iPad 3
Whenceforth art thou, iPad 3?
Everyone is talking about the iPad event on March 7th - it’s all retina this, quad-core that but no-one seems to be asking why would Apple release a major hardware revision this year?
Consider:
- the iPad 2 was released only a year ago
- the gap between the iPhone 4 and the 4S was about a year
- manufacturing 2048x1536 10" panels must be a complex process
- the iPad 2 is still ahead of the competition and …
- … selling very well indeed (15 million in 2012Q1)
- quad-core, LTE, a retina-sized display, etc. surely use a lot of battery
There’s no pressing financial or sales need for them to release something as advanced as the retina quad-core LTE iPad 3 this year.
What if they release an iPad 2S (CPU bump, Siri, longer battery life) instead of a retina iPad 3?
- gives them an extra year to work on manufacturing reliability and costs
- loses them no ground in their lead over the competition
- doesn’t cannibalise the exisitng iPad 2 sales as much as an iPad 3 would
- fits with the general “big leap every other year” schedule
On the other hand, the tagline for the event is “We have something you really have to see.” - although the screenshot doesn’t look retina to me (you can clearly see jaggies on “Calendar”.)

