Here’s a little bit of confirmation in the rumor we keep hearing that the iPad 3 is being released in 2012: The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that very same bit of information, citing its own unnamed sources.
Rumors have been flying about just when Apple will be releasing new products. The iPhone 5, it sounds like, is slated for a release in the first week of October, with preorders for the device opening a week earlier on Sept. 30. As for the iPad 3, it originally was headed for release this fall as well, according to some sources, but troubles during manufacturing have pushed it back to the early part of 2012.
At least, that’s what some other outlets have reported. The WSJ also notes that the iPad 3 is expected to have a display with double the resolution it currently does – which most everyone refers to by Apple’s “Retina” moniker and which would carry a resolution of 2048×1536 – although it doesn’t cite that information has having come from a specific source. We heard earlier this week that it was the Retina display that was slowing up the iPad 3 in the manufacturing process, but the WSJ doesn’t mention any delays. It could be that 2012 was always Apple’s launch goal.
Here’s a quote from the WSJ story:
One component supplier to Apple said the company has already placed orders for parts for about 1.5 million iPad 3s in the fourth quarter.
‘Suppliers will ramp up production and try to improve the yield rate for the new iPad in the fourth quarter before its official launch in early 2012,’ said a person at the supplier.
Major manufacturing will be happening closer to launch, it seems, and the WSJ story doesn’t give a hard-and-fast date or even a ballpark of when that will be. The 1.5 million figure syncs up somewhat with the rumor we heard from DigiTimes earlier this week, which said Apple had 1.5 million new iPads on order in the third quarter of 2011 ahead of the launch in the fourth, when it would have another 6 million or so iPads manufactured. It seems the best way to make the two stories jive is that the plans have been pushed back a quarter; unless DigiTimes just had it wrong, and Apple has always been aiming for its 12-month product cycle for the iPad with a release in March.
Apple is facing increased competition in the tablet market, and although it seems content to sue everybody and the person to their left – including Samsung, whose Galaxy Tab 10.1 Apple is attempting to block from stores all over the world – it still needs to consider that the iPad is no longer the only game in town. That means new, stronger devices, and the Retina-enabled iPad is something fans have been clamoring for. Apple just came off record revenues in the second quarter of 2011, and giving people what they want is a pretty good way of making sure that record is broken again soon.
