iPad 5, the company's upcoming 9.7-inch tablet Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC),, will go into test production in the near future at Apple's Asian partners. iPad 5 would be up to 25% - 33% thinner than the tablet iPad 4, it would have a screen illuminated with a single LED, it would use GF2 technology (1 layer of glass and 2 layers of ITO foil) and it would have a glass substrate of only 0.2mm thickness, all these changes allowing the company Apple to reduce the dimensions of the case.
Trial production of Apple's 5th-generation 9.7-inch iPad will begin soon and volume production will begin in July, with monthly shipments ramping up to 2-3 million units in September, according to sources with Taiwan's supply chain. The touch panel solution for 5th-generation iPad is GF2 (1 layer of glass and two layers of ITO film) instead of G/G bonding used in 4th-generation iPad, the sources added. The new iPad will use one LED light bar for backlighting, compared to two LED light bars used in the 4th-generation iPad, the sources noted. The 5th-generation iPad is estimated to be 25-33% lighter than the 4th-generation one, the sources indicated.
Despite the problems between the two companies, Apple is willing to use Samsung again as the supplier of screens for the future tablet, Sharp and LG Display being the other two suppliers. Although the test production will start in the near future, the mass production should start in July, and will increase in September. Although for now it is not known when the tablet could reach the market, it is expected that we will have to wait exactly one year from the launch iPad 4 to be able to buy it, so November could be the lucky month.
