Apple’s iPad 3 will resemble its predecessors, right down to the circular home button and a camera hole in the top bezel.
That information comes from Chinese Website Sina Weibo, which displayed a purported image of the iPad 3’s front assembly. The image also found its way onto Apple-centric blog MacRumors.
“The part appears nearly identical to that of the iPad 2,” the blog reported, “with the major distinguishing feature being a relatively long ribbon able extending up the side of the display as opposed to a shorter cable with a sideways orientation seen in the iPad 2.”
As a whole, the iPad range enters 2012 in a particularly strong market position. Throughout 2011, other tablets have plunged into the tablet arena with huge advertising budgets and the stated aim of becoming an “iPad killer”, only to find apathetic customers and a general lack of buzz.
“Our checks indicate modest sales of most competing tablet offerings including the Motorola Xyboard, RIM PlayBook, HTC View 4G, Samsung Galaxy tab and several other Android based devices,” T. Michael Walkley, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity, wrote in a January research note. “Also consistent with our checks, the Amazon Kindle Fire did not adversely impact iPad sales but more likely had a greater impact on e-reader sales.”
Apple’s next big tablet challenge might come in late 2012, when it will face Windows 8 on Microsoft and its manufacturing partners. Whatever features included with the iPad 3, they will need to prove capable of beating back that challenge, in addition to keeping Android at bay.
Apple is also wrestling with some controversy over the iPad’s manufacture. In late January, The New York Times published a series of reports about working conditions at Foxconn, which builds Apple’s bestselling products. “The workers assembling iPhones, iPads and other devices often labour in harsh conditions,” it said, using information partly drawn from unnamed factory employees. “Problems are as varied as onerous work environments and serious, sometimes deadly, safety problems.”
Those reports drew a fair amount of negative attention to Apple. In January, it became the first technology company admitted to the Fair Labor Association, and its suppliers apparently opted to cooperate fully with a “special voluntary audit” by the organisation. “We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in a statement.
What do you know about tablets? Take our quiz
Tesla retreats from pioneering gigacasting manufacturing process, amid cost cutting and challenges at EV giant
No skynet please. After the US, UK and France pledge human only control of nuclear…
Microsoft's AI investments continue in south east Asia, after investments in Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, as…
New chapter for LastPass as it becomes an independent company to focus on cybersecurity, after…
US FCC seeks to ban Chinese telecom firms at centre of national security concerns from…
Two updates to Anthropic's AI chatbot Claude sees arrival of a new business-focused plan, as…