to report the invite.

Apple shares closed Friday down 3.6% at $609.84 despite news of future catalysts on the horizon this week.

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