Next iPad will be narrower but retain screen size, leaked parts show
The next iPad will reduce the size of the black bezel on the side compared to the existing version, seen here. Photograph: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
Apple's next iPad - dubbed the "iPad 5" by observers - will be significantly less wide and thinner than its forebear while keeping the same screen size, according to leaked parts shown on a US gadget site.
However the new iteration of the iPad mini, first launched last October, is exactly the same size, according to the cases leaked to Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy.
Hilsenteger says that the cases came from a trusted source who has proved reliable in the past. The finish on the cases, displayed in two videos, suggest that they are made by a supplier for Apple. "The parts have only become available recently and in very limited quality. They are fabricated by an OEM that delivers orders to Apple," he told the Guardian.
The video for the 9.7in iPad suggests that the new model - updating the one released last October at the same time as the iPad mini - will be significantly thinner, and about 17cm wide rather than 18.5cm for the older model, because the bezel on the longer sides of the screen has been made thinner - as on the iPad mini.
The cut in width means that the new iPad can easily be picked up in one hand, Hilsenteger says.
It also has improved speakers in the base, and a more square profile rather than the "bathtub" shape of previous models.
The parts provided by the supplier do not include the screen. There has been growing speculation that Apple will introduce a "Retina" version of its iPad mini, as it did with the original iPad in its third generation early in 2012. If it does, it could retain the older version at a lower price in order to grab a larger share of the mini-tablet market, where companies including Google, Amazon and Samsung are also competing.
Apple has not indicated when it will release any new iPads, though last year it chose to announce the iPad mini in a separate event roughly a month after that for the iPhone 5. But while iPad sales have slowed in the second quarter of the year while Android tablets grew, it may choose to move more quickly to grab the market ahead of retail events such as the US's "Black Friday" around Thanksgiving at the end of November and Christmas.
Posts
