Apple

Don't hold your breath for the new iPad 3 just yet.

Although consumers likely won't see the refreshed iPad until spring 2012 at the earliest, Apple is ambitiously ramping up production in hopes of warding off any component supply shortages. Apple is dependent on no shortage of key parts to make the iPad 3 thinner than its predecessors. What's more, the device is said to boast a higher-resolution screen - another factor that is placing component supply pressure on Apple and its far east manufacturing partners.

In the big picture, however, it does indeed look like the iPad 3 is good to go. According to a new report from DigiTimes, not only has all the design work been completed by Apple on the third-generation tablet, but production is already moving forward.

"Apple is currently giving two tablet PC projects codenamed J1 and J2 to its upstream partners for development," the report reads. "The sources revealed that the major differences of the new tablet PCs compared to the previous model are their size, specifications and technologies."

All told, Digitimes says Apple's "accumulated inventory" of the next-gen iPad will top two million units before the end of this year (which is only eight weeks from now). If the report is accurate, the actual components for the iPad 3 have been supplied to Apple's manufacturing partners for close to a month already.

Source: Digitimes