This year is going to be a very excited one as we are expecting many things to be announced very soon by Apple. While the blogosphere has been boiling with leaks and rumors regarding the iPhone 6, the next-gen iPads haven’t enjoyed as much time under the spotlight as its smaller sibling(s). Nevertheless, each passing day brings us closer to the day on which Apple will lift the veil on its upcoming tablets, and new reports concerning the aforementioned devices seem to start popping up on a regular basis.
According to G for Games, citing a report from Taiwan’s United Daily News, the third-generation iPad mini will adopt the “iPad mini Air†moniker and be 30% thinner than the current iPad mini with Retina display. If the rumor is true, the iPad mini Air would have an ultra-thin 5.25 mm design over the current iPad mini’s 7.5 mm thickness.
The publication also suggests that the iPad mini Air will be powered by the rumored Apple A8 processor, which could be a dual-core chip clocked at 2 GHz or higher. Apple manufacturing partner TSMC is believed to be fulfilling A8 chip orders.
As for the 12.9-inch model, David Hsieh -VP of the Greater China Market at DisplaySearch- said yesterday that Apple’s tablet shipments for year 2014 will be roughly the same as last year. This stagnation is supposedly caused by the slew of “whitebox†tablets, as well as the increasing number of Samsung slates on the market, populating all niches and price-ranges.
With that in mind, Apple might plan on countering the competition by expanding its tablet portfolio with a new 12.9-inch model. However, David Hsieh suggests that the larger iPad will not be released before year 2015 (contrary to the supply chain sources of Taiwan’s United Daily News, which suggest that the so called iPad Pro will debut at the end of Q3 / beginning of Q4 2014).
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