Apple has already bowed to pressure once and introduced the smaller iPad mini to its tablet line-up last year. But it looks like the company is again feeling the pressure, only this time to go bigger and is set to introduce a significantly larger iPad in 2014.
How large you ask? According to an Apple supplier in Korea, an order has already been placed by the company for 12.9-inch Retina Displays. It is thought the resolution of this larger panel comes close to ultra high definition, more commonly referred to as 4K, which would be somewhere around 3840 x 2160. For comparison, the latest iPad Air has a resolution of 2048 x 1536.
Moving to a 12.9-inch display would make for a heavier, less portable tablet, and one Apple would likely market heavily as a tablet to be shared for the home. However, it would be a tempting proposition if a 4K resolution was offered and the price didn’t end up being extortionate. The iPad mini starts at $399, the iPad Air at $499, so would this larger iPad be a $599 and up device?
Offering three sizes of iPad would allow Apple to compete with anything the competition decided to release. That’s an issue the company currently faces with in the smartphone market. It doesn’t matter how great the iPhone 5S is, that 4-inch display can look almost comical next to some of those gorgeous 5-inch or larger Android smartphones.
Of course, the 12.9-inch iPad may never appear. This claimed display order may just be Apple testing larger iPads and seeing what works and what doesn’t. 12.9-inches is really big, some would say too big for a tablet, and Apple may end up coming to the same conclusion.
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