iPad 2 - page 16

Apple events tend to be grand affairs, but as the presumed launch of the iPad 2 approaches, it’s unclear exactly how Cupertino will choose to herald in their second-gen tablet with the company’s charismatic CEO on an indefinite medical leave of absence.

An Apple product launch just isn’t the same without Steve, and it appears that Apple knows it: according to a brief new report, the launch of the iPad 2 will be a smaller affair than customary.

The report comes by way of macotakara.jp, a blog with a decent record when it comes to accurate predictions. They say that the event that Apple will host a “small event to introduce [the] next generation of iPad.”

When the iPad was first unveiled, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson explained his company’s decision to offer a month-by-month, committment-free data plan for the tablet by saying that he saw the iPad as a “Wi-Fi driven product.” That prediction seems to be accurate: while Apple sold seven million iPads last quarter, AT&T only activated 442,000 3G accounts for it.

Never the less, the latest rumor suggests that Apple is planning on making a big push for 3G in the iPad 2, with a good sixty percent of the first production run devoted to manufacturing 3G models.

iLounge says it’s heard some juicy rumors about the iPad 2:

1. The iPad 2 is getting NFC (Near Field Communications), which will allow all kinds of cool wireless features. We’ve reported on a number of possible applications, including eWallets. iLounge’s source says Apple is working on several NFC-enabled accessories.

2. The iPad 2 may get a carbon fiber case instead of an aluminum. Or not. iLounge says carbon prototypes have been spotted but not be final production models.

3. Apple hasn’t yet abandoned the 7-inch iPad, even though Steve Jobs has said the form factor is “dead on arrival and swore Apple would never produce one.” According to iLounge, Apple has ordered components for a 7-inch device, but it could be for just prototypes.

Well, this is a heck of a scoop to wake up to on Wednesday morning: 9to5Mac has got its grubby little hands upon what they claim to be the display of the iPad 2’s LCD, fresh off of the assembly lines of China.

After months of warrantless speculation that the iPad 2 would have a Retina Display, sanity seems to finally be sinking in, and even analysts are now beginning to temper their predictions by saying something closer to the truth: while Apple is interested in putting a Retina Display in the iPad, it won’t be coming until at least iPad 3.

According to IDC Analyst Tom Mainelli, Apple’s already working on an iPad with a 2048 x 1536 resolution Retina Display, but it’s not a next-gen device.

“Our sources say Apple has requested that manufacturers begin work on displays with that resolution for the iPad 3,” Maintelli told Digital Arts Online. “[But] “I don’t believe anybody is ready to produce that resolution in volumes at this point. And Apple is going to require huge volumes for the iPad 2.”

If you for whatever reason doubted that the next iPad would be FaceTime compatible, a new screenshot found inside the latest iOS 4.3 beta gives stronger indication than ever that there will be both front and rear-facing cameras in the iPad 2.

The scarcely, randomly reputable boys over at Digitimes are recycling weeks-old rumors by insisting that one of their sources from inside AAPL’s component supply chain says that the iPad 2 will boast a Retina Display.

Well, no, it jolly well won’t. But just in case that doesn’t convince you, how about some extrapolation due Moore’s Law?

Reader Adam from Cape Town thinks Apple should call the next iPad the “iPad 2x.” Here’s his reasoning:

Calling the next iPad the iPad 2x makes a lot of sense. It can be used effectively in their marketing messages, to differentiate it from the current iPad, and also to set it apart from its competitors.

It’s the iPad 2, twice as good as the original iPad, with:

2x resolution per axis (even if the camera will take smaller resolution pics).
2x the speed, with dual core processing.
2x the RAM, to achieve the above.
2x cameras. And if one of the cameras were 8.3MP, it would by 2x full HD…
One could add even more to the list.

I’m pretty sure they won’t get 2x docks, but it would be a nice! Similarly, I doubt they’ll squeeze 2x battery life out of the new iPad.

Of course, the one thing that’s difficult to market is 2x as thin and/or light, makes more sense to say half as thin and/or heavy…

What do you guys think? Anyone got a better name?

