iPad 3 prototype specs leak

Posted on 2 Feb 2012 at 10:00, by Gareth Halfacree

Leaked images of the output from a debugging utility allegedly connected to a prototype iPad 3 has given a glimpse at Apple's plans for its next-generation tablet device.

While the screenshots, shared by an unnamed source claiming to be in possession of the device to BGR, don't offer much in the way of confirmation for existing rumours of a retina-resolution display or near-field communications (NFC) technology, they do offer something for fans wondering what the next upgrade will bring.

According to details contained in the screenshots, the next-generation iPad 3 tablet will be available in two versions: J1 and J2. These map directly to the Wi-Fi-only and Wi-Fi and 3G iPad 2 models currently available, rather than the nine-inch and seven-inch devices that have been previously rumoured.

The screenshots also contain reference to the processor to be found at the heart of the iPad 3: an Apple-branded A6 ARM-based chip given the identifier S5L8945X. For reference, the A4 chip found in the original iPad was the S5L8930X and the A5 found in the iPad 2 was S5L8940X.

While some are pointing to the new code as being evidence that Apple is going quad-core with its next tablet in order to compete with the growing number of Tegra 3-powered devices like the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, its nomenclature is odd: where previous generational leaps have incremented the processor ID code by ten, this move only increments it by five.

Although that doesn't mean the chip isn't a quad-core process, it suggests that it could be a smaller improvement over the A5 processor than the A5 was over the single-core A4.

Sadly, while the unnamed source was keen to share the debugger output with the world, he or she has so far failed to provide any images of the device itself.