Apple prepares three versions of iPad 2 for 2011, says sources
Apple is expected to release three versions of iPad 2, supporting either or a combination of Wi-Fi, UMTS and CDMA, for 2011 with mass production to start as early as the later half of January.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands a month after a Taiwanese paper reported Apple would add five new features to the iPad 2, and it fills in the connectivity side of that picture: instead of a single refresh SKU, sources describe three versions split across Wi-Fi, UMTS and CDMA radios, with mass production targeted for late January 2011. A CDMA variant matters because the original iPad's cellular model was confined to the UMTS world, so this would be Apple's first tablet opened to US CDMA carriers.
The stakes are high coming off a strong year: Walt Mossberg named the iPad his best-reviewed product of 2010 as an 'amazing 1.0 release,' so the sequel is positioned less as a fix than as a scale-up — and Apple's confirmed work on a 'logo antenna' designed to hide behind the Apple logo suggests the radio redesign is being engineered at the enclosure level.
First-order effects
- Apple's assembly and component partners move into a January mass-production ramp across three radio configurations, multiplying SKU and module-order complexity relative to the single-Wi-Fi-plus-UMTS structure of the original iPad.
- A CDMA model gives Apple a route onto US carriers outside the UMTS ecosystem for the first time in the tablet line, expanding the addressable subscriber base ahead of the 2011 launch.
Second-order effects
- Baseband and RF module suppliers gain a second radio standard to qualify against, shifting capacity toward vendors that can serve both UMTS and CDMA builds of the same device.
- UMTS-carrier exclusivity around the iPad erodes: once a CDMA variant exists, carrier competition for tablet placement becomes a pricing and subsidy question rather than a technology gate.
Third-order effects
- If the three-SKU pattern holds, connectivity tiering becomes a standing segmentation axis for tablets alongside storage — and each generation's radio mix effectively decides which carriers compete for the device at launch.
- Supply-chain reporting of this granularity (SKU counts, radio standards, ramp dates) hardens into the primary pre-launch intelligence channel for the tablet market, shaping competitor planning cycles months before Apple confirms anything.
The trend: Tablets are shifting from single-operator devices to multi-radio, multi-carrier products, with Apple's SKU structure and its suppliers' January ramp cadence setting the template for the 2011 hardware cycle.