The iPad 3 is expected to build on the specs that debuted on the iPad 2.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

We know. You’re excited about the iPad 3. We are too. And so is just about everyone else who follows consumer tech hardware. Rumors about Apple’s upcoming tablet have been pouring in for months, and we’ve been following them just like everyone else.

But as the iPad 3 announcement day ticks closer — let’s just agree it’s Mar. 7 — the pace of rumor-mongering has increased. And there’s a curious element to the furious onslaught of “new” iPad 3 rumors: They’re all saying essentially the same thing.

The latest rumor, for example, is that the iPad 3 will have a 1080p rear-facing camera with image stabilization, a dual-core A5X processor, and Siri built in, according to Apple Insider, which picked up the story from a “Chinese microblogging site” called Apple.pro.

A 1080p camera? Check. A processor named A5? Check. Siri capability? Check. We’ve heard all this before. Let’s look at how these and other iPad 3 rumors first surfaced, and how they’ve evolved and been repackaged. You may be surprised by how much you haven’t learned.

The Display

Perhaps the most oft-repeated rumor concerns the iPad 3′s display. The basic scuttlebutt says Apple will include a super-high-resolution, Retina Display-quality screen.

The iPad 2 display compared to a purported iPad 3 display. Image: MacRumors

This rumor is about as tired as they come. It’s been rehashed in essentially the same form, plus or minus a few details, for about eight months.

We backtracked all the way to July 2011, and found that ThisIsMyNext, the progenitor of The Verge, was one of the first to report that Apple’s next iPad would sport a 2048×1536 display.

Now flash-foward to the first two months of 2012. Images of hardware reported to be the iPad 3′s display popped up on overseas sources like a Korean blog and a Japanese repair site. Both sites reported the screens were Retina Displays, but the claims weren’t substantiated. Then, last Friday, MacRumors says it got its hands on one of these far-eastern screens, and reported that its specimen features four times the pixels of the screen in the current iPad 2 — in other words, a 2048 x 1536 resolution across 9.7 diagonal inches.

So how many essentially identical — though completely untested — rumors do we need to read before concluding the iPad 3 will indeed include a Retina Display?

Don’t answer. That was a rhetorical question.

The Camera

With an HD-quality Retina Display, it would make sense for Apple to increase the quality of its onboard camera to HD quality, too. And so the rumors commenced. Late last December, Digitimes began reporting the new iPad would sport an 8-megapixel camera along with rumors that Apple would be debuting two iPad models: a high-end tablet and a mid-range version.

On Feb. 8, a blog called RepairLabs showed off images of what it reported to be the iPad 3′s rear chassis. Based on the chassis construction, the website drew the conclusion that the new tablet’s camera will be different from what’s featured inside Apple’s current iteration, but stopped short of declaring the new camera an 8-megapixel model.

The last camera rumor occurred on Feb. 19. A Hong Kong-based site called Apple Daily reported it had possession of an iPad 3, and using side-by-side photos, compared it to an iPad 2. The key takeaway? The iPad 3 (or whatever it was) had a bigger rear camera lens, so the publication deemed it an 8-megapixel model.

Once again, photographic evidence solves a nagging question. Just one problem: No one reblogging this story could substantiate Apple Daily’s photographic evidence.

LTE

Consumers have been itching for a 4G iPad since before the iPad 2 debuted, so this rumor has popped over and over and over again, making an original “source” nigh on impossible to pinpoint.

However, BGR recently found evidence, supposedly straight from an iPad 3 running a debug tool, that the new tablet will be available with LTE. Then The Wall Street Journal, of all sources, corroborated these 4G iPad rumors on Feb. 14, reporting that Apple’s next tablet will be available on both AT&T and Verizon’s LTE networks.

The Form Factor

The iPad 3 looks like it will be slightly larger and thicker than the iPad 2. Image: M.I.C. Gadget

No site or pundit has posited the next iPad will feature a dramatically different shape. Instead, the rumor mill has been forced to report on the likelihood that the next iPad’s form factor will remain essentially unchanged — maybe a bit thicker, maybe a bit thinner.

Back in November, iLounge said that the iPad 3 would be “modestly thicker” than the iPad 2, contrary to many rumors that it would be a wee bit thinner than its predecessor. A Feb. 9 report from The New York Times then quoted an unnamed Apple employee as saying the iPad 3 will be “essentially the same size and shape as the iPad 2.” From the looks of photos floated today on a blog called M.I.C. Gadget, the Times story would appear to be true.

