# iPad 2 Fact, Rumor, and Supposition



## geko29 (Dec 23, 2008)

We're fast approaching the end of the iPad's first one-year product cycle.  So here's a bit of info that may be useful for those that aren't required to closely follow mobile tech as a condition of employment. 

RUMOR:  iPad production ended in December, and iPad 2 production began the first week of January
FACT:  iPad 2 will have a 9.7", 1024x768 display, just like the current model.  Part number is LP097X02.  LG is the manufacturer, and the part is thinner and lighter than the current model.
RUMOR:  Display is anti-glare to improve readability.
FACT:  Release iOS will be 4.3
FACT:  hardware switch configurable for mute or orientation lock
FACT:  new 5 finger "home" gesture
RUMOR:  possibly replacing home button?
FACT:  3 hardware variations will be available
SUPPOSITION:  These will be WiFi, AT&T 3G, and Verizon 3G
UPDATED! FACT:  Two cameras, a 640x480 front facing and ~1MP rear-facing.
RUMOR:  rear camera likely be the same .7MP unit in the 4th Gen iPod Touch.
FACT:  At least 512MB of RAM
RUMOR:  Possibly 1GB
FACT:  New processor
RUMOR:  Cortex A9-based CPU (Current is Cortex A, possibly dual core
SUPPOSITION:  Same capacities as before (16, 32, 64GB)
SUPPOSITION:  Same prices as before
FACT:  Case 4mm thinner (9.4mm), perfectly flat back, beveled edges
SUPPOSITION:  lighter, with same or better battery life
FACT:  Large opening on the bottom left, likely to be a large rear-mounted speaker replacing the tiny edge-mounted one on the current model.
RUMOR:  One source reports it's actually an SD card slot.
RUMOR:  Announcement sometime in February or March, with a release in April
SUPPOSITION:  Announced March 9th, Released April 2nd.

That's all I've got for now, more to come I'm sure....


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## mooshie78 (Jul 15, 2010)

I'll be sorely tempted as I really like it as multimedia device for video, net surfing, newspapers, magazines and comics.  But I'm also a professor and really would like a tablet with a slightly bigger screen and better stylus support for marking up papers, scholarly journal articles etc., so I'm torn.

If it happens that the 32GB wifi model is $500 (with the 16GB going away) I may take the plunge if there aren't any Android or Windows 7 tablets that more fit my needs by this summer.  If it's the same capacity and price schemes, I'd be more likely to just remain tablet-less for another year if something from another company fitting my needs and budget doesn't come out.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

We'll know for sure in a few months, but here's an interesting article feeding the frenzy (plus a few tidbits about the iPhone 5!)

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/14/exclusive-the-future-of-the-ipad-2-iphone-5-and-apple-tv-and/

I like my iPad a lot, and will probably upgrade it, but it is much too soon. At least one more round of upgrades, and maybe not then.


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## ValeriGail (Jan 21, 2010)

awesome info!  We waited in hopes that we wouldn't regret it.  Though it would be nice to have an ipad right now, I wouldn't have wanted to upgrade yet if we had bought one.. so glad we waited.  Whether we actually purchase one this time around is still up in the air.  I hope we do though.  

I am planning to upgrade to the I5 though, and can hardly wait.  I upgraded from my first gen Iphone to the 3gs only months before the release of the I4 and was sick over it.  My husband has the I4 and I'm super jealous of his cameras!


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## JeffM (Nov 22, 2009)

> FACT: 3 hardware variations will be available
> SUPPOSITION: These will be WiFi, AT&T 3G, and Verizon 3G


It appears the ipad will have a Qualcomm chip that will be able to talk to both networks. I've been reading there may only be one version as they're not going to have a WiFi only version. Seems it didn't sell nearly as well as the 3g version did on the 1st generation. Despite the $129 upcharge for the 3g version, the antenna itself only added about $24 bucks to the device.


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## mooshie78 (Jul 15, 2010)

If they go that route, hopefully they don't make the mistake Amazon did with the K3 and make it impossible to turn off the 3G and Wifi independently.

3G eats battery life much quicker than WiFi (3G kindle rated at 10 hours with 3G on, WiFi at 3 weeks with wifi on).  I'd never use the 3G as I wouldn't browse on the go away from hot spots on a tablet enough to pay for the fee.  But if it's able to be turned off while leaving WiFi on, and it doesn't add such an absurd amount to the price this time, I wouldn't mind having it built in and having the option of buying a month here and there when traveling etc. if needed.

But I'd prefer a cheaper WiFi only model.  Again, moot as I probably won't buy one anyway and will more likely wait for a more business oriented tablet from someone else to catch up on thinness/weight and battery life.


