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Mid-Range and High-End iPad 3 Launching at iWorld Seems Unlikely
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I tend to agree with this. Given the battery issues and the common complaint about the backlight and outdoor issue I think that it is more likely that Apple would up the res just enough to support 1080p and improve the backlight etc now and then in a year or two move to the whole retina display. they could be pairing this res move with an improvement in the whole iTunes store video quality to go with the release of a new Apple TV in whatever format they are wanting to go (tv or STB).
But what kind of weight and thickness are we talking about. I think that consumers, as much as they love the thin iPad 2 would be happy to take on a half a CM and/or an extra ounce or two if it meant double the battery life. Because while noticeable it's not really that huge of a change.
No, 50% accuracy is no better than guessing when there's only two choices to guess from. If you can guess right 50% of the time from three or more choices, you should go gambling because you'll become very rich.
Apple doesn't care about the low-end competition any more than they cared about competing with Dell. That's not the market they're after. There's no margin in that market and as we all know, as far as hardware is concerned, Apple only works at high margin. Barnes & Noble and Amazon are selling their devices as a loss leader to gain market share and to sell eBooks. Apple does the opposite: they break slightly better than even on the iTunes store in order to make their margins on hardware.
Although Apple has occassionally reduced prices, most of the time they simply provide more value (more memory, bigger hard drive, better monitor, whatever) for the same price as the previous model. Having said that, if they have large inventory of the previous model, they will discount that, but Apple keeps such tight control over "just in time" inventory, it's usually not the case.
As far as the rumors that the iPad will split into low- and high-end model lines, John Gruber (who is basically never wrong about future Apple products) states pretty unequivocally that the iPad line is going to expand in a footnote to this article http://daringfireball.net/2011/09/new_apple_advantage.
gimme double the storage or a card slot. the apps are getting big. 64gb seems like a lot but my iPad is stuffed. i keep deleting more music to fit apps. i haven't had a movie on it in months.
After careful analysis of recent rumors, I now believe that Apple will ship 4G-capable, 32" and 37" iPad's on 2.24.12.
The original iPad was 1.5lbs (WiFi) & 1.6lbs (3G). The iPad 2 is a tad more than 1.3lbs for all models. The original iPad was quite heavy as a handheld and a huge complaint against it. The iPad 2 is approaching tolerable weight even though it's only 15% lighter. So, I don't think that is a trade off most people would take given the iPad is a handheld device and the battery life as-is is pretty good. Most people are not using their iPad for hours and hours at a time like a laptop.
Of course, it all comes down to weight... They can indeed look for a lighter device without harming durability, but they can also look the other way by having better durability without changing the weight...
I'm not specialist, but a 230 grams for a 14,000 mAh battery in a 680 grams devices that mainly contains only a chassis, a screen and a battery... it could look about right.
I'd just keep this rumors in the "maybe, possibly, 50-50%" probability.
Spid
MacWorld Falls Into It's Own Blackhole
MacWorld is so over as any kind of important, or even relevant tech expo that they are now kinda desperately relegated to shamelessly churning out false rumors just to try and drum up a little more ticket sales for their rapidly collapsing "World".
Paying for the privilege of being heavily marketed to by a bunch of over-priced third party retailers - sans any sort of actual official Apple Corp. participation, is going over about as well as are recent subscription sales of their similarly titled wall-to-wall advertising circular.
Maybe there really are enough gullible die-hard "Mac" Marketing marks still floating about to keep their dying "World" spinning for another year, or so...but the days of shelling out any kind of real, harder to come by $$$$ for the high artifice of being uber-advertised to is rapidly coming to an inglorious conclusion.
There is nothing "exclusive" anymore about attending a MacWorld.
No Jobs. No Apple and basically..No Point to staging yet another banal MacWorld!
So in their owners/managers crude reasoning - why not throw out some totally unfounded iPad 3 Rumors and see what sticks?
MacWorld is so over as any kind of important, or even relevant tech expo that they are now kinda desperately relegated to shamelessly churning out false rumors just to try and drum up a little more ticket sales for their rapidly collapsing "World".
Paying for the privilege of being heavily marketed to by a bunch of over-priced third party retailers - sans any sort of actual official Apple Corp. participation, is going over about as well as are recent subscription sales of their similarly titled wall-to-wall advertising circular.
Maybe there really are enough gullible die-hard "Mac" Marketing marks still floating about to keep their dying "World" spinning for another year, or so...but the days of shelling out any kind of real, harder to come by $$$$ for the high artifice of being uber-advertised to is rapidly coming to an inglorious conclusion.
There is nothing "exclusive" anymore about attending a MacWorld.
No Jobs. No Apple and basically..No Point to staging yet another banal MacWorld!
So in their owners/managers crude reasoning - why not throw out some totally unfounded iPad 3 Rumors and see what sticks?
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Well, my point was that these rumors seemed to be pulled straight out of thin air, and my "$200 price drop" prediction was similarly made up with absolutely nothing to substantiate it. (And, in fact, flies in the face of logic -- twice the battery power in the same size case? Did they invent a new kind of magic battery that nobody knew about until now?)
I figure my guesses are just as credible as the rest of these so-called rumors.
Apple does care about the low end competition, that's why they still offer the iPhone 3GS. Regardless if Apple does release 2 iPads this year I see the iPad 2 being the iPad version of the 3GS.
Scenario 1: One iPad this year ( iPad 3 )
iPad 2 stays in production for $100 less, $400 for base 16GB Model with Wifi
iPad 3 with A6 and all the different form factors, GSM/CDMA maybe LTE, better cameras and Retina
Scenario 2: Two new iPads this year ( iPad 2S feb/march, iPad 3 oct/nov)
iPad 2 stays in production for $100 less, $400 for base 16GB Model with Wifi in feb/march, come oct/nov iPad 2 will be $300 for holiday season.
iPad 2S with A5 chip, retina, all form factors GSM/CDMA, and upgraded cameras, etc. starting at $500, come oct/nov price drop to $400.
iPad 3 with retina , all form factors GSM/CDMA/LTE and upgraded cameras etc. $500
I think Scenario 2 could be a strong possibility if the A6 chip is not released in the new iPad come feb/march. Apple will continue to make their profit margins, I think it is getting cheaper for Apple to get components and if Samsung made a factory in Texas to make the A5 chip, I think Apple has big plans for that chip still. Originally the A5 was described to have enough power to drive retina on the iPad, and with rumors of the Apple Television, I think Apple may use the A5 in that two.