Apple May Announce an iPad Upgrade in March
By NICK WINGFIELD, NICK BILTON and BRIAN X. CHEN | February 9, 2012, 3:53 PM

Apple is planning to introduce an upgraded version of its iPad tablet at a press event early next month, according to people briefed on the company’s plans.

An Apple employee said that the version of the new iPad that is being tested inside the company is “essentially the same size and shape as the iPad 2,” with an improved and “truly amazing” screen. The tablet will include a faster processor, said the employee, who did not want to be identified because Apple is not fond of leaks.

It’s unclear whether the product will be called the iPad 3. In the weeks leading up to Apple’s introduction last October of a new iPhone, there was rampant speculation that it would be called the iPhone 5. It was actually called the iPhone 4S, a name that implied more modest changes than the bold redesign some pundits had hoped for. That early grumbling did not stop the iPhone 4S from helping Apple post record holiday sales.

Apple’s first iPad was released in April 2010, and the iPad 2 came out in March 2011. The company typically upgrades its mobile products about once a year.

With the iPhone 4, Apple introduced a screen with a higher pixel density, which it called a retina display. The next iPad could presumably come into line with recent iPhone models and have a similar display.

All Things D, the technology blog, reported earlier that Apple would announce a third-generation iPad next month at an event in San Francisco. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

Over all, Apple has sold more than 55 million iPads to date. If you consider the iPad to be a computer, Apple was the biggest seller of personal computers in the world during the holiday season of 2011, according to Canalys, a research company.

Source: Technology - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Photo of iPad 3 Logic Board with "A5X" System on a Chip

A forum post at Chinese site WeiPhone offers a photo of what is claimed to be the iPad 3's logic board showing an "A5X" system-on-a-chip.

Apple is expected to introduce an upgraded processor and graphics package for the iPad 3, with the assumption being that it would be called the A6 after the A4 initially appeared in the original iPad and iPhone 4 and was succeeded by the A5 in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. But if this photo is to be believed, that assumption appears to have been incorrect, with Apple instead having branded the upgraded package with the A5X name.

A date code of "1146" on the A5X indicates that it was manufactured in the 46th week of 2011, which would have corresponded to November 14-20.

An "A5X" as a step-wise upgrade corresponds with progression of processor part numbers as revealed by BGR in February. At the time the A4 was known to be the S5L8930X, the A5 as the S5L8940X and the new iPad processor as S5L8945X.

Several other features are also visible on the logic board, including a pair of 16 GB flash memory chips from Hynix and a rectangular Apple-branded chip. That chip appears to correspond to power management chips found in previous iPad teardowns but which carries a higher part number, suggesting an upgraded part.

Apple is expected to introduce the iPad 3 at a media event on March 7, with the device also receiving an ultra high-resolution display and LTE capabilities. Other claims have suggested that it will carry a slightly more tapered case design and perhaps offer an 8-megapixel rear camera.

iPad 3 with More Tapered Edge and an 8 Megapixel Back Camera?

NextMedia / Apple Daily claims to have received the following photos and information through "special channels". The photo below shows what is claimed to be an overview shot of the new iPad 3 back enclosure (top of image) as well as a comparison shot between the original iPad, the iPad 2 and the New iPad (inset). (via Apple.pro)

The shell should look familiar as it seems to be the same part we previously published. The lighting, however, is much better in this shot, and reveals the more subtle changes. There are notably no markings on the back of the case besides the Apple logo, itself.

The iPad 3 enclosure seems to have a more gradual taper to the edges than the iPad 2. The taper is seen better on the top overview photograph. As a result of this longer taper, the iPad 3's camera rests on the taper itself. We saw this before but due to the dark lighting of that image, the taper seemed more exaggerated.

The absolute positioning of the camera doesn't seem that far off from the iPad 2, but the lens does appear larger. According to NextMedia, the new iPad 3 camera will see a significant upgrade to 8 megapixels. The current iPad 2 back camera is 1 megapixel in resolution. The site also summarizes many of the other expectations for the iPad 3, such as an improved display, quad-core CPU, and a March 7th announcement date.

We've seen a rumor from the site only once before. They predicted new MacBooks, MacBook Pros and MacBook Air models back in April 5, 2010. The MacBook Pros (alone) did launch 8 days after that report, though some of the details (hard drive sizes) didn't match up to the report. Overall, the images here seem to match up to other parts that have been floating around China. Apple Daily is described, however, as a "tabloid-style" newspaper, but the Hong Kong edition is said to be quite popular as the second best selling publication.

With the timeframe at which the iPad 3 will be released, we already knew it couldn't have a Cortex A15 quad-core processor, which will be released at the end of the year.

The choices were:

Dual-core Cortex A9 (like in the iPad 2)
Quad-core Cortex A9 (like in the PSVita)
Dual-core Cortex A15 (like the newly announced Samsung Exynos 5250, TI OMAP 5)

Given the poorer efficiency of quad-core processors in general and the better efficiency of the A15 architecture over the A9, a dual-core Cortex A15 would have performed better than a quad-core A9 that's clocked slower.

Apple usually cares more about real-world performance than about having impressive spec terms anyway. Those that would like to brag about having a quad-core phone are generally more interested in Android-based phones to begin with.

I think it's safe to assume that the A5X will not be a quad-core. The number of cores was the only "spec" Apple has talked about when they presented the A5. Now that the new A5X SoC doesn't have more cores, it's hard for them to justify an A6 being significantly better than the A5 without getting technical and explaining the architecture difference between a Cortex A9 and A12, which Apple obviously wouldn't do. A5X makes it sound like it's the same old dual-core processor, just faster (like iPhone 4S vs iPhone 4).

Now there are two possibilities:
The A5X is still just an A5. It uses the same Cortex A9 architecture but it is now clocked higher. That would be weird since the iPhone 4S also uses an A5 with a different (slower) clock speed, yet they didn't rename the SoC just because of this. The "X" would basically just be a marketing term to make people feel like the CPU is new, while it's not really. All they would need is a bigger battery to compensate and good heat management, which shouldn't be a problem.

The A5X is a new dual-core SoC based on the Cortex A15 architecture. It's about 50% more powerful and efficient than the A5. This would be even better than having a quad-core Cortex A9 (the only possible quad-core SoC right now) and the absolute best we could hope the iPad 3 to have. The iPhone 5 could have a new A5X as well and benefit from more power/efficiency without having a higher clock, which is desirable for a device as small as the iPhone.

tl;dr: Either the iPad 3 will just have a higher-clocked A5 and the "X" is just a marketing gimmick, or it will have a new dual-core Cortex A15 CPU which is actually more powerful and efficient (50% faster at same clock speed). No quad-core and that's a good thing.