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## geko29 (Dec 23, 2008)

JeffM said:


> It appears the ipad will have a Qualcomm chip that will be able to talk to both networks. I've been reading there may only be one version as they're not going to have a WiFi only version. Seems it didn't sell nearly as well as the 3g version did on the 1st generation. Despite the $129 upcharge for the 3g version, the antenna itself only added about $24 bucks to the device.


 iOS 4.3 includes support for three distinct models, referred to internally as "iPad 2,1", "iPad 2,2", and "iPad 2,3". Now, it is possible that one of those three is the rumored all-band qualcomm-based unit and the other two will never be released, but that just doesn't seem like a 1Q11 move to me. I guess only time will tell.


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## kwajkat (Nov 6, 2008)

From what I have read yesterday you might want to change some of your "facts" to be more current.


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## JeffM (Nov 22, 2009)

Agreed, the only FACT at this point is that at some point in the not too distant future a new ipad will come out. The rest is all speculation at this point as nothing official has been released.


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## hsuthard (Jan 6, 2010)

I read here the display may well be enhanced, it's the only thing that would make me want to upgrade:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1080655


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## Daniel Pyle (Aug 13, 2010)

hsuthard said:


> I read here the display may well be enhanced, it's the only thing that would make me want to upgrade:


I'm with you. I do all my writing on my iPad, and if the new version has a retina display, it'll be really, really hard for me to pass it up. But if the display is pretty much the same, I'll probably wait for the iPad 3.

Not that the current screen is bad, but the retina display is unbelievably nice.


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## geko29 (Dec 23, 2008)

kwajkat said:


> From what I have read yesterday you might want to change some of your "facts" to be more current.


It appears I was completely wrong on the display end of things, despite having multiple independent sources to the contrary. On the plus side, if I was going to get any single point wrong, that's the one that excites me the most. Updated.

As to the SD card slot, I personally don't see it happening, largely due to greed. Having a memory card slot completely eliminates the value proposition for the larger capacity (and substantially higher profit margin) models. Why pay $100 to double your storage, when you can do so yourself for $25 and literally 3 seconds of your time? Of course, I suppose Apple could cripple it, only allowing it to be used to transfer JPEGs to the onboard storage. But aside from sowing some outrage in the ranks (ok, just a little outrage, there are quite a few apologists), such a limitation would undoubtedly be quickly defeated by the jailbreak community.


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## kwajkat (Nov 6, 2008)

I find that little bluetooth device, Air Play to be interesting. They said right now it holds up to a 32GB Sd card but will expand up to 2TB in the future I am guesssing that is a software upgrade.  I can't see them putting an SD slot on the ipad itself since they haven't done that with any other device, itouch iphone etc despite alot of people wanting more space.  The Air Play would be nice to bypass that I think especially since it will hold videos which is the biggest storage hog on my devices.


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## JeffM (Nov 22, 2009)

I thought this was a neat read. I'm getting really excited!
http://toucharcade.com/2011/01/17/ipad-2-rumors/
______

According to Rumors, The iPad 2 Could Potentially Be a Beastly Gaming Machine
posted January 17th, 2011 4:12 PM UTC by Eli Hodapp in Rumors, iPad

Before I get started with this, please take everything in this post with a grain of salt. The accuracy of the Apple rumors community historically has varied widely between spot on, and, well, about as good as the ancient art of Tyromancy. That being said, because of how secretive Apple as a company is, following these rumors sure is a lot of fun- Regardless of whether or not they turn out to be true.

First off, since we learned about the Retina Display of the iPhone 4, the Internet has been rumbling with the potential of a similar "Retina" display in the successor to the iPad. According to Mac Rumors, this might not be as far fetched as originally thought. Apparently, version 1.1 of Apple's iBooks [Free] "accidentally" included some graphical resources that are twice the size of the ones currently in use on the iPad.

Now, depending on how you read these virtual tea leaves, this could mean one of two things: Someone at Apple knows that rumor hounds will dig through absolutely everything they can for any kind of hint, or the screen resolution of the iPad 2 will be double that of the current iPad. This would put the screen resolution at 2048×1536, sporting 260 DPI. It's not quite the pixel density of the iPhone 4's Retina Display, but you typically hold the iPad much farther away from your eyes. This means that even at a lower DPI this screen could potentially provide a similar "Retina" effect. (I suppose there's a third alternative that this means neither of these things, but how much fun is that?)

Things get even more interesting though when you consider that Global Direct Parts, the guys who had the "iPhone 5" parts video (which actually turned out to be the CDMA Verizon iPhone), also have their hands on a screen that fits the previously mentioned description. The price of this part? $218.19, compared to the original $144.99 the original iPad screen cost at launch from the same site.

