Investigators at 9to5mac have brought forward yet another clue to the much speculated launch of Apple’s next generation tablet in the first week of March, reporting constrained supply of Apple’s iPad 2 tablet while only the 3G version of said tablet is affected by this shortage.
Apple has its own history of product shortages that extend to company’s own distributor channels. These shortages come in patterns that indicate Apple to be launching a newer version of the product that is facing these shortages. The same shortage problems were seen last year when they were about to launch the iPad 2.
Sources claim constrained supply of iPad 2 3G tablets and supporting these claims are reports of product shortages coming in from major retailers around the world. Two such retailers in the UK are Orange and Carphone Warehouse.
Out of the six models that Carphone stocks, only one is available while rest are out of stock. A similar story is repeated with Orange which reports a fifty percent shortage in its iPad 2 stock. Where as Apple’s own US store shows no signs of product shortages and Apple UK only reports a 1-3 day delay for 64GB White version iPad 2 unit regardless of the shortages else where.
Speculators are chattering that these shortages may be due to a change in cellular technology that might push Apple to eradicate different models for EVDO and HSPA enabled tablets. People over excited about the launch of iPad 3 might over look the simple facts of supply shortage for the 3G version which might be linked with its current supply pattern — as 3G is an expensive model; it sells out in smaller quantities and is prone of running out sooner than the ‘WiFi’ version.
Keeping aside all these speculations the fact that ‘WiFi only’ version is in abundant supply points to a marketing strategy of Apple keeping this low priced model to compete Amazon and its likes while refreshing the higher priced ‘3G’ with the new iPad 3 tablet.
