iPad Development
January 6th, 2012 at 10:29 AM EST | by inu846W
Apple’s new iPad 3 is rumored to launch sometime in March 2012, but maybe as early as February and as late as April. Who’s to say? But what we do know for sure is there has been a lot of news and new rumors about iPad 3 popping up in the media within the last few months.
MacRumors has been reporting the new iPad 3 will have better cameras and a slightly different design than its predecessor. According to iLounge, the front-facing camera will become HD and the rear camera gets a quality boost to that of the iPhone 4 or 4S.
Digitimes says the battery life on iPad 3 will be improved, but the biggest upgrade will be to the screen. iPad 3 is expected to include the much anticipated Retina display, first displayed in the iPhone 4, with 2048×1536 resolution.
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November 1st, 2011 at 1:55 PM EST | by inu846W
Since the untimely demise of Steve Jobs, little details about the inner workings of the most successful computer company in the world have been coming out in dribs and drabs. Among some of the most interesting tidbits is just how much different the iPad turned out to be than what the company originally expected. As we all know, Apple eventually decided on a 9.7” screen for the iPad, but when the device was in the development stage there were literally dozens of different sizes and aspect ratios being tossed around.
In Steve Jobs’ recently released biography, there is talk about how Jobs and Jonathan Ive finally arrived at the size and aspect ratio they did.
“They had twenty models — all rounded rectangles, of course — in slightly varying sizes and aspect ratios. Ive laid them out on a table in the design studio, and in the afternoon, they would lift the velvet cloth hiding them and play with them. That’s how we nailed what the screen size was,” Ive said in the book.
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October 5th, 2011 at 8:25 AM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
The long awaited Apple event has come and gone and now, instead of of speculating on what you might see, we now know what we are going to get. When it comes to the iOS5 the features seems to be well worth the wait. While several of the latest iOS updates have brought a little tweak here, or a little change there, iOS5 looks like it will truly change the way you use your iPad and iPad 2. So what do we get with the iOS5 updates? A ton of great stuff.
Notification Center
The Notification Center means that you can get all your notifications in one place. No longer will you have to close one app, and open another to go from your calendar, to your task list to your email. Swipe down on any screen and the Notification Center will pop up. Here you can view your new emails, calendar reminders, task reminders, friend requests (we’ll get to that in a minute) and texts. Yes you read that last word right …
iMessage
One of the coolest features, and one I’m going to get a lot of mileage from is the ability to actually text from the iPad or the iPod Touch as long as you are connected to the internet (either WiFi or 3G.) As long as you are texting someone else who has an iPhone, an iPad or an iPod, you can send and receive as many texts as you want. With other iDevices iMessage works as a chat client, as you can see when the other person is responding before they’ve type out a message. You can also include read receipts and can start talking from your iPod and finish the conversation on your iPad.
Social Network Integration
iOS5 will have much deeper social network integration in regards to Twitter and (in the near future) Facebook. Right now Twitter is the main social networking service and if you sign into your Twitter account through the settings menu, you’ll never need to sign in again. You can also tweet from photos, camera, Safari, YouTube, or Maps. Quick and easy.
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September 8th, 2011 at 2:38 PM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
It’s time for your daily iPad 3 rumor/news, this time from 9to5mac.com. Apple has long been rumored to be awarding the chip making for the iPad 3 to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and those rumors have now been all but confirmed by TSMC itself. The Taiwanese manufacturer will be mass producing the A6 chip some expect to be running the iPad 3’s processor. This A6 chip will be produced using the TSMC 28-nanometer process and are set to begin mass production early next year. According to the company’s head of research and development, production of these chips will have the plant working at full capacity.
TSMC also appears to be hoping to keep a relationship with Apple well beyond 2012. Chiang also said that his company was soon going to begin working on coming up with a 14-nanometer chip process in the near future. The 14-nanometer nodes are expected to begin production in 2015. TSMC and other component suppliers are recognizing a rift between Apple and Samsung, which has been the chip supplier for almost all Apple products for the last few years. The fact that by all accounts they won’t be working on the chip for the iPad 3 speaks volumes on how much that relationship has deteriorated.
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September 7th, 2011 at 10:45 AM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
iPad 2 battery image from iFixit
There have been a ton of rumors surrounding the iPad 3 over the last few weeks and months. When the device would get released, who would be helping Apple put the device together; and what kind of components it would have are all topics that had rumors flying. While the screen and processor have been the two components that have gotten the most discussion, there is a new component getting a boost that could make iPad 3 users very happy.
Taiwanese news sources are reporting that Apple is contracting with Simplo and Dynapack to put together batteries that would be significantly lighter and thinner and longer lasting than its predecessors. This thinner battery either means the iPad 3 overall will be thinner, or that the company is making room for a thicker screen. A thicker screen could be the way Apple has found to make Retina display quality possible after several false starts in that area.
With the upcoming iPad 3 to feature a thinner, lighter battery module that is widely believed to be priced 20-30% higher than iPad 2’s, Simplo Technology Co. and Dynapack International Technology Corp., both Apple Inc.’s contract suppliers of iPad and Macbook battery packs, will hence secure a surefire profit drive for the near future.
Institutional investors pointed out that the battery pack for iPad 3, scheduled to be massively produced in the first quarter of next year, has been redesigned to be thinner and lighter with a longer service life than iPad 2 edition’s.
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August 26th, 2011 at 3:16 PM EST | by Oliver VanDervoort
Has Apple bitten off a little more than it can chew as far as developing the iPad 3? Over the last few days and weeks we have brought you plenty of different reports and rumors about the newest iPad and when it will be released. More recently the underlying stories have been problems with developing the components in time for the planned release. Most stories have talked about how the Retina display that Apple wants included in iPad 3 has lead to moving the release back from later this fall to early 2012, but will another setback in regards to components push back the release further?
The A6 chip is another piece of equipment that is still being worked on and is also expected to be included in the newest iPad and is yet another reason for the release of the iPad 3 being pushed back. Originally reports said that the A6 chip would be done shortly after the start of the New Year but now a new report from CNET says that the faster chip may not be ready for mass production until the second quarter of 2012. The conundrum for Apple now is, do they still want to release an iPad 3 with better resolution but running on an A5 chip or do they want to wait until the A6 chip, which is reportedly going to have four processor cores (double the A5) and using the “3D” chip technology that Intel has recently begun trotting out? It is almost a certainty that at some point there will be an iPad 4 but would the company want to release two different models so close together?
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