iPhone 5 Will Be Longer, iPad 3 Thicker, Says Source

An insider has said the next iPad will be thicker and that the iPhone 5 will be longer to accommodate a larger screen.

The potential release schedule for the devices suggests that the iPad 3 is on course for a March 2012 release with the iPhone 5 arriving in the summer, according to the source reported in iLounge

Rosy Apple

The iPad 3 could be publicly shown as early as January and will be 0.7mm thicker to accommodate an additional light bar, the report suggests. This is necessary due to the tablet’s new 2,048 x 1,536 screen – double the resolution of  the iPad 2.

The iPhone 5 will also be receiving a transformation, if the report is accurate,  as the new smartphone will apparently be 8mm longer than the current generation of devices in order to accommodate a 4 inch display. The phone will not have a teardrop shape, but will likely have a metal casing, possibly aluminium.

Apple will hope that these upgrades will keep its devices ahead of its rivals. The company was widely expected to announce the iPhone 5 last month, but instead unveiled the iPhone 4S, an incremental update to the iPhone 4 which boasted an A5 processor, an eight megapixel camera, iCloud and voice recognition software Siri, but the phone still sold four million units in its first weekend.

The iPad currently dominates the tablet market, with the iPad 2 selling out in the UK 24 hours after its launch, but its share is expected to erode in the next three years in the face of competition from the likes of Amazon’s Kindle Fire and a multitude of Android tablets.