While everyone was drooling over the new iPhone 4S and Siri, Apple may have silently started production of its iPad 3. As per analysts, Apple has increased iPad supply orders and this spike is believed to be driven partly by the new iPad 3. Compared with last month supply chain checks, around 600,000 to one million iPad 3 builds are showing up on the plan for the fourth quarter of 2011. Analysts feel this indicates a spring launch for iPad 3 or even in March. That would be exactly one year after the release of iPad 2.
Is the market ready for another iPad? It will certainly cement Apple’s reign in the tablet market. In September, Gartner folks estimated that Apple will be totally dominating over its competitors until 2014. Apple is expected to command more than 50 percent of the market share consistently for the next 3 years.
More positive reviews are pouring in from critics for this week’s release of iPhone 4S. “The one and only disappointment i have with the iPhone 4S is that the shutdown spinner animation is still low-res”, one reviewer wrote. “That’s pretty low on the list of nits to pick”. Though iPhone 4S has the same shape of iPhone 4, it comes with a better processor, great camera and a revolutionary voice-based personal assistant well integrated with Artificial Intelligence from Apple’s partners. iPhone 4S received a record 1 million preorders on the first day. Preorder stock of all the carrier partners is already exhausted. Though users can still place preorders for iPhone 4S, it might take a couple of weeks to get it shipped. Looks like one more blockbuster launch for Apple is on the cards.
