Apple conquered the tablet market with the original iPad, dominated with the iPad 2 and still hasn't found a decent competitor (unless you count the Kindle Fire!). Reports suggest that the next iteration of the iPad family will be announced in the first week of March. We bring you the best of the rumours doing the round with a dose of our own predictions.
1. New Processor: Initial rumours indicated that the iPad 3 would run on an all-new A6 quad-core chipset. New reports indicate that Apple might infact go with a modified version of the A5, the chip that powers the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S. With the NVIDIA Tegra 3 (quad-core) powered Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime setting the benchmark in terms of raw processing power, the iPad 3 has some catching up to do.
2. Retina Display? The 1024 X 768 display of the iPad 2 is starting to look long in the teeth, especially when compared to iPhone's retina display. A better display is definitely on the cards but whether or not the resolution is bumped up to 2048x1536 remains to be seen.
3. GPU & RAM: Details on the iPad 3 GPU and RAM are scarce. It is quite likely that the improved display would be powered by a faster GPU. RAM is likely to remain the same at 512 MB.
4. 4G/LTE: 3G may still be in its nascent stages in India but the adoption has been much faster worldwide. With 4G and LTE smartphones already hitting store shelves in the US, it is quite possible that Apple will adopt the technology in the next gen iPad. On the other hand, the not so impressive battery performance of 4G/ LTE chips may prove to be deterrent.
5. Universal Radio: With Apple merging the GSM and CDMA versions of the iPhone 4S into a single device, we expect the iPad 3 to go down the same road.
6. A better shooter: In terms of other hardware enhancements, we hope the device sports a better camera. A 5MP camera would be a welcome upgrade since the iPad 2's camera doesn't really shoot stellar stills. Would it be too much to ask for full HD recording as well?
7. An iPad mini? Speculations on the Internet believe that a 7-inch iPad is in the works in Apple's underground gadget lab, but we don't think the device will see the light of day in the next round of updates.
8. A new design? We hoped for a redesigned iPhone and got the iPhone 4 with an "S", so our hopes aren't really that high for a redesigned iPad. We would however like it if Apple redesigned the docking port to offer a more secure fit when mounting it on a dock.
9. Bluetooth 4.0: Since the iPhone 4S was the first smartphone to implement Bluetooth 4.0 technology, we are hoping the same will translate to the iPad 3.
10. Siri: It seems like a given that Apple's voice controlled personal assist will translate from the iPhone 4S to the iPad, but sometimes, its necessary to state the obvious.
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