Following the recent distribution of invites to an Apple event on March the 7th, the world of social media has frenzied with speculation over the details of the forthcoming launch, largely provoked by the below image.
The image clearly shows a large touchscreen device, alluding to the forthcoming iPad 3 (also rumoured to go by the name of iPad HD. The tagline of "We have something you really have to see. And touch" indicates that it is indeed likely to sport the retina display that iPhone users in recent times have been accustomed to. Even the image itself clearly shows a higher definition display to that of the iPad 2.Coupled with the inclusion of a much faster processor, and Apple's Siri voice recognition functionality, it remains to be seen what further, so far unannounced additions may make use of these upgrades.
So what does this mean for small business users?
Many small business owners and employees in today's working world are being required to function with increased mobility. With staff being required to operate from trains, hotel rooms, planes and airports, it is nothing new to recognise the struggle of finding a power source for your rather immobile laptop. It is rare that anything outside of low specification notebooks survive on battery alone for several hours with reliability.
With this in mind, a new iPad which can match a laptop with its processing power, making applications run at lightning speed in comfortable high resolution, could be a very attractive prospect that may encourage workers to leave the laptop in the office.
Applications such as Air Sharing HD, Evernote and Apples own iWork becoming increasingly popular, it is feasible that we could see increasing amount of SME's providing iPad's to their workforce - with the app Store currently being the most polished and well rounded to date on any mobile device, the potential is there. This is backed up in no small way by Apple's recent announcement that they have surpassed the 25 billion mark in app store sales.
Despite all this, the competition is stiff. Android devices are still a popular alternative, and with a plethora of choice in terms of Android mobile handsets, many companies will enjoy the synchronicity of coupling these with an Android tablet such as the high specced and very competitive Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 - a very strong individual contender.
It will be interesting to see how the next couple of months pan out for Apple. With the Iphone 4s feeling like an interim upgrade on its predecessor, Apple know they are going to need to deliver big in terms of new features - and for SME's hoping to make use of the forthcoming iPad , this can only be promising.
Ian Westcott
