A new set of rumors about the iPad 3 has hit the Internet, pointing to a release date, a high-res screen and perhaps fewer changes in the overall iPad design than one might expect.
First up is the release date. According to AllThingsD, which cites unnamed sources at Apple, we can expect the iPad 3 announcement to fall on the first week of March 2012. That’s not exactly a revelation, given that the iPad 2 was announced during the same slot last year at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, pretty much during the middle of the Game Developers Conference that was taking place just across the street at the Mascone Center. The device was released a week later, and we can probably expect roughly the same timetable from Apple this year, as well.
AllThingsD’s source notes that, despite an earlier rumor from a Japanese website, there won’t be an Apple event in February. The so-called “strange” (read: unusual) event rumor came from U.S. and Japanese Apple sources, again unnamed. Speculation aimed at an event similar to Apple’s recent iBooks 2 announcement, but about whatever the strange event might supposedly have detailed, there’s no indication.
What information is circulating about the iPad 3 again suggests it’ll have an improved 2,048 by 1,536 pixel-per-inch display. This “Retina” resolution screen is something we’ve been hearing about since last year and makes a lot of sense, given that a higher-resolution iPad is something fans have been clamoring for basically since the device was first announced back in 2010.
Meanwhile, in terms of other internal components, a lot of new rumors are circulating. The Verge has images it’s reporting could be the outer casing for the iPad 3, and Japanese site Macotakara thinks it might have seen the Sharp display component for the device (or another prototype, perhaps – if it’s an Apple component at all). The case design doesn’t suggest much in the way of major changes for the iPad 3, and numerous sources have it that while the iPad is getting a new display, a faster internal chip and a better graphics processor, mostly it will be the same as its earlier two iterations. But the source that spoke to The Verge suggested there would not be a quad-core processor in the iPad 3 (the iPad 2 currently houses the dual-core A5 processor chip), even though there are Android devices sporting that technology.
As with all Apple rumors, all this is food for thought but not necessarily true, either in part or in whole. The March announcement date is probably the most solid item of all because of its historical precedent; after that, the Retina iPad display seems pretty likely, if only because it has been reiterated and reported so often. Everything else, however, is still pretty up in the air and will be until Apple finally gives us the skinny.
