Is Apple Announcing iPad 1.5 or iPad 2? Milestone MacBook Pro Update Next Year?

A new iLounge report says that next year's update to the MacBook Pro will be a milestone update and that it's unclear if Apple is planning on announce the iPad 2 or an iPad 1.5 at its March 2nd event.

MacBook Pro
The MacBook Pro update expected tomorrow is reportedly an incremental update to the aluminum unibody version currently available. Next year is the year when Apple will introduce an all new design for the MacBook Pro product family, which is already under development at Quanta in Taiwan. It's being described as a big, "milestone" release for the Pro family

iPhone 5
iLounge reports the iPhone 5 is on track for a June announcement with shipments by August or earlier.


iPad 1.5 or iPad 2
According to two of iLounge's sources, the iPad has really had some productions problems and it's unclear if Apple has managed to get everything under control for an iPad 2 launch. It could be possible that the device unveiled on March 2nd could only have minor improvements.

Our sources aren’t sure whether Apple is going to release the iPad 1.5 now and call it the iPad 2, hold off a few months and release something dramatically better, or hold off a few months and release the iPad 1.5. The sources strongly believe that Apple cannot possibly ship enough truly "new" iPads to meet a late March or early April release date. One expects that Apple will only preview the next iPad at next week’s event, then release it widely around June. A price drop for the current model would keep sales flowing until then.

Recently while commenting about the HP TouchPad, Daring Fireball's John Gruber wrote, "Summer feels like a long time away. If my theory is right, they’re not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3. And not only did they announce this with a distant ship date, they did it with no word on pricing."

Read More