Following our report earlier in the month that iPad 2 online order shipping times were on the decline, the iPad 2 shortage seems to now officially be over: you can now get any iPad 2 through Apple’s online store and have it shipped in a standard 1-3 business days.
Hooray! A mere four months after launch, Apple seems to have finally managed to put together enough supply to satisfy iPad 2 demand. If Apple does, as rumored, launch a Retina Display iPad 2+ or iPad 3 in September or October, I wonder if it’ll be any easier to get a hold of. What do you think?
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
14 responses to “iPad 2 Supply Now Closely Matches Demand… But Will We Go Through Another Shortage With iPad 3?”
there wont be an ipad 3 this year
i am so shocked people like you still fall for digitimes
they are constantly 100% wrong
it’s an inside-industry paper
hardware factories leak misinformation to screw with the competition
this has been going on for years with digitimes
they are ALWAYS wrong
unless the news is something universally expected
(i.e. A4 iphone4)
again
mark my words
there will not be a new ipad of ANY sort (retina, nano, etc) this year, imo
frankly, i doubt apple could even pull it off
I think there will be a revved up iPad, and I do think that some things are being accelerated because of Jobs’ health.Â
Otherwise, I reckon the assumed iPad2+ won’t sell as much as the iPad2. I have the iPad 2 and won’t be getting a tweaked one, should it surface.  I’ll be happy with the iOS 5. I skipped the iPhone 4 but will go for the 5.
The beauty of Apple’s development approach is that future iterations of their products are cross tested. The retina screen is already tried and tested, migrating it to the iPad would be easy enough.Â
“But Will We Go Through Another Shortage With iPad 3?”
Of course. There is an initial shortage every time as demand greatly exceeds capacity around the time of release.
ipad 2 supplies matches demand…. that mean’s…. fewer people are buying them! They are in fact slowing production as well as they now ramp up for the ipad 3! Quick!!! Sell your creaking old ipad2 NOW!!!! :)
Keep in mind that a major factor in the shortages was that ‘little’ earthquake in Japan the same day as the ipad 2 launch. That might have had a ‘tiny’ effect on getting components etc.Â
The question should probably be clarified. I’m sure that John isn’t suggesting that Apple will have enough for the launch or even that whole first week. I think he’s referring to the multiple weeks of some units being MIA with online waits of almost 2 months (when you add in the shipping time) that we had this go around.Â
And unless there’s another major disaster I say no. We won’t get a repeat when the next ipad releases. There’s no reason to believe that Apple wasn’t planning well enough ahead to cover a major uptick in demand given how popular the ipad 1 was. But when Mother Nature gets bitchy best laid plans just ain’t happening.Â
Sure they will rev up the ipad. That’s the way they work. Every new model is a rev up of the one before it. But don’t assume that that revved up ipad is coming anytime before next year. The signs are they are testing. Not mass producing. Which is in line with creating an ipad 3 for Spring 2012.Â
Regardless Job’s health, or lack of, is not going to change their plans any more than the fact that every other computer in the world has blu-ray etc. They are not under a mandate to release anything before Jobs might kick it or even simply officially retire. After all, Jobs isn’t the only brain in the company and tech companies start about 5 years in advance on  the things they do. Apple knows their game plan and the contingencies for the time to come already. They just aren’t telling us what that plan is.