Like we said, no iPad 3 until next year

A lot of people were hoping for an iPad 3 release sometime this year. The rumor made the rounds repeatedly despite Apple’s iPad 2 moniker “2011: Year of iPad 2.” It looks like Apple wasn’t kidding. It’s looking increasingly unlikely that the iPad 3 is going to ship any time this calendar year (2011).

J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz has pointed out that he’s hearing that a prototype is making the rounds of the supply chain circuit; however, there’s no indication that the iPad 3 will be released this year. More importantly, Moskowitz believes that Apple’s in no rush to get the next iPad out of the gates considering the constant stumbling of its competitors up until this point.

“We do not think Apple needs to be in a rush to unveil a new iPad. … The other tablet entrants have stumbled so far, and that trend-line could persist deep into 2012. Motorola Mobility and Research In Motion have been recent disappointments, and we expect more stumbles from others.”

For a while it was rumoured that the iPad 3 would be available alongside the iPad 2 possibly as an iPad and iPad Pro-like offering, but even then it was hard to imagine two different iPads on the market at the same time. Some rumoured the iPad 3 would be released this fall, but most held that the device wouldn’t ship until the new year.

Back in August the Wall Street Journal speculated that the next iPad would be released sometime between January and March of 2012, and that it would come with a Retina display (2048×1536 resolution). If we had to guess, and believe me when I say everyone else on the planet is guessing as well, the next iPad is more likely to be released in the late winter/early spring of 2012 than this year.

Just like we said back in July.

Source: AllThingsD