The Apple iSlate is now said to be in full production with the aim of reaching 10M units in Q1, meaning recent rumors of an April launch could be true.
CNet recently reported that an analyst at AVI Securities said the Apple iSlate is now "in full production" and a research note stated that Apple "NAND" flash chip requirements may be increasing because of the tablet.
Rumors of a March or April launch of the iSlate appeared about a month ago, and CNet reports that AVI Securities' research note says: "Production for the new Apple tablet is expected in Q1, with annual shipments perhaps reaching 10M units (perhaps in part explaining the significant increase in Apple NAND requirements)".
The Apple iSlate is said to be multimedia-centric and will pave new ground without cannibalizing the smartphone, notebook and netbook markets. Given Apple is already a key player in two out of three, we assume the Apple iSlate will shake up things in the latter market.
It's also a fact that while the iPhone was launched as a multimedia-centric smartphone, its popularity has forced Apple to take productivity users into account as well, especially when it comes to allowing third-party developers deeper access to the iPhone OS.
A few days ago, Boy Genius Report revealed new details about the Apple iSlate, saying that it'll run on the iPhone kernel and sport a fast ARM processor. In June 2009, ARM revealed that smartphones would start shipping with the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor in 2010. In July 2009 it became clear that the new iPhone 3GS was powered by a Samsung processor taking advantage of the ARM Cortex-A8 processor.
In other words, if we don't see the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor in the Apple iSlate, we'll be hugely disappointed. In fact, we don't see it as possible at all for Apple to release the iSlate without that processor. More information on the Cortex A9 MPCore processor can be found here.
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