iPad 2 and Summer iPad 3, Apple to break its product cycle just to pile pressure on its competitors !

NCS comments on iPads. 

John Gruber normally knows his stuff so when one of the most prominent Apple commentators around says that the iPad 3 might come in Summer 2011, months after the iPad 2, the world stops and listens.

First iPad 2 in March?

Two lines in a Japanese blog caled Macotakara mentioning a small event in March have been enough to start a rumour about the potential launch of the iPad 2 then.

The blog, which has in the past posted some pretty accurate information about Apple, says that the latter "seems to open a small event to introduce next generation of iPad."

The online publication has even published the picture of what seems to be the display bezel of an iPad 2. However, we're still hoping that the iPad 2 will be launched at the same time as the iOS 4.3, something that is set to happen over the next two weeks because of the launch of "The Daily" iPad newspaper.

Earlier reports have said that the iPad 2 will appear as early as this Sunday, 24 hours before the start of the Mobile World Congress and almost at the same time as Sony Ericsson presents the Xperia Play, LG its 3D tablets and smartphone and Samsung, its Galaxy S2 handset.

The guy behind Daring Fireball wrote that the HP Touchpad "might bump up against the release of the iPad 3" if the release date of the tablet slips "until late summer".

He adds that their distant shipping date comes with the added disadvantage that the tablet does not carry any details on pricing. Ouch. However, whether it makes sense for Apple to break its product cycle just to pile pressure on its competitors remains to be seen. The iPad 2 will probably go on sale in Spring which will leave a four months window before the iPad 3 supposedly go on sale.

The next generation iPad is expected to be completely different from the current model with a thinner design, a new operating system, a more powerful processor, more RAM, a different baseband processor and a supercharged graphics processing unit.

There were also persistent rumours about the iPad 2 sporting a retina display with a screen resolution of 2048x1536 pixels, four time that of the current iPad display.

So do we buy now or wait? I'm not sure so check back and I"ll keep you posted.

Desi Ramsey