A questionable report was making the rounds this morning from Taiwan-based publication Digitimes saying that Apple was planning to introduce two new iPads at the Macworld|iWorld conference on January 26th, 2012. The models were said to be targeted for the low-end and high-end consumer markets.
We voiced skepticism about this rumor (which also claimed that the iPad 3 would feature double the battery life and a higher-quality display), and now the Digitimes report has been debunked.
Remember the infamous Steve Jobs put-down of 7-inch tablet screens, telling reporters buyers would need to file down their fingertips in order to use the darn thing? Although we don’t see tinier fingers becoming the in-style for Christmas, suppliers are pumping out more 7-inch screens for the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet and fewer 9.7-inch displays for the iPad 2.
With Apple expected to release its successor to the iPad 2 in early-2012, alleged iPad 3 parts have leaked out into the wild. The parts suggest that Apple is ready to introduce a revolutionary new design for its upcoming tablet, as the device’s internals appear to be arranged way differently.
The iPad 3’s dock connector and ribbon cable leaked a couple months ago. These new microphone parts are currently available for purchase from a Chinese retailer.
The booster rockets have yet to stop for iPhone demand. That’s the word from one Wall Street analyst expecting sales of Apple’s handset to be 30 percent higher than predicted for the December quarter – and even more in 2012.
Never mind a Retina display iPad, Apple has something special up its sleeve for next year. According to sources within the company’s supply chain, a Retina display MacBook Pro with a display resolution of 2880×1800 is coming during the second quarter of 2012.
9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman has been peeling through the .plist files of the latest iOS 5.1 beta, and it appears that Apple is screwing with bloggers on purpose: weary of people dissecting the iOS files for mention of future iPhones and iPads, iOS 5.1 Beta 2 references the Apple TV 9, iPad 8, and iPhone 10, among others.
We’ve dedicated more than a few posts t0 declaring that a new iPad or iPhone is coming thanks to .plist references, but even so, I think this is pretty funny. Way to screw with a poor tech blogger’s head, Apple! The message is clear from here on out: you can’t trust iOS’s .plist files for a scoop. Well done!
Treating yourself to an iPad 2 this Christmas? Well, you may want to hold onto your cash for a few months. According to sources in Apple’s supply chain, manufacturers have already begun shipping parts and components for the iPad 3, which is expected to launch in just 3–4 months.
While all the information we have on Apple’s iPad 3 is purely speculation at this point, it seems inevitable that the device will boast a high-resolution Retina display. The Retina display has been a big selling point for the iPhone and the iPod touch for a couple years now, and we’re all crying out for one in the iPad.
However, Apple may not be the first to bring a Retina display tablet to market, because Samsung is working on one of its own which could be unveiled in February.
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.
According to Japanese Mac blog Macotakara, the iPad 3 will be backwards compatible with current Smart Covers, despite the fact that it will be so thick as to not work with iPad 2 cases.
Macotakara claims that they don’t know the reason the iPad 3 will be thicker than the iPad 2, but we do: it’s necessary in order to install the twin-light system needed to lluminate the iPad 3’s Retina Display.
As for the image above, your guess is as good as ours. Macotakara seems to think it somehow relates to an iPad 3, so maybe it’s the unbranded aluminum back panel of one or something? As for the Smart Cover backwards compatibility, considering that all that is necessary to keep a Smart Cover on are magnets in the right places, I wouldn’t be surprised if Smart Covers continued to be backwards compatible for future iPads for many generations to come.
Apple could offer three versions of its popular tablet in 2012 by repeating a tactic seen with the iPhone. The tech giant may introduce the iPad 3 with a high resolution screen, while also unveiling the iPad 2S for customers wanting more speed, and converting the iPad 2 into a lower-cost entry-level model.
Following the release of Apple’s iOS 5.1 beta yesterday, developers have been trawling through its code in an attempt to uncover references to upcoming products that Apple didn’t intend for you to see. We’ve already seen references to a next-generation Apple TV and a fourth iPad 2 — believed to be destined for Sprint — and now the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 product identifiers have been discovered.
While Apple chose to stick with the same 3.5-inch display for the iPhone 4S that it had previously employed in older iPhones, the Cupertino company looks certain to increase that for its iPhone 5. According to a source in Apple’s supply chain, both Hitachi and Sony have already begun shipping 4-inch LCD panels for a “new iOS device,” believed to be the sixth-generation iPhone.
