Rumor Mill: CDMA iPhone, iPad mini, iOS Apple TV
A new raft of Apple hardware rumors are circulating courtesy of a short post today by DigiTimes.
The Chinese language publication validates previous claims that Apple is building a CDMA iPhone to run on the U.S. Verizon Wireless and China Telecom networks. Pegatron Technology is expected to start mass production in December and will supply to both carriers for a January product announcement at CES 2011.
Digitimes Research reports that Apple has re-engineered the CDMA iPhone hardware, dropping the problematic external antenna used on the current iPhone 4 for a more traditional integrated antenna design and replacing its glass rear panel with one "forged from metal materials."
On the iPad front, Digitimes Research senior analyst Mingchi Kuo reports that Apple will launch an upgraded iPad with a 9.7-inch screen, faster ARM Cortex-A9 processor, and 512MB RAM (like the iPhone 4 and double the current iPad's RAM) in the first quarter of 2011. Apple is also said to be developing a 7-inch iPad mini with a Cortex-A9 processor and an IPS panel running at 1024 × 768 resolution.
And if that wasn't enough, DigiTimes also rekindles the iOS Apple TV rumors from earlier in the year:
Apple is also set to launch a new Apple TV using AMD's Fusion solution and will not include a hard drive. The new device will adopt a user interface similar to the iPhone with support for social networking websites, network multimedia and the App Store. Mass production of the device will start in December, Digitimes Research noted.