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
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
3 responses to “iPad Air 2’s new antireflective display is causing production problems”
So, if you want to work and be treated as real journalists you should be clear in your headline that it’s mostly unconfirmed rumor. If so, the headline would read: iPad Air 2’s new antireflective display may be causing production problems.
Kind of strange that they didn’t test the manufacturing methods until when it come to making the display for the iPads to be sold to the public.
I didn’t know these guys are so incompetent as journalists who write anything because they heard it from someone so it must be true on blind faith.
They did. This is just typical BS that comes out with every launch. Analysts etc hype up the notion that millions and millions of units will sell and then they toss out rumors of delays and issues in case the numbers aren’t what they claimed. Since they don’t want to look like they were just wrong