Monday, February 13, 2012

Apple iPad 3 rumours

There are several things that Apple can do with its next iPad, presumably the iPad 3. These include a higher resolution display, more cores on the processor, a faster processor, more storage, a higher capacity or higher endurance battery, a thinner form factor, more powerful camera's, LTE support and of course adding Siri. They could also add something that no one even know exists. 

What we do know is that it will launch sometime this year, most likely in March, and will almost certainly maintain the same price points as the iPad 2. What Apple will do is likely to be influenced mainly by price. Because of this, we should temper our expectations.
 
In 2011, Apple released a iPhone 4S which was considered disappointing from a hardware standpoint, but was a success from a sales standpoint. The absence of a new larger and higher resolution display, maintaining RAM at 512MB, moderately clocked dual core the processor speed and maintaining the old design all contribute to making the iPhone 4S cost of production low, which means a very high profit margin per sale.
The same will be true with the iPad 3. How good an iPad 3 does Apple have to produce. With 59% of the tablet market, and no real competitors at the higher end of the tablet spectrum I do not see any incentive for Apple to come out with a Super iPad 3.

The iPad 3 does not need to be spectacular for it to continue selling well. The reality is, a super iPad 3 would mean lower profits per iPad sold. I do not see any incentive for Apple to lower its profit margins.

As the iPad 3 launch date gets closer, we do see more muted rumours about what it might bring as compared to iPhone 5 rumours.. If the Apple iPhone 4S was good enough despite the strong competition, how good does a new iPad have to be?

1 comment:

  1. How abouth the 5th generation iPod Touch? I'm looking forward to that one. Hopefully it comes with a decent camera (5MP?).

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