But what does the higher price of the components have to do with anything? Well, as appleguy123 points out on the Mac Rumors forums, according to Apple's 2010 Annual Report:

The Company expects its gross margin percentage to decrease in future periods compared to levels achieved during 2010 and anticipates gross margin levels of about 36% in the first quarter of 2011. This expected decline is largely due to a higher mix of new and innovative products that have higher cost structures and deliver greater value to customers, and expected and potential future component cost and other cost increases.

Whether this refers specifically to the increased cost of the components in the iPad 2, or something else entirely is anyone's guess, but it is a curious coincidence. If the screen does turn out to be 2048×1536, there's an entirely new issue to be addressed: The sheer number of pixels the iPad GPU is going to have to push. For the sake of comparison, the resolution of a 30" LCD is only barely higher, at 2560×1600. Gaming at that resolution is a formidable task for even dedicated gaming PC's, much less a mobile device. That's higher resolution than what we consider "HD" these days as well, which only weighs in at a paltry 1920×1080 in comparison.

Mac Rumors has an answer to this too, courtesy of Apple Insider. If these rumors turn out to be true, both the iPad 2 and iPhone 5 will use a dual-core SGX543 GPU from Imagination Technologies. What makes this rumor hold more water than your typical bean spillage by an "industry insider" is the fact that the iOS 4.3 beta already includes drivers for this GPU. Odd coincidence, eh? What's even cooler is that not only do these GPUs boast some incredible performance figures, they also support anywhere between two and sixteen cores handled entirely by hardware, without a single change to any software required to scale performance.

Again, I'm not entirely sure how true these rumors are, but there is something strange afoot. It would make the most sense to double the iPad screen resolution, as it would allow graceful upscaling via pixel doubling much like running a non-Retina Display app on the Retina Display of the iPhone 4. If Global Direct Parts' pricing can be trusted, the component cost of the screen doesn't seem that far out of line. On top of all that, it's really hard to deny the coincidence between the GPU rumors and Apple actually including the drivers for that very GPU inside of their own operating system.

We'll have to wait and see what Apple reveals as the inevitable iPad 2, but if the Apple rumors scene is to be believed, it has potential to be an insane gaming machine.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704364004576132643125168876.html

The Wall Street Journal says three ipad 2 is in production. This is reportedly a typical Apple incremental upgrade, thinner, lighter, a but more memory, and graphics processing capability. Some will be excited by the addition of a front-facing camera. No screen resolution changes appear to be involved.

I'll be quite happy sticking with my ipad 1 for another year. Nothing in the ipad 2 as reported, nor in the Android tablets so far tempts me to spend more money.

Sent from my Sprint EVO using Tapatalk


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

The Hooded Claw said:


> I'll be quite happy sticking with my ipad 1 for another year. Nothing in the ipad 2 as reported, nor in the Android tablets so far tempts me to spend more money.


Same here.

Mike


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## JeffM (Nov 22, 2009)

I sold my ipad a month ago in anticipation of a new version.  Now I'm really torn between the Motorola Xoom and the ipad 2... and today HP announced it's Touchpad using the WebOS operating system.  I had a Palm Pre phone that used WebOS and it was fantastic.

So many choices...  At this point I think I'm leaning towards the Xoom, but until Apple makes some sort of formal announcement with specs it's too early to tell for sure.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

If Kindle on your tablet is important, you may want to see how the effort to force an iTunes option into book sales goes. I really like my iPad, but Apple's aggressive control is making me think a second-gen Android tablet may replace my iPad in a year, rather than an iPad 3.


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## JeffM (Nov 22, 2009)

That's one of the big reasons I'm currently leaning toward the Xoom as a matter of fact. Also, it'll be 4G capable, where the ipad 2 likely won't be.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

The iPad 2 may be announced soon. So permit me to unveil the first iPad 3 rumor!!!

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/09/apple_may_be_prepping_ipad_3_for_fall_2011_launch_rumor.html


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## planet_janet (Feb 23, 2010)

The Hooded Claw said:


> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704364004576132643125168876.html
> 
> The Wall Street Journal says three ipad 2 is in production. This is reportedly a typical Apple incremental upgrade, thinner, lighter, a but more memory, and graphics processing capability. Some will be excited by the addition of a front-facing camera. No screen resolution changes appear to be involved.
> 
> I'll be quite happy sticking with my ipad 1 for another year. Nothing in the ipad 2 as reported, nor in the Android tablets so far tempts me to spend more money.


Agreed. Thinner/lighter in addition to a higher resolution screen and front AND rear facing cameras might have tempted me, but since it looks like all of those features aren't going to be ready for iPad 2, I think I'll stick with my first gen for the time being.


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