iPad 3 to Gain Improved Cameras? iPad 2 to Carry On at Lower Price?

Thursday January 5, 2012 1:11 pm PST by Eric Slivka

ipad 2 camera iLounge offers a new series of notes sharing information from a source about Apple's plans for the iPad 3. Among the most interesting notes is the claim that the next-generation iPad will carry significantly improved cameras on the front and back, moving to a FaceTime HD camera on the front and a higher-resolution iPhone-like camera on the rear.

The source also reiterates iLounge's earlier claim that the next-generation iPad will be slightly thicker than the iPad 2 while retaining the same general form factor.

1) A few next-gen iPad notes, ahead of the show. Both cameras are getting upgrades. Front goes HD, rear becomes iPhone 4/4S-like (bigger).

2) Body of the next iPad is, as we previously reported, getting just a little thicker to accommodate new parts - little = 1mm give or take.

3) Curve radiuses on the body will change only a little to accommodate the added thickness, not dramatically. Think iPad 2 Pro, not a redesign.

iLounge's source also follows some other current lines of thinking in reporting that Apple will continue to offer the iPad 2 alongside the iPad 3, dropping the price of the current model in order to tackle increasing competition from lower-priced competitors such as Amazon's Kindle Fire. Horwitz offers a $399 base price for the iPad 2 as a possibility, although that number appears to be pure speculation.

Finally, the iPad 3 is said to be in line for another March release, similar to that seen with the iPad 2 last year.

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Top Rated Comments

firestarter

194 months ago

Improved cameras.

Shouldn't this be filed under 'obvious'? :confused:

Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)

smulji

194 months ago

Not sure if they will go as high as 8MP for the back camera, but I think we all are expecting improvements in both the front and back cameras. They are mediocre at best right now.

The article did say the camera would be iPhone 4/4S capable so if true, at the very least it will have a 5 Mpixel rear camera.

As a side note, I'm actually more interested in what type of CPU / GPU Apple will use in the iPad 3.

Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

coder12

194 months ago

I call BS on this one.

I call SARCASM in your comment!

Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)

BC2009

194 months ago

These rumors seem so random. Honestly, its hard to imagine what great upgrade the iPad is going to get this year other than a Retina Display.

1) Assuming the A6 processor ready, then we should maybe expect a Cortex-A9 quad-core in the iPad 3 with improved graphics (probably obvious)

2) Bumping the resolution for the cameras is obvious, but by how much? Historically Apple has realized that only very strange people use their tablet as a point-and-shoot camera (though I did witness an iPad 2 being used this way at Disneyland in December -- the owner looked very silly snapping a shot of her daughter dancing with Disney princesses using her iPad 2 -- As an aside, I also witnessed a couple with his-and-her iPad 2s walking around the park with the iPads held just below the chests and their eyes on their screens instead of where they were walking -- very silly looking indeed especially with the crowds of people you could easily bump into -- yet some people are trying to use iPads like most would use an iPhone).

3) Apple could easily bump the RAM from 512MB to 1GB, but its kinda hard to tout this because they don't advertise the RAM in the iPad 2. Sure it could be filed under "faster". I know the iPhone 4S has RAM that can transfer data twice as fast as the iPhone 4, so perhaps this will be used at the very least.

What else? What more is Apple going to do with the iPad 3? They could make Siri available on it and exclude the iPad 2. They could add Thunderbolt to it, but if its really "PC free" then how much will this matter and how many have Thunderbolt PC's anyway?

It seems to me that the next iPad could be screaming fast with a beautiful screen and slightly to vastly better cameras. While the Retina Display is a huge deal for reading, I think the next great leap is when they merge the MacBook Air and the iPad into some kind of hybrid device that can run both iOS and Mac OS X. I believe Lenovo is attempting this with a Windows/Android hybrid and I think an OSX/iOS hybrid its something that many Apple users would want.

Personally, I am sitting back and waiting to see what Apple might do to surprise me on this one. Currently the iPad is the clear tablet market leader, but I'd like to see them keep raising the bar especially with Windows 8 on the horizon.

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

SuprUsrStan

194 months ago

Dropping it to 399 or even lower would put it in line to compete with the kindle fire and other low end android devices. It'll put the squeeze on the more expensive tablets as well.

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)