Not Expecting iPad 2 Soon
With the Verizon iPhone all but certainly announced this Tuesday, some predict the iPad 2 not soon after, perhaps as soon as the first week in February.
I’m personally not expecting the iPad 2 so soon. The first iPad went on sale in April of last year. I don’t see Apple deviating from the yearly-update plan unless they felt compelled to get a jump on the competition — and even after CES with a slew of tablets, it doesn’t look like there’s enough pressure to push Apple to release the iPad 2 any sooner.
There’s an Apple-waiting precedent in the iPhone on Verizon. Arguably, there has been a lot of competitive pressure over the past six months (or longer if you consider constant complaints about AT&T’s craptastic network) in the form of Android — yet Apple has stuck to its product cycle.
Releasing a Verizon iPhone in late 2010 it would have distracted from iPhone 4 sales on AT&T, or impact the Christmas retail season. Release too late and it would compete with the iPhone 5. The January premiere date, just after the Christmas season and split halfway between a new iPhone model makes sense.
So the iPad seems best positioned in the same time frame as last year, filling in the spring before the iPhone 5 is announced in the summer.
Now this doesn’t mean iPad 2 won’t be announced soon (the original was announced at the end of January). I just don’t see it being available until April.
Apple did that for the first iPhone. Announced first, then made it available months later. They specified that they’d need FCC approval, etc., so it made sense to unveil it early.
I’m wondering if the iPad was a similar case. The iPod Touch wasn’t announced early, but the iPad is available with 3G — and likely required some outside approval.
I think spring sounds reasonable, unless there are Mac hardware updates to announce instead. The MacBook and MacBook Pros are likely to be updated soon, and the Mac Mini could use an update within a month or two. Maybe update the laptops at a press conference, and quietly speed bump the Mac Mini and only issue a PR statement. A couple of months later, announce new iPads (available immediately at Apple stores, and within a couple of weeks at other stores). April seems likely to me, though I’m also hoping for earlier. I’m sure they want to wait a little bit, so people who got iPads for Xmas don’t feel so stung.
A loose guide: Spring: iPad, MacBook Pros, Summer: iPhone, OS X, iMac, Mac Pros, Fall: MacBooks, iPods… then scatter the Mac Mini, cinema displays and Apple TV anywhere, and pretty much any time of the year some Apple product could be announced.