Apple released a tweaked version of the third generation iPad at its media event in San Jose, California. Contrary to expectations though, Apple surprised us by calling it the fourth generation iPad, rather than calling it an incremental upgrade.
The 4th generation iPad looks exactly like the iPad 3 (new iPad), but it comes with a number of improvements such as Apple’s new faster A6X chip, FaceTime HD camera, expanded LTE support and more.
A lot of 3rd gen iPad buyers are up in arms against Apple’s decision to release the new 4th gen iPad within a period of 6 months.
Apple anticipated such a backlash, and is apparently exchanging 3rd gen iPads bought within the past 30 days for the newest model.
According to information received by 9to5Mac, Apple will be releasing four new lightning adapters, a new MagSafe 2 power adapter and, a new 12W power adapter at today’s event.
The 12W USB power adapter could allow for much faster charging of the rumored tweaked third generation iPad, as compared to the current 10W adapters which take way too long to fully charge the device.
Last week, Apple sent out invites for the media event to be held later today with the tag line “We’ve got a little more to show you“.
With just over 8 hours to go, here’s what we can expect from Apple’s iPad event tomorrow, based on all the rumors and speculations we’ve heard so far.
Apple is widely speculated to release a tweaked version of iPad 3 alongside the smaller and cheaper iPad at the media event on Tuesday.
BGR has posted photos, which it claims are of the tweaked iPad’s display assembly.
It is widely speculated that Apple will release a tweaked version of the iPad 3 along the smaller iPad at the media event on Tuesday, October 23.
The tweaked iPad 3 could come with Apple’s new Lightning connector and global 4G LTE support like iPhone 5.
There have been several rumors that have claimed that Apple will also unveil a tweaked version of the larger iPad along with the iPad mini at a media event on October 23.
9to5Mac reports that according to their sources, Apple will indeed announce a tweaked version of the full-sized iPad at next week’s media event.
Apple is known to not let the possibility of cannibalisation of its own products come in the way of bringing out new, and on many occasions radically different products to the market. The MacBook Air cannibalised the sales of traditional desktops and notebooks, the iPad cannibalised sales of Macs and so on.
Analysts have now started adjusting their iPad sales estimates, taking into account the imminent iPad mini release. According to their estimates, the smaller device would no doubt sell in great numbers during the holiday season, but it won’t carve the entire market without affecting the 9.7″ iPad’s sales numbers.
The new iPad’s Retina Display is widely considered as the best display on a mobile device.
However, in a during a Reddit IAmA event on Tuesday, Microsoft engineer Steve Bathiche claimed that Microsoft Surface has a better display than iPad’s Retina display.
Microsoft started taking pre-orders for its Microsoft Surface RT tablets yesterday.
Surface RT is powered by NVDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, comes with 10.6-inch display, 2GB of RAM, 720p HD rear and front facing cameras in a “VaporMg” magnesium casing. The Windows RT (Microsoft’s ARM-friendly version of Windows 8) tablet, also offers a built-in kickstand.
