While the rest of the IntoMobile team anxiously awaits news of the second generation iPad, meanwhile I personally think the whole product category is a joke, nothing more than a toy for geeks with excess income who get withdrawal symptoms when away from a computer for longer than a few minutes, the Land of the Rising Sun has somehow managed to score a pair of cases for the yet to be announced tablet. Check out the video below which features both a hard and soft case. Notice the port locations and how they’ve changed, as well as the hole for what is most likely set to be a rear facing camera. As for the inside of the iPad 2, we can only speculate on that, but one analyst is predicting that it’ll pack a new chip that features two ARM Cortex A9 processors. That powerful piece of silicon will eventually trickle down to the iPhone 5.
Now as for the other recent rumor that there are going to be three versions of the iPad 2: one with WiFi, one with WiFi and 3G, and the other with WiFi and CDMA, I’ve got to call that one out. Apple isn’t dumb, and something tells me, call it my gut reaction, that the rumor we heard back in September about the California company talking with Qualcomm about bundling their cellular radios in future products is actually going to come true. Using a technology called Gobi, Qualcomm has managed to create a radio that can work on both CDMA and GSM networks. The only problem with Gobi has been that it takes up a lot of room, something that doesn’t really matter when you’ve got a 9.7 inch piece of glass to hide an antenna behind. Whatever technical solution Apple comes out with to prevent the need to create 3 different versions of the iPad, we’ll hear about it during Q1 2011, and you can read all the reviews from salivating fanbois all across the net once the iPad 2 hits store shelves.