Apple to launch Ipad 2 on 2 March

TOYMAKER FOR THE WELL HEELED Apple supposedly will launch the Ipad 2 on 2 March.

Apple's projected Ipad 2 launch date comes after blasphemous reports of delays by a Taiwanese brokerage firm that sent Apple shares diving almost three percent. Apple's COO Tim Cook is expected to take the stage on 2 March and reveal the successor to the Ipad.

The impending arrival of Apple's second shiny mirror had been put into doubt yesterday, with a stockbroker's note saying that Apple's partners had encountered production issues that were taking time to resolve. Reuters now says that those comments were "simply not true".

If Apple does indeed choose 2 March to unveil the Ipad 2, it will see the latest devices appear on shelves almost a year after the original Ipad launch in April 2010. The only sticking point about that date is that it will fall during Cebit, the world's largest computer trade show.

In recent years Apple has not only held its own events to launch products but has done so when no other trade shows were taking place. The idea is that Apple doesn't want its latest gadget to share newspaper column inches with rival devices. While Cebit isn't quite the show it used to be, it's still a major date on the consumer IT calendar and that might lead to Apple shifting the date slightly to avoid the clash.

Specifications for the Ipad 2 are rumoured from anything to a 'Retina' display to dual core processors, however most reports suggest the device will just be thinner and lighter, and sport front and back cameras. Or in other words, just like every other tablet that was announced at CES and Mobile World Congress in the past two months.

If the rumoured Ipad 2 launch event in March will lead to availability in April, fanbois should start saving up sharpish. µ