It’s all about the iPad this week and the various rumours surrounding the release of the next iteration of the multi-million selling tablet. The iPad 3 will be unveiled in February and then released in March 2012 so if you’ve only just got hold of an iPad 2 for Christmas, in a few months there’ll be a new improved model clamouring for your money.
What’s going to be different in the new version then? Why will it deserve the moniker ’3′ rather than ’2.1′ or whatever? After all, the iPhone 4s wasn’t deemed worthy of being an iPhone 5 because the improvements weren’t deemed revolutionary enough.
Everything is a rumour of course but there are one or two things we can garner from the small amount of information available in the ether. It’s going to look the same as the iPad 2 but those with a ruler may notice that it will be about 1mm thicker than it’s predecessor. A bit of extra room inside is hardly surprising when you’re trying to squeeze in a load of extra tech. The screen will be a 9.7 inch retina display; the ‘retina’ part meaning that even if you look at the screen with a microscope you won’t be able to see any individual pixels. The newer iPhones and iPod Touch already feature this.
iPad 3 mock-up
Perhaps the least publicist thing will be the inclusion of LTE connectivity. LTE is the acronym for Long Term Evolution and it means that the iPad 3 (or any other device) includes the capacity to use this new technology. LTE will ultimately bring very high speed wireless to mobile devices and tablets and although we may not see it supplied in any great quantity for a couple of years, devices such as the iPad 3 will benefit by being part of the development program. In-car hardware is thought to be one market in which LTE will prove useful (for live video traffic reports for example) and the iPad is already a prefectly adequate sat-nav device.
We’re sure the screen will be slightly bigger on the new iPad 3 with a better camera but we’re also sure there will be one big universal selling point (like Siri on the iPhone 4s) which will differentiate it from its predecessors.