Case makers don’t necessarily know anything more than the rest of us about what the next iOS devices will look like — see, for example, the insistence of second-gen iPod Touch case makers that the next iteration of the PMP would have a camera, which didn’t happen until the FaceTime-capable model came along a year later — but they are always of interest, as they usually come from information leaking out of the factories of Apple’s own Chinese manufacturers.

The latest case designs coming out of China, then, is interesting for showing off two new openings that we haven’t seen before. The slot for the rear camera and speaker are, of course, there in their usual places, but two new holes have been carved out to fit an SD card slot and either a mini DisplayPort or an HDMI port.

Intriguing. Of course, if the iPad 2 does get an SD card slot, don’t expect to be able to use it to expand your device’s storage: it’ll strictly be for offloading photos and videos with an iPad Connector Kit.

Apple Insider has a juicy scoop from the same source who revealed the negotiations between Apple, Imagination Technologies and Samsung back in 2008 that ultimately led to the creation of the A4 CPU: Apple is reportedly building a new version of their A4 chip that will bring faster dual graphic cores to the iPhone 5 and iPad 2.

Over the weekend, some iPad-specific and resolution-doubled icons found in iBooks Version 1.1 made everyone speculate that the iPad 2 would have a 2048 x 1536 display. Not quite Retina, but close enough.

Unfortunately, the speculation breaks down upon closer examination. Not only are the pixel-quadrupled iBook icons old news, but there’s a conflicting mention of a 1536×800 pixel resolution in the same build.

In fact, Apple’s been suggesting that developers provide a double resolution icon for each iPad app since June. This is just Apple thinking forward: yes, they’d like to have the same pixel density in the iPad as in the iPhone and iPod Touch, but that doesn’t make a 10.1-inch Retina Display economically feasible this generation.

In other words, this resolution-doubled iPad icon business? Much ado about nothing. The iPad 2 might have a Retina Display, but not because of a couple of higher res icons.

Three new iPad SKUs have been added to the Best Buy store database, leading to questions about what the unreleased products may be. All three are described as “Apple iPad SKU WiFi,” and two are listed at $599, with the third at $699.

The products show up as “unreleased products” on the Best Buy database for both the online and internal store databases, according to 9to5 Mac, who suggests these new listings could be the Verizon iPad + MiFi bundle, new Verizon CDMA iPads, or even the iPad 2.

Chris Chang of MICGadget blog has uncovered a new iPad 2 case with a pair of mysterious new holes.

The new openings are a rectangular slot on the upper right side (when viewing the iPad from the front), opposite the volume rocker and lock; and a smaller, squarer opening on the top of the iPad in the middle.

The makers of the case say it fits the iPad 2 “perfectly,” which means the new device may have capabilities.

Chang guesses that the top opening is for HMDI or mini-HDMI, and the side opening for a SD Card. Engadget on Friday claimed the iPad 2 will have an SD Card slot, although it places the opening on the bottom right of the new iPad, not the side.

Check out more pictures below.

Although Apple is notoriously tight-lipped about new products in the pipeline, it’s pretty easy to predict when they’ll refresh one of their devices as long as you know when they last released an update… and this is doubly true for iOS devices, which follow a strict yearly update cycle.

Knowing this, you’d have to be addled-of-brain and swollen-of-tongue to bet against the iPad 2 shipping anytime before early April: after all, the first iPad shipped in America on April 3rd, a Saturday.

MacNotes‘s “reliable sources” tipping either an Apil 2nd or April 9th U.S. release for the iPad 2 aren’t really saying anything jaw-dropping then. They suggest, like last time, that the iPad 2 will ship on a Saturday early in April, and, like last time, it’ll be a U.S. exclusive for a a couple months before launching internationally.Also like last time, they say it’ll be six months before big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy get to offer the tablet.

Well, yeah. Duh. My guess is the iPad 2 launch will be more or less identical in timing and specifics to the first-gen iPad launch except for one thing: just a hunch, but I’m betting Apple will have both the WiFi and 3G versions ready simultaneously this time.

