Apple shipped a hair over 40 million iPads during 2011. The company plans to increase that number by as much as 75% to 70 million units according to a report from ChinaTimes, which says Apple made an order for between 65 million and 70 million LCD panels from LG and Samsung. Said panels are said to sport a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels, which translates to 264 pixels per inch. That’s not exactly the 300+ pixels per inch of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, but then again you’re supposed to hold a tablet farther away from your face. The big question is of course when will we see the iPad 3 and what other notable specs will it have? Rumor has it that it’ll be announced during the first week of March and ship during the same month. We’ve already supposedly seen the back of the device, and guess what … it looks exactly like the iPad 2. Under the hood will be a new Apple A6 chip that some folks say will be dual core, while others say it’ll be quad core. We really could care less since no one really buys an iPad because of the type of cores it has, it’s really all about the insane amount of applications. And with a screen like that, who cares?
Now as for the competition, 2012 will be a difficult year. Microsoft isn’t going to ship Widnows 8 on ARM for at least another six months, and even then we don’t know if it’s going to be a hit. As for Android, we’ve yet to see any Ice Cream Sandwich tablets worth drooling over. The only real company giving Apple a run for its money is Amazon, who sells a $200 7 inch Android Gingerbread tablet that fulfills the needs of most people. Right now said tablet is only on sale in the United States, but we’re pretty damn sure it’s going to hit the international market this year.