Rumor: Apple will announce new iPad in early February

Apple is rumored to be planning an event in early February at which the company will announce a new iPad. iOS 5.1 would also be shown. The new tablet would already be in stores in March this year.

This is reported by the Japanese blog MacOtakara, which relies on Apple suppliers in both Asia and the United States. They would have confirmed that Apple has a major event planned for early February. The tablet would be in stores after the Chinese New Year; that would mean the new iPad will be available in March.

There have been rumors about the successor to the iPad 2 for some time. It is almost certain that the screen of the new tablet will have a higher resolution, perhaps 2048×1536 pixels. In addition, the housing would be slightly thicker to make room for a larger battery and the new Apple A6 soc. The latter would have four processor cores.

MacOtakara’s message is plausible. With a release in March, there would be a year between the iPad 2 and the iPad 3, and Apple has such a cycle for several products. Furthermore, MacOtakara has reported rumors in the past that later turned out to be correct. For example, the blog correctly predicted the introduction date of the iPad 2 and last summer it already wrote that the iPhone 4S would not receive a new housing.