14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has no need to launch a major iPad upgrade any time too soon, according to sources from the upstream supply chain, and the company is reportedly preparing an updated model of the iPad 2 for launch in early 2012.
This iPad 2S, if you will, is going to be thinner than the current-generation model, and it will have a better battery, these sources said.
According to Digitimes, they specifically mentioned that “internally Apple does not view the new iPad product as iPad 3, but rather an upgraded iPad 2.” The tablet is scheduled to launch in March, next year.
The real iPad 3 won’t see the light of day until the third quarter of 2012, the sources said. Needless to point out, this time schedule doesn’t seem to fall in line with Apple’s modus operandi. Small volume shipments of the iPad 2S are said to begin in the fourth quarter of this year, due to the Lunar New Year holidays in China in January.