Yes, it’s come to that. The lack of significant change is now worthy of rumor and speculation.

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BERG's Little Printer (left); Adafruit's Internet of Things Printer

London design firm BERG and New York open hardware shop Adafruit are two of my favorite companies. Both trade in big and small ideas about the future, but their projects rarely converge.

BERG mostly does high-concept video thoughtpieces. Adafruit sells do-it-yourself hardware kits. But people at both companies love little networked devices. So maybe it’s no accident that each would try to rethink something as ordinary as the printer — turning a workaday utility of the desktop age into something mobile and whimsical.

Yes, both devices are the epitome of cute. So who really cares if their formats are so tiny, they’re really only useful for printing out tweets, haiku and daily affirmations?

BERG first announced what it calls its “Little Printer” in November. The firm has since been giving demos of the device, but have yet to announce its price or a release date beyond “2012.”

It’s BERG’s first gadget, built on what it calls BERG Cloud:

Little Printer’s brain isn’t on a chip in its body, but on the Web where it can reach out and touch other Web-enabled services, and where we can provide updates and improvements without you having to install anything.

In your front room, Little Printer wirelessly connects (with no configuration) to a small box that plugs into your broadband router. It’s this same box that will enable our other planned products in the BERG Cloud family. There’s no PC required, your phone is your remote control.

We think of BERG Cloud as the nervous system for connected products. It’s built to run at scale, and could as easily operate the Web-enabled signage of a city block, as the playful home electronics of the future.

Meanwhile, Adafruit’s “Internet of Things” Printer was just announced today. When I asked Adafruit’s Phil Torrone how he would compare the two devices, he replied, “Ours is shipping now and ours is open source.”

That’s not quite all there is to it:

It’s a $90 kit you build yourself. Forget plug and play; you solder this thing together. The Internet of Things printer doesn’t sync up wirelessly to the cloud; it attaches by an Ethernet cable to a computer where you instruct it to run code. Its brain really does live on a chip in its body, but one you completely control.

“We think this is a great way to learn how to a build a physical object that does something based on what you code/choose to trigger an action that’s online,” Torrone told me.

“It’s on my desk now,” he added. “I’m enjoying some specific tweets I want give to a friend later tonight.”

That’s what we might call a limited use case. Both printers are definitely still more adorable than directly useful. Who cares if we can’t precisely mark its value? It’s still hard to put a price on the ability to pull something out of the ether, hold it in your hands, give it to another person, and make them smile.

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With Ubuntu for Android, you can effectively carry a desktop computer inside your pocket. Image: Canonical

Cramming a desktop environment onto a smartphone is a fun project that promises very little actual usefulness. Smartphone screens are too small for desktop OSes, and connecting a keyboard and mouse is usually out of the question. But now Canonical’s Ubuntu for Android takes a different approach, surfacing the desktop OS only when it actually makes sense.

Canonical announced today that it will seamlessly integrate Android with the Linux-based Ubuntu distribution. A device running Ubuntu for Android loads Android during typical smartphone use cases, then switches to Ubuntu once it’s been slid into a dock that connects to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The installation basically gives you two devices in one: an Android phone while on the go, and a Ubuntu desktop when plugged in.

There’s no word on who’s manufacturing compatible docks, and what they will cost.

A phone that’s also a desktop computer isn’t new. The Motorola Atrix already does this via Motorola’s “Webtop” OS and hardware Lapdock. But in terms of actual usefulness, Ubuntu’s large installed base and open-source origins might make it a better choice for this type of application.

The system reportedly lets you share your smartphone’s contacts, media, and apps among both Android and Ubuntu. The Ubuntu environment also supports MMS/SMS and phones calls: a pop-up window appears when you receive a call, and you can simply mouse over and click to answer.

Using virtualization tools like Citrix and VMWare, Canonical says that IT departments could issue a single device that covers both the desktop and mobile needs of employees. The company also points to the lower latency of 4G as a good match for Google Doc use. Of course, non-stop 4G usage could lead to data-plan binging — and then data throttling — depending on which carrier you use.

Don’t go searching for an install just yet. Canonical says that Ubuntu for Android will be loaded onto phones by manufacturers, and phones will have to include USB and HDMI hardware support in order to utilize the OS. These devices aren’t yet available, but can be expected to land in late 2012. Canonical was mum on any partnerships with manufacturers they may already have.

[Canonical]

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