Why Apple Will Not Release The iPad 3 This Year - It Has Nothing To Do With Retina Display Yields

All along, I believed that Apple will not release another iPad this year.  Certainly, not another 10" iPad, as some would call it, iPad 3.  However, I still do hope out hope for a larger screened iPod touch.

Why am so sure?  iPad 2.  And iPhone 5.  But there's also a third reason.

First, Apple just caught up with demand for the iPad 2.  And it's selling like hotcakes.  Apple sold more than 9 million iPads and sold everyone of them.  And with Christmas shopping start in a couple of months, Apple isn't going to launch a product it probably won't be able to keep up with demand.

Furthermore, iPhone 5 or whatever the heck the next iPhone will be called.  Apple will have to focus on that launch. So far, iOS launches are not like regular Mac updates.  iOS launches have long long lines.  That means lots of demands worldwide.  Dealing with one such product launch is difficult enough but with two crazed launches would be down right impossible.  And I fully expect shortages of both new iPhones and iPads by the end of November.

Then there is this.  Microsoft.  Windows 8.  Yeah, we all  thought by now, Apple's main tablet foe would be Android.  While Android is a threat, it won't be until the next Android update is out in November when the OS is truly tablet ready.  Honeycomb has been a pretty beta-ish experience.

It was when I was reading this Moconews post about Web OS and Microsoft that I got to the part about Windows 8 and Steve Balmer and Microsoft going all out on Windows 8 tablets.  And an iPad 3 launch just after CES in January could such all the air out of Windows 8's sails if Apple can put enough new features and muscles (like Retina Display) into it.

And this alone is reason enough to hold the iPad 3 launch until late winter or early spring just to screw with Microsoft's tablet ambitions.  At that time, Apple-Microsoft's decades long war will move into a different phase.

Note:  Vaporware.  Is that is the terms that was most recently applied to Microsoft's Windows 7 tablets after each of the last two CES, tablets based on Windows have largely fizzled.  It's not likely to happen a 3rd year in a row.