At $329, the iPad mini is Apple’s cheapest iPad by far… but compared to $199 and $249 Android tablets, it’s still pricy in the 7-inch markets.

That might change, though. A new rumor suggests that Apple will release the iPad mini 2 for the low, low price of $249.

After months of steady growth, Apple stock hit an all-time high of $705.07 in late September, and it seemed there was no sign of stopping it from breaking through the $1,000 barrier and making Apple the world’s first trillion dollar company. Take a look at the market today, however, and it paints a very different picture.

Apple stock fell a whopping 25% in November, and on Friday, it hit a ten-month low. Today, shares dipped below the $400 mark. This is despite the recent launch of the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini, both of which appear to be selling incredible well. Can the Cupertino company put an end to this nasty slide? Analysts don’t think so.

Apple launched the fourth-generation iPad back in October, introducing a new A6X processor, a FaceTime HD camera, and its new Lightning connector. But despite those improvements, it appears the device isn’t selling as well as its predecessors. The reason? Another tablet is “cannibalizing” its sales.

But that tablet isn’t from Microsoft, or Google, or Amazon — or any other manufacturer for that matter. That tablet is the iPad mini.

When Apple will release the next iPad and what form it will take when they do are only at the theory stage, but smart money says that Apple will release it in the same time table they do every year: March or April.

However, according to Citi analyst Richard Gardner, we may get it a bit early: February 2012. And when it comes, “several sources” have confirmed it will have a Retina Display.

Otherwise, what we know about the iPad 3 is mostly speculation, though it seems likely at this point that it will be slightly thicker than the iPad 2 in order to accommodate the dual LED lightbar necessary to illuminate the Retina Display. That means it won’t be backwards compatible with iPad 2 cases, though the Smart Cover will still work.