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An analyst for Taiwanese firm Concord Securities has claimed that the iPad 2 will not boast the headline feature of its smaller brother the iPhone 4 – a high-resolution ‘retina’ display.
The reason, it is claimed, is that Apple has ordered between 4m and 4.5m units of the device to be prepared for the end of the current quarter. The yield rate for retina screens is simply not high enough, forcing Apple to revert to the standard 1024×768 screen seen in current models.
However, the new iPad is said to be up to 35 per cent thinner, include a new anti-reflective screen, far higher processing power, additional RAM and faster memory access.
In fact, the tablet is being touted as boasting core graphics tech of around 300 per cent more powerful than that seen in the iPhone 4.
Also said for inclusion are both front and rear facing cameras, as well as possible memory card support.
"iPad has two cameras. Front camera is 0.3MP [VGA, like iPhone 4] and rear one is 1MP [like iPod touch, rather than iPhone 4]," the analyst’s report claims.
"Front camera is for Facetime and Photo Booth and 0.3MP is enough because the resolution of iPad 2 is 1,024×768. Rear camera is for applications such as video recording and augmented reality.
"There are more and more photo and video editing applications for iPad in App Store. The SD slot could let users easily transfer photo and video files made by DSC and DV to iPad and edit them."
It estimates a March or April launch for the machine.
