iPad 2 to gain double-res display - but not until 2012

Analysts forecast tweaked, not new, fondleslab

Another day, another iPad 3 rumour, this time that while the gadget will indeed sport a display with a higher resolution than the iPad 2 has, other specs will not change.

According to analyst Craig Berger of US investment house FBR Capital Markets, what World+Dog is calling the 'iPad 3' will in fact be the 'iPad 2 Plus'.

That tallies with a squeak from the start of the year that the next version of the fondleslab, said to be due now as then in September, will be a kind of 'iPad HD' unit.

Berger's mole says the new model is all about upping the pixel density from the current 132ppi to 250-300ppi.

If Apple is to be nice to developers, that means doubling the horizontal and vertical resolutions from 768 x 1024 to 1536 x 2048.

Doubling the dimensions is what Apple did when moving from the iPhone 3GS' 320 x 480 screen to the iPhone 4's 640 x 960 panel. The iOS SDK (software development kit) allows developers to incorporate images tagged '@2x' and the OS automatically displays these on higher-resolution displays.

Meanwhile, market watcher GfK reckons the iPad 3 - or iPad 2+, or iPad HD, or whatever - won't actually ship until Q1 2012, presumably as a direct, year-on successor to the iPad 2, we hear. ®