Tim Cook crowed over the sales figures of the iPad during yesterday’s Apple keynote, pointing out that it has sold a whopping 225 million units since debuting in 2010.
Despite the iPad Air 2 looking like the finest iPad iteration yet, however, sources in the supply chain reckon Apple’s new flagship tablet is going to be available only in limited quantities during the remainder of 2014 — thanks to production difficulties with the devices’ new anti-reflective coating.
The coating in question is one of the new features of the device, alongside a thinner form factor, improved 10+ hour battery life, A8X and M8 chips, new color options, and brand new high-end camera.
Referring to the anti-reflective coating during yesterday’s event, Phil Schiller noted that it had, “never been done in a tablet before” and claimed that it reduces reflections by an impressive 56%.
While all of that may be true, though, touch panel maker TPK is supposedly experiencing yield rate issues with the production of the new iPad’s screens. The company is handling half of the manufacturing work on the touch panels, while Foxconn is carrying out the rest of it. It’s unknown whether Foxconn is also experiencing yield problems.
The limited quantities are additionally said to be the result of “shifts in the supply chain,” although this is not elaborated on.
The end result is that iPad Air 2 numbers may be limited to 7-9 million unit shipments in 2014 — the same number recently put forward by reliable Apple analyst KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
By comparison, last year’s iPad Air shipped with 12 million units.
Source: Digitimes
