After the barrage of contradicting and confusing claims about the expected iPad 5 during the past months, statements by Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst for KGI Securites, has cleared the air somewhat. The most relevant of the information places an iPad 5 launch date somewhere this fall, as opposed to a previous estimate for this month.
The revised launch date makes more sense, as it agrees with Apple's previous trend of launching new hardware at the end of summer, with June/July reserved for software releases. The analyst continues by claiming that Apple will hold true to its trend and make the iPad 5 25 percent lighter and 15 percent thinner than the previous model. While this is a much smaller deal than Apple had previously made it out to be, it could mean that the company will have to experiment with a new way of fusing the digitizer, screen and gorilla glass cover into a single thinner unit.
Further information points to a smaller bezel, a size between 7.5 and 8 mm in thickness, with a weight of approximately 500 grams. With current tablets already coming in at a smaller size than this, it is rather difficult to get too excited about these rumors. With the associated SoC apparently being the next generation Apple A7X, we are expecting the company to come out with an enormously powerful processor, in case they decide that one-upping the competition is no longer a business strategy.
Apple's annual WWDC is now confirmed for June 10, so maybe we'll know more by then.
