Apple Drops 4G Branding From New iPad

Apple Drops 4G Branding From New iPad
14/05/2012 by Emily Price on Mashable

Apple is changing the way it’s marketing the iPad + 4G, dropping the 4G altogether and replacing it with the word “cellular.”

The move comes after complaints from an Australian competition regulator. While Apple was marketing the tablet as “4G” in the country, it currently cannot connect to Australia’s 4G network or the 4G networks in other countries outside of North America. Due to that fact, regulators felt Apple was misleading Australian customers about the device’s possible data speeds.

While much of the iPad’s website marketing — at least here in the U.S — still has the the 4G LTE designation, when it comes time to buy the tablet in the store, you’re now given the option to purchase just a “Wi-Fi” version, or a “Wi-Fi + Cellular” model.

While the term “4G” does refer to the data speed a device can achieve, it simply means that it can connect to a 4th-generation data network faster than its 3G predecessor. In the U.S., many device manufacturers use the “4G” label on devices that are not capable of data speeds as fast as some of their 4G competition.

One example is Apple’s iPhone 4S on AT&T, which now has a 4G designation, although according to the International Telecommunications Union the network the iPhone specifically runs on (HSDPA) is not a fourth-generation network. It’s more like 3.5G.

The new iPad is currently only capable of connecting to five true 4G networks, all of which are located in the U.S. or Canada.

[via 9to5 Mac]

New iPad 2012: Announcement Set For March 7, According To Rumor

The Huffington Post   Jason Gilbert

It appears that Apple has chosen a date on which the company will release its next-generation iPad.

Rene Ritchie of the Apple-focused blog iMore, citing "sources who have been reliable in the past," is claiming that Apple will unveil it's next-generation iPad at an event on March 7. Later, the iMore rumor was corroborated by blogger Jim Dalrymple, who covers Apple at his blog The Loop and who is viewed by many as an unofficial mouthpiece for Apple PR. The well-sourced Dalrymple confirmed Ritchie's rumor with his trademark, single-word response: "Yep."

It had previously been reported -- first by John Paczkowski of All Things Digital -- that the next iPad (unofficially known as the "iPad 3") would be announced at an event in San Francisco during the early part of March. Dalrymple, Nick Wingfield of The New York Times and Matthew Panzarino of The Next Web corroborated that report through sources of their own.

Seth Weintraub of 9to5Mac had previously floated March 7th as the likely announcement date, noting that the previous iPad was introduced on a Wednesday.

Apple has not responded to request for comment; the company generally does not address Internet rumors.

It has been almost a year since Apple unveiled a new iPad. On March 2, 2011, then-CEO Steve Jobs showed off the iPad 2 at a San Francisco event; Jobs introduced the first iPad a year before that. Given that Apple usually adheres to rigid release schedules for new products, it follows logically that the third iPad announcement would come in March, just as the first two did, even if the company hasn't hinted at an impending launch.

iMore also had some speculation about the technical specifications of the next-generation iPad (which, the New York Times noted, will not necessarily be called the iPad 3). It is generally accepted that the new iPad will feature a so-called Retina display, or a screen on which a user would not be able to make it individual pixels. (An iPad boasting a Retina Display would feature a screen resolution of 2,048x1,536 pixels, quadruple that of the iPad 2's 1,024x768 resolution.)

iMore claims that 4G LTE is also possible for the next iPad. Tech blog PhoneArena sparked similar rumors last week when it obtained photos of 4G micro SIM cards in AT&T stores. Though those micro SIMs are probably destined for the Nokia Lumia 900 coming to AT&T this spring, they could also fit in a next-generation iPad.

If the next iPad is 4G capable, it will be Apple's first 4G device.

iPad 3 -- or, perhaps, iPad 2S -- speculation is sure to continue as the tablet gets closer to its public debut. For more, check out the most recent Apple rumors in the slideshow (below).

After months and months of silly "iPad 3" speculation and guesswork, several respected news sources are reporting that the iPad 3 will be unveiled the first week of March 2012. 

First to report the news was John Paczkowski of AllThingsD, who you might remember was the first journalist to correctly report (from anonymous sources) that the newest iPhone would be unveiled in October 2011 AND, as though that wasn't enough, he was also first to report that October 4th was the date that Tim Cook would unveil the iPhone 4S. He has a good track record, in other words, and if his sources say that the iPad 3 will be unveiled in early March, then the iPad 3 is probably going to be unveiled in early March.

After the Paczkowski prediction came some confirmation from a bunch of well-sourced publications, including The New York Times, The Loop, and The Next Web, with The Next Web claiming that Apple was currently in "crunch mode" to get the thing ready by the first week in March. (Worth noting: The Times isn't quite sure that the next iPad will be called the iPad 3. Perhaps -- and this is just conjecture -- it will be called the "Apple TabletTron 6000.")

The next iPad's official presentation date is just about nailed down. So what is the iPad 3 (or TabletTron 6000) going to look like? Let's take a walk down speculation lane.

Image credit: Wired/The Huffington Post

Source: Huffigton Post