Apple is going to hold a major press event on Tuesday where the company is expected to come out with a new lineup of iPad devices including the fifth generation full-sized tablet as well as the iPad mini 2. The latter of the two is rumored to come with a full Retina display for its 7.9-inch screen. However, new speculation from analysts challenge those claims.
Timothy Arcuri of Cowen and Company said in a note to investors that he doesn't expect production of the iPad mini 2 to ramp up until early 2014. As a result, supplies ahead of the holiday shopping season will be tight as Apple could face issues in producing high-resolution Retina displays.
This means that iPad shipments for the holiday quarter may be around 23 million, a number that would only be slightly higher than the 22.9 million units the company sold in the same quarter last year, according to AppleInsider.
If Apple can't profit off of this holiday season with the new device, many believe they might consider forgoing the Retina display entirely. Acuri isn't the only one who expects Apple may face issues with the supply of the high-resolution screen as many other analysts have come to the same conclusion after studying Apple's supply chain over the past few months.
According to AppleInsider, Arcuri noted that a complete redesign of the full-sized 9.7-inch iPad would be the first such upgrade to the device in years. This could offset cannibalization from the 7.9-inch iPad mini.
Apple's Oct. 22 event kicks off on Tuesday 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1 p.m. Eastern where the company will unveil new iPads as well as give release dates for OS X. Mavericks, the new Mac Pro as well as some new upgrades to the MacBook Pro models running Intel's latest Haswell processor.
