Apple Suppliers Say HD iPad 3 Unlikely To Launch This Fall

As the iPad 2 continues to soar in popularity, selling over 9 million units during Apple's last fiscal quarter, it should come as no surprise that people are already clamoring for its successor. Apple will undoubtedly follow up the iPad 2 with the iPad 3 (or iPad HD, or whatever else they might want to call it), but it's looking less likely that it will arrive on store shelves this year.

Digitimes reported today that several unnamed Apple suppliers of iPad components no longer have orders for parts for the expected fall debut of the next iPad.

"Apple was originally set to launch its iPad 3 in the second half of 2011 with a supply volume of 1.5-2 million units in the third quarter and 5-6 million in the fourth quarter, but Apple's supply chain partners have recently discovered that the related figures have all already been deleted, the sources pointed out."

The reason cited for this is LG and Samsung's inability to keep up with the demand for Retina displays. The iPhone 4 and latest iPod Touch both support the high resolution display, sporting 326 pixels per inch, which is supposedly more than the human retina can detect. This delivers ultra-crisp imagery and has been a major selling point for both products.

With the iPad 2 being nearly as feature-rich as the iPhone 4, donning a Retina display is the next logical step for the next-generation iPad. In fact, short of adding higher quality cameras and again reducing weight and size-- or adding some other mystery feature that will make it a must-have-- a Retina display will be the next iPad's strongest selling point.

Most pundits surmise that this would put the iPad 3 at a 2,048 x 1,536 resolution, exactly double that of the current iPads. Getting millions of these displays ready, considering the quality Apple needs, is clearly no small feat, and it may take suppliers longer to have enough on hand to deliver to Apple for manufacturing.

As Apple has called 2011 the year of the iPad 2, a delay (if it was actually going to happen in the first place) of the iPad 3 should not be shocking. Given that the iPhone 5 is already overdue, and that Apple is looking to sell roughly 30 million more iPads this year, it would make fiscal sense to postpone the iPad 2's replacement.

[Via Digitimes]