Rumors: Apple's large 12.9-inch iPad could be released in late Q3, Samsung has more Lite tablets in the pipeline

Earlier this month, Samsung went all PRO at CES and unveiled two new 12.2-inch tablets called Galaxy TabPRO 12.2 and Galaxy NotePRO - thus putting a fruitful end to the flurry of rumors regarding its oversized tablets. Will Apple follow with a larger-than-usual tablet? It appears that it will, as rumors about this have also flooded news feeds recently.

The latest rumor comes from Taiwan’s DigiTimes and has it that, according to “market sources”, Apple “is likely” to launch a 12.9-inch iPad “by the end of the third quarter at the earliest.” Assuming that this is correct, we could see the new iPad before the end of September.

The 12.9-inch iPad might be targeted at enterprise and education markets rather than regular users. That’s pretty much all we know about it at this point.

It’s said that Apple may sell a total of 80 to 90 million tablets throughout 2014 - obviously including the new iPad Air and iPad Mini models which are expected to replace the current versions in the second half of the year.

Samsung will likely also sell a high number of tablets before the end of 2014, possibly up to 60 - 70 million units (compared to 40 million in 2013). DigiTimes claims that the South Korean company has more Galaxy Lite tablets prepared for this year - to complement the allegedly cheap Tab3 Lite announced earlier this week.

Of course, since the details above do not come from official sources, we should remain skeptical and wait for some form of confirmation before actually believing them.

source: DigiTimes