14 DAY TRIAL // Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo with KGI Securities is already on the case of Apple’s next iPad update. He believes that the newly-launched iPad mini and the fourth-generation iPad will not be enough to muffle Microsoft's up and coming Surface tablet.
In a research note released to investors and obtained by AppleInsider, Kuo suggested that Apple’s fourth-generation iPad update doesn’t impress. Being just as thick and just as hefty as the iPad 3, the new tablet may be undermined by Microsoft’s Surface, he says.
“Though the iPad mini is expected to be successful, we think launching the lighter, thinner 9.7" iPad as quickly as possible matters more for Apple strategically,” Kuo explains.
He cautioned that if Microsoft’s new tablet PC does catch on, this would pose a risk to Apple’s dominance in the post-PC segment. Apple knows this, he says, which leads him to believe that a redesign is already in the works. And the launch, he says, might occur soon.
Kuo says Apple is expected to use “GF DITO” touchscreen technology in the iPad 5. Combined with more power-efficient chips, the entire assembly will pave the way for a thinner and lighter design, he believes.
He specifically wrote that Apple is expected to “dramatically lower the weight and thickness of the 9.7" iPad.”
GF DITO, otherwise referred to as GF2 display technology, is already employed in the iPad mini, sources say. The new specification allowed Apple to reduce the thickness by 23 per cent, and the weight by around 53 per cent, AppleInsider reports.
It is worth noting that, since the iPad 4 already packs the latest A-series processor, the A6X SoC (system on a chip), the iPad 5 should theoretically use the next-generation A7 silicon.