Apple’s series of heated lawsuits with Samsung have put the two companies at odds, and Apple has been reportedly looking to other suppliers for hi-res displays. Specifically, Apple now has Sharp on deck to supply screens for the upcoming iPad 3.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is adding Sharp to its roster of screen suppliers for the next-generation iPad. The displays will allegedly be of higher resolution and thinner than the screens found in previous generations.
For months now, we’ve all read reports Apple’s iPad 3 will feature a Retina Display. Now we’re seeing proof pop up that an iPad 3 with a 2048×1536 display is already being tested and manufactured. But is a higher resolution screen really likely in with a device touted as slimmer than the iPad 2?
Described as an “explosive development in the tablet market,” the holiday season could finally see a two-way race for consumers’ attention as the iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire vie for nearly 90 percent of sales. In a survey of North Americans intending to buy a tablet, 65 percent said they plan to buy an iPad, while 22 percent said they would pick the Kindle Fire, according to ChangeWave Research results released Monday. Those percentages may look disparate, but the Kindle Fire is still proving to be a shot across the bow of iPad… and it could soon become a full broadside.
The folks at Canlys this morning are doing what analysts are fond of: playing the ‘if’ game. If iPads were included in the same category as computers, Apple might soon overtake HP as the world’s largest PC maker — particularly if the Cupertino, Calif. company launches the iPad 3, anticipated by many to be a 2012 release. Canalys, which does count tablets as PCs, expects Apple to pass HP before mid-2012.
There have been rumors of Retina iMacs practically since the day Apple announced Retina display was coming to iOS in 2010. Most of them have been complete nonsense, and Mac fans have had year after year of seeing their ultra-high-res hopes dashed whenever Apple would announce a new Mac product. Unlike pretty much every other item on this list, however, it looks like a Retina iMac may finally be happening, courtesy of recently discovered code in Apple's OS X 10.10 Yosemite beta. But maybe that’s just the optimism speaking...
Take this with a grain of salt, but a “reliable source” speaking to iLounge has three inside scoops on Apple’s 2012 product line-up. Their veracity? Offhand, we’d say one of them’s a certainty, one of them’s probable and the last one is nutty.
Rumors that Apple’s third-generation will launch early next year have been strengthened by claims from “industry sources” today, who say the Cupertino company has moved to control supplies of its iPad 2 in a bid to reduce excess inventory. It will reportedly reduce the number of displays manufactured by the likes of Samsung, LG Display, and Chimei Innolux during the fourth quarter of 2011, which could lead to a reduction in iPad shipments.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been blunt about Cupertino’s plans for adopting LTE: they’d love to, but they’re waiting on next-gen LTE chipsets that aren’t so power-thirsty they’ll turn your iPhone’s battery pack into a desiccated husk within seconds of flipping the 4G radio on.
Well, Qualcomm may have just announced the next-gen LTE chipset that might finally allow Apple to roll out 4G speeds to iDevices in 2012.
iPad users have been looking forward to a Retina display since the company introduced its iPhone 4 — its first iOS device to feature the high-resolution display — and recent reports have claimed the feature will finally surface with Apple’s third-generation tablet.
Strengthening those claims is a new report which suggests Apple is working with component suppliers to design a new backlight that is capable of maintaining the iPad’s existing level of brightness with the higher resolution panels.
DigiTimes is a throw-stuff-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks kind of news org, so along with predicting that Apple will radically overhaul their iMac, iPhone, MacBook Air and iPad lineup in 2012 comes a separate report all about the iPad 3.
In the details, though, the iPad 3 report is much more interesting, because it predicts Apple will miss a March/April release window for the iPad 3 and instead launch in late summer.
If there’s one feature we’re all anticipating for the iPad 3, it’s a Retina display. We’ve become accustomed to high-resolution displays on our mobile devices since Apple first introduced the Retina display to the iPhone and the iPod touch, and we all want one on the iPad 3.
According to one report, the third-generation device will indeed boast a 2048 x 1536 resolution display, but LG and Samsung are struggling to produce enough of them to meet Apple’s demands.
Have you ever attempted to read the whole iTunes Software License Agreement after installation? No, me neither. And there’s one good reason for that: it’s so dull it makes me want to gauge out my eyeballs and smash up my Mac. But one grab student has transformed the endlessly boring body of text into a pain-free masterpiece that even Apple itself would be proud of.
Rumors of Apple releasing an iPad 3 in early 2012, or even later this year, have been circulating recently, and now a new report suggests that Apple won’t be able to ship a new iPad based on the A6 processor until June of 2012.