Although Apple rumor-mongers can rarely agree on anything, two things that most of the supposed tipsters and leaksters have managed to agree on is that the iPad 2 will be FaceTime compatible and have a higher resolution display.

Some files in the new iOS 4.3 SDK seemingly confirm the FaceTime claims, as it includes iPad-specific graphic files for the shutter screen seen in the iPhone and iPod Touch, which implies, at the very least, a new backwards facing camera. Interesting, but a no-brainer: there’s no way Apple’s going to leave FaceTime capability out of the iPad 2.

More surprising than the FaceTime implications of those icons, though, are their resolution: 1024 x 768. In other words, the current iOS 4.3 SDK implies that the FaceTime-capable iPad 2 will have the same resolution as the current iPad.

Yesterday’s dev release of iOS 4.3 revealed a myriad of new features to Apple’s already robust mobile operating system, but what’s prompting the most comment this morning is the new multitouch gesture introduced that allows you to pinch with your whole hand to return to the homescreen.

Now BGR is claiming that this new gesture is the first step to removing the physical home button from a future iPad. Nonsense, says I.

Digg co-founder Kevin Rose posted on his blog over the weekend that the iPad 2 is coming as soon as February 1st, and will have a Retina Display. It’s almost enough to make a Mac blogger drown in the same sodium chloride he’s advising his readers to swallow.

According to the always reliable Digitimes, Apple is preparing three versions of the iPad 2 for 2011… but if you think they mean 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, think again. Digitimes thinks it means WiFi, 3G.. and a Verizon iPad.

Look, you and I both know that leaked third-party case designs for unannounced, unreleased Apple products mean next to nothing. In fact, we’ve all been burned by drawing conclusions from purely fanciful Asian case designs before. So please take this news with a grain of salt: a new third-party case design for the iPad 2 seems to imply that the second-generation tablet will have an all-together sleeker and more iPod Touch evocative look.

With Motorola’s upcoming Android Honeycomb tablet and Research in Motion’s imminent PlayBook both set to use new dual-core ARM processors, the iPad 2 will have make a similar jump if it is going to stay competitive according to a recent analyst note.

When we talk about the iPad 2, we already know at least some of what to expect when Apple officially unveils their newest tablet in April: FaceTime support, an iPhone 4 like gyroscope and maybe a higher-resolution (but not Retina) display. Those are all pretty much lock-ins.

When it comes to iOS devices, though, Apple has a tendency to rejigger the device’s physical design in the second gen — consider the aesthetic difference between the iPhone and the iPhone 3G, for example — so what does Ive and Co. plan to tweak in the iPad 2’s casing? A Japanese blog citing anonymous Chinese sources claims to have the answer, if we’re willing to believe them.

Everyone can agree that there’s simply no chance that when the iPad 2 ships next year that it won’t support FaceTime: the iPad’s the only current-gen iOS device that doesn’t support Apple’s video chat standard now, after all.

So sure, it can be taken for granted that the iPad 2 will handle FaceTime, but will it also allow for rear-facing photography? How else will it improve upon its predecessor?

According to a new report by analyst Brian Marshall, we should all expect the iPad 2 in April.

No duh. Apple’s stuck to a rigidly defined yearly update cycle for all of their iOS devices, so you don’t need to go to Analysis U. to figure out exactly when to expect the next iPad.

But the April date for the iPad 2 isn’t really the meat of this story. More interesting is what Marshall says we should expect spec-wise from the iPad 2, which is… nothing special at all.

The rationale behind Apple’s unibody aluminum housings isn’t just aesthetic appeal: it’s also sturdiness. Unibody aluminum adds a bit of heft to an ultra-thin Apple portable, but it makes that device also harder to break despite its thinness.

There’s always room for improvement though, and if a new patent published by the USPTO is anything to go by, future iPads might trade in their aluminum shell for ultra-strong carbon fiber.

Unscrew the salt shaker and empty it onto your uvula, because it’s Digitimes rumor time. According to the always questionable publication, Apple’s already got the parts suppliers for the iPad 2 lined up… and they’re ready to name names.