The iPad 3 launch is less than a week away and leaks, rumours and general speculation are rampant. The latest rumours are such: the next iPad is to be slightly thicker than the current version, but will maintain its same tapered edges and aluminum backing. The new screen resolution could also be trouble for Apple’s current 20MB app download limit over 3G, since many graphics assets will need to be up to 300% larger to facilitate the 4x pixel count.
And what about the name? In accordance with its new “Retina” display resolution of 2048 x 1536, the third iPad is expected to be called iPad HD, if the listings from accessory maker Griffin are true. These findings have also been independently confirmed by someone who works at Belkin, another popular accessory maker.
The Griffin listing called for an IntelliCase for iPad HD (3), and there are several of them. This could be a placeholder to differentiate from the iPad 2, but if so, why wouldn’t they have just named it iPad 3? Instead they put the “3” in brackets. It would make sense for case manufacturers to be given a sneak peak of the new iPad in the run-up to the announcement, in order to facilitate a quick retail presence. Whether the name is just a placeholder is up for debate, but with many retailers dropping the price of the iPad 2 by up to $50, iPad fever is all but certain to begin again shortly.
And, according to some keen detective work by the folks at Ars Technica, the next iPad is currently being tested running iOS 6. Looking at their visitor logs, Ars determined that in addition to existing iPads 2 running the unreleased iOS 5.1 build (likely being released on March 7th), there are high-resolution iPads running iOS 6 with more advanced versions of WebKit than existing iOS 5 builds. For reference, current versions of Chrome for Android run WebKit version 535.7, so the current build of Safari in iOS 6 seems to be running the most current version of WebKit we’ve ever seen.
We’d go so far as to say iOS 6 will be shown off in some fashion during the March 7th iPad event, likely to launch in the summer. But that’s just us.
Source: Slashgear, Ars Technica
