Inventory shortages, price cuts point to imminent iPad 2 launch

By on Feb 21, 2011 at 1:30 PM
Tablets February 21, 2011

As we’re seeing now with Apple’s current MacBook Pro line, delayed shipping dates and sell-outs are often good indicators of an imminent product refresh. Discounts are also a good sign that a popular product is nearing the end of its life. With that in mind, new reports of retailers and carriers showing dwindling iPad inventory or discounting Apple’s tablet could be indicative of an impending next-generation iPad announcement. 9 to 5 Mac reports that British retail giant Carphone Warehouse is sold out of the 64GB iPad Wi-Fi as well as each of the three iPad Wi-Fi + 3G models. Carriers Orange and T-Mobile have slashed prices on current iPad inventory in half, so customers can now get an iPad for as little as £99.99 on a two-year contract. Finally, European retailer Ingram Micro is sold out of three iPad models, and is showing low inventory on the other three versions of the iPad. Apple is expected to launch the iPad 2 in March, though the company has not made any official information available surrounding the device.

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29 Comments

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  • http://twitter.com/hawaiiinsomniac hawaiiinsomniac

    You gotta love Apple, I wonder how many people have committed to buy the iPad 2 without hearing any specs.

    • Skivt1984

      Being that Apple is the best, probably many. It will be the best tablet on the market for at least 10 months.

      • Barrist

        Spoken like a true lemming.

    • Anonymous

      Considering how poorly Motorola is rolling out the Xoom (I’m talking pricing and functionality not hype) I am pretty sure I’m going to get the iPad 2 day and date as long as Best Buy is selling it. But then again I’m not going to commit to anything until I know what the official specs are and release date is for the iPad 2.

      Man, I’ve had $800 in BB gift cards burning a hole in my pocket since Christmas waiting for all of these products to be released. I have my reservations about the Xoom and I know what kind of service I can expect from Apple so that is likely the way that I will go.

      • http://twitter.com/rravindras Ryan

        You accrued $800.00 in Bestbuy gift cards? Wow

      • Anonymous

        It’s not Reward Zone, I cashed in my Hilton Hhonors points. I travel a lot but rarely stay at hotels unless business is paying for it.

      • Anonymous

        Go with the iPad 2. The sheer number of available quality applications make it a much more versatile device than the Xoom, even if the Xoom specs are superior. Once Android has the apps available, it will be be a much harder decision – but that probably wont be for a while (around iPad 4?).

      • Anonymous

        I leaning that way (Apple had mobile versions of their office apps for the iPad and Google has.. the map of the human body?). It would be a slam dunk if Apple weren’t pulling this in app purchasing thing.

      • Anonymous

        Isn’t that a b*tch? Telling their content creators what pricing they can
        have outside of Apple’s ecosystem? Seems to me that content creators should
        just switch over to HTML5 web-apps and cut Apple out completely. Which is
        not-coincidentally Google’s push. The more Apple tightens their grip, the
        more the market will slip through its fingers.

  • http://twitter.com/MattSTKC MattSTKC

    So Thursday is the big day for both MacBook Pro’s and the iPad 2. Happy Birthday Steve! Get well soon!

    • Anonymous

      That would be cool if both were announced this week. At the very least I’ll feel better knowing the actual product specs rather than listening to even more speculation.

      • http://twitter.com/MattSTKC MattSTKC

        exactly. Been waiting a few months now for the new model and while iPad 1 specs were great in this new era of competition it’s put up or shut up for Apple. Should be some good stuff.

  • @j_nathaniel

    I am pretty happy with the current 3G model. I might skip the next one as there does not appear to be anything major, aside from a serious browser upgrade, that I need that will happen with the upcoming device. I know is might be the best, or most popular mobile browser but I found it to be seriously lacking sometimes.

  • Bogat33

    As always the iPad 2 will be overpriced, fuck this economy.

    • Bluelou65

      what’s your alternative? almost every alternative is more expensive than the base iPad model unless you want to get a tablet with a much smaller screen size. The $500 iPad is probably the best value out there from that standpoint.

  • http://twitter.com/McHoffa Mike Hoffman

    macbooks running low, because new macbooks supposedly with light peak coming this week… another rumor shows possible lightpeak port in ipad 2 case… now ipads are running low… coincidence? ipads with lightpeak this week?

  • Name*

    Maybe “Inventory shortages, price cuts” point to “Inventory shortages and price cuts”.

  • Anonymous

    Where the announcement though? Last year Apple announced the iPad at the end of Jan. We are almost in March and still no word? I’m guessing it’s du to Steve Jobs health? Mat be he wants to do the announcement but is waiting to be healthier?

    • Anonymous

      They announced in in January since there was no current iPad. The also did this with the first iPhone. They will not announced the 2nd model too early before its available since they do not want to cannibalize the sales of the current one.

    • http://twitter.com/MattSTKC MattSTKC

      iPad 1 announced in Jan, released in April. iPhone 1 announced in Jan and released in June, but every year then on was announced AND released in June. Same thing for iPad. New iPad will be announced within 2 weeks of launch which by these indicators is SOON

  • iPad2?

    I pre-ordered mine at Best Buy yesterday. It’s called the Xoom, and it looks much better than the first iPad, and it runs Honeycomb, which should be better. It doesn’t seem like Apple’s gonna stick to the name “iPad” — I bet we see an ad campaign like “There’s a Xoom for that!”

    • http://twitter.com/MattSTKC MattSTKC

      crack is whack!

  • serpentor

    If it is imminent and there’s no Event to usher it in, don’t expect anything earth shattering from iPad 2. $hit sells itself anyway.

  • Anonymous

    iPad 2-be continued…if the iPad 3 truly has a retina display patience would def pay off.

    • Anonymous

      Word

  • Anonymous

    I wish the Macbook Pro came with GPS like the iPads do. I already lost count of how many notebooks i have got stolen from my house. One of my co-worker lost his iPad and all he had to do was log to Mobileme, grab his Glock and in 20 minutes he had his machine back.

  • Anonymous

    I wanted an iPad since day one. I promised myself I would hold off until the second gen and almost caved in on more than one occasion. This cannot drop soon enough.
    Xooms are going to gather dust in stockrooms for quite some time until they drastically reduce pricing.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7MZXRT4OXQO27GSNTTG2HRBSYE Alex

    its funny because I saw about 20 open box iPads being resold by Best Buy in Burbank, CA. I’m not quite sure that the iPad is living up to all its hype.

  • rascal

    I like Apple products, and the iPad is a slick device, but I still don’t see the advantage over an iPhone or iPod Touch besides its larger screen size. It’s actually a little TOO large to hold and use comfortably.

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