Apple will launch the iPad 3 and iPhone 5 in the fall, according to a new report. Many news sources have pegged the iPhone 5 for a fall release.
Apple could be prepping for a fall release of a new iPad on
top of the iPhone 5, according to a new report by Taiwanese publication
DigiTimes.
"Sources pointed out that Apple only plans to launch one
model of the new iPhone, while iPad 3 has just recently been added to the
production schedule," read the
July 1 report, "with
both set to be produced in small volumes in August and volume will start
picking up in September and October."
While a fall release of the iPhone 5 has been the focus of
many a recent Apple-related rumor, a release of the iPad 3 in the same
timeframe has generally been dismissed by pundits and media. Certainly an iPad
3 launch would represent a radical speeding-up of Apple's tablet schedule,
which so far has timed iPad releases roughly a year apart.
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty recently stated in a
note to investors that the next iPhone "will begin production in mid to late
August and ramp aggressively." Her information apparently came from talks with
unnamed sources in Taiwan.
Bloomberg
also reported June 21 that the next iPhone will debut in September and
include the company's faster A5 processor, along with an 8-megapixel camera and
the recently introduced iOS 5 mobile operating system. In addition, that report
claimed Apple is developing a smaller, cheaper iPhone that utilizes "chips and
displays of similar quality to today's iPhone 4." That device will apparently
embrace the iPhone 4's design aesthetic.
The blog Boy Genius Report had previously cited August as a
possible start date for the iPhone 5's launch. "According to our source, Apple
may hold an event in the beginning or middle of August to announce the new
iPhone, with availability to follow in the last week of August," read a June 21
posting, which predicted that Apple will utilize a "radical new case design"
for the smartphone.
During a June 6 presentation at Apple's Worldwide Developers
Conference, company executives claimed that more than 200 million iOS devices
had been sold. Despite that sizable number, Apple is certainly feeling pressure
to keep iOS evolving in order to keep ahead of the growing family of
increasingly sophisticated Android devices; and that's on top of the
competition it faces from the likes of Research In Motion's PlayBook tablet and
Hewlett-Packard's just-released TouchPad, which runs webOS.
With this latest iPad 3 rumor, DigiTimes is running counter
to
its
own April report, which suggested it was unlikely that Apple would release
an iPad 3 in 2011. That report cited unnamed "upstream component makers."
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