Apple has scheduled one of its not-so-secret media events for mid-March which has subsequently sent the iPad 3 rumour mill into overdrive. The iPad 3, or whatever Apple decides to call it, is likely to be released within two weeks of the official announcement and we’re going to run you through what we expect from the new iPad.
At the very least the
iPad 3 is expected to come with increased gaming credentials, via a faster GPU, a slighty re-jigged design and a new screen, which hopefully is packing Retina levels of pixels and clarity and there’s even talk of a smaller iPad to fend off any possible competition from Amazon’s Kindle Fire, but we’ll discuss that later.
Retina Display?
The rumour mill seems almost certain that the new
iPad 3 will be sporting a proper high definition “Retina” display which will mean that you’ll get double the pixels of the old iPad screen. It should be sporting a resolution of 2048×1536 onto the dinky 9.7-inch touchscreen display. With this sort of resolution onscreen graphics will be astonishingly good, words will look like they’re written on paper and the colours will to be blindingly bright.
Many of you may remember last year it was thought that Apple would put a Retina display in the iPad 2, but this failed to materialise. The tech blogs were awash with rumours of hi-res files found in the IPA files of the iBooks 2 app.
Although, it wouldn’t be such good news for developers as they would now need to take into consideration four different resolutions for all iDevices, which would of course be more costly and a lot more time consuming.
Quad-core Processor?
The iPad had a single-core A4 processor. The iPad 2 packed a dual-core A5 processor. If we’re led to believe our crystal ball there could be a new processor under the hood
unsecured loans of the iPad 3: a quad-core A6. This will obviously make games run smoother and switching between apps would be a breeze. But, some sources have poured cold water over this rumour and reckon the gpu will get a increase in speed, but the processor will remain the same as what is found in the iPad 2.
Will it be thicker?
One of the major changes from iPad 1 to iPad 2 was: thickness. But, according to some rumours, the iPad 3 might have put on some weight on to accommodate all this new shiny tech. According to this one loose-lipped Apple insider, Apple will need to add about 0.7mm to the iPad 2′s depth to accommodate a twin light bar system that’s needed to light up that higher-resolution display.
And let’s not forget the rumour that Apple hired a carbon fibre expert – so we could finally be seeing a carbon fibre iPad 3? It was thought the iPad 2 would get the carbon treatment – but again it didn’t materialise. Let’s hope that it materialises this time.
Siri?
Siri is the softly spoken digital assistant that made its debut on the iPhone 4S. The rumour, all be it fairly weak, suggest the mild-mannered assistant might make the jump from iPhone 4S to
iPad 3. Hidden with the iOS code was a tab called ”About Privacy and Dictation”. It might not sound very promising, but it’s the same legal literature which accompanies Siri on iPhone 4S – so never say never.
iPad 3 4G?
In America more and more devices are coming with 4G capability – which means there’s a possibility that this might happen with the iPad 3. Although, America has 4G, here in the UK were still quite away from fibre optic speeds over the air. Telecoms regulator Ofcom was supposed to be auctioning the
bad credit loans licenses to the networks this year, but its been delayed so we might have to wait until 2014 before 4G is introduced – meaning iPad 4G in Europe looks highly unlikely.
iPad mini?
There’s also talk of a smaller iPad to fend off any possible competition from a new Kindle Fire, as Amazon is planning to roll-out the tablet to other markets including the UK soon.
“It makes sense,” said Ezra Gottheil, who watches Apple for Technology Business Research, Inc., outside Boston. “What they’re seeing is a large number of smaller, cheaper tablets, and they want to be in on that market.”
We’ve heard of a possible smalled iPad for years now, but none of the rumour-mongering has come from Apple, they’re famous for keeping new products secret until they’re ready to be shown to the world. They have not commented on any of the myriad predictions of an iPad update next month, and they’re not about to respond to any talk about an iPad Mini. Which doesn’t exist. And isn’t planned. At least officially.
“The 7-inch form factor is quite a useful thing,” said Gottheil. “It’s more portable, and we’re getting to a point where people will own more than one tablet and take the more portable one with them.”
