It’s recently been claimed that the iPad 3 A6 may in fact be dual core (not quad core). While 100% understandable (what apps would take advantage of it?) It’s still obviously disappointing. So, rather than speculate on that, I’m just going to ramble off what I think are realistic but ultimately hopes for the next iPad
- 1080p rear camera (with 1440×1080 stills)
- 720p front camera (960×720 stills)
- “Universal” 3G model (CDMA+GSM)
- Separate Verizon LTE model
- Quad core but behaves like Intel chips with their “boost” performance
- Finally 1024MB RAM BUT apps sandboxed to 256 or 512
- Same relative form, same smart covers (existing ones will work)
- 2048 x 1536 Resolution
- Appropriately beefed up GPU
Some explanations…
The cameras will remain kinda terrible because they’re for FaceTime, not anything else.
The only reason Apple wouldn’t make a universal 3G device is because it gives consumers too much power and Apple doesn’t have the arm twisting power over carriers it used to. LTE still uses to much power (relatively speaking) so don’t hold your breath.
The “boost” feature I’m talking about is napping unused cores and increasing the clock on the remaining one(s). If Apple does give it 1024MB of RAM that would put it at 4x the currently sold iPod Touch and iPhone 3Gs and Original iPad. Even with ARC, this might encourage developers to get lazy so I wouldn’t be surprised if the sandbox limited the amount of RAM apps could see.
2048 x 1536 = 2 x 1024 x 768. In other words, apps can run at 2X with no modification. This is the only way it will happen. I can’t believe we’ve spent over a year listening to morons claim it could be 2560×1600 or that Apple should “bump” it to 1600×1200. That is a lot of pixels to drive. Scaling 480×320 iPhone apps up to that will look even crapper than it does now. Either Apple will finally implement retina support if iPhone only apps (bringing their 960×640 to the same relative crappiness but not worse) or perhaps more drastically, give developers notice that this feature is gone in iPad 3 and will disappear on iPad 1 and 2 with iOS 6.