Apple Rumors: iPad 3
Saw on various Apple news/rumor sites yesterday that there’s a new rumor that Apple is going to announce the iPad 3 in January - At iWorld (which I believe is the renamed Macworld). My take on this:
When. hell. freezes. over.
Apple famously decamped from Macworld and most every other tech conference it participated in many years back. I know Steve Jobs is gone, but there’s no way that Apple is going to go back to conference participation. The reason is still the same: Apple wants control of their product launches and by participating in conferences, they give up some control as to when they can release new products. In fact, Microsoft rolled out the same excuse regarding CES a few weeks ago. So, no new iPad at iWorld. Willing to put money on it.
That said, I do think the iPad 3 is coming early 2012. With retina display. Yippie! At the same time I suspect they’ll maintain iPad 2 at a lower price ($299 probably, $249 if they are spooked by the kindle Fire). But, no 7” iPad this year. File it away for claim chowder.
As to when: figure an announcement either before (unlikely but possibly Jan 17 or 24) or shortly after iWorld (which is Jan 26-28 2012) where Apple will introduce the iPad 3 and announce iOS 5.1 availability to developers (which they will have to do so developers can get their apps ready for retina iPads). The actual date you’ll be able to get grubby hands on an iPad 3 is no sooner than mid-April.
Still kind of amazes me that people seem so perplexed by Apple’s product launch cycle. To my eye, they have “windows” - early sping for iPads, summer for iPhones and fall for iPods. Laptops and Desktops go when they are ready via either special events or press releases. Pretty simple.
