Apple to 'overhaul' most products in 2012, report says
Apple's product line is set to get some big makeovers next year, if a new report is to be believed. Citing sources in "the upstream supply chain," tech news site Digitimes says that Apple plans to "overhaul" its iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air and iMac during the course of next year.Presumably that means brand new designs of those products, whereas most of the company's additions during the past year could be classified as tweaks to existing models.As far as timing goes, Digitimes offers that Apple will roll out a new iPad in March, with new versions of the iPhone and iMac coming in "the second half of 2012." Missing from the list is Apple's Mac Pro, the company's most expensive product, and the highest end of its desktop class, a type of computer that's been diminishing in popularity with consumers who crave portability. A report earlier this week suggested that its future was in limbo, and its absence from this list is telling.Of note is the iPad, which the outlet suggests would be broken up into two distinct models, released at separate times of the year, with the latter one being a more dramatic shift for the product."Sources revealed that internally Apple does not view the new iPad product as iPad 3, but rather an upgraded iPad 2 and the real iPad 3 will not be launched until the third quarter of 2012 at the earliest," Digitimes says.To make that happen, Digitimes' source suggests that Apple's asking manufacturers to begin creating display components for two different iPad prototypes. Like all technology companies, Apple regularly updates its hardware to the point of considering it a new generation, yet its schedule for such iterations is not easy to predict. That's been seen most recently with the iPhone 4S, which came some four months later than previous models, and a lack of big changes to the iPod line, which had become an annual tradition. For that reason alone, it's worth taking these claims with a grain of salt.
