China’s Commercial Times has filed a report stating that production of the next version of the iPad will begin next month, while production of the fifth generation of the iPhone will begin in May, ahead of its now common late June launch.
The same report also states that Foxconn and Pegatron will continue to be involved in the manufacturing of both respective devices, with Foxconn conducting a “small pilot” iPad 2 production run in February, ramping up to larger production runs by the second half of the year in order to satisfy demand.
The iPad 2 is expected to be thinner and lighter than the current model while featuring subtle improvements such as a front and rear camera, larger built-in speaker and SD slot. The iPhone 5 is expected to be the first iPhone model to switch away from its current Infineon-sourced cellular baseband chipset to a new dual-mode unit manufactured by Qualcomm that is expected to support both GSM and CDMA for ease of international roaming.
