The world of 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) may be coming to the iPad sooner than we expected. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Verizon CEO Daniel Meade went on record to say, “you’ll see more coming from Apple on LTE.” Does this mean we’ll see an LTE iPad 2 announced next week?
For every bit of speculation revolving around Apple products there is also an equal level of consistency. Each year around June, a shiny new iPhone is released. Meanwhile, MacBook Pros and iMacs see a refresh in six to twelve month intervals. Next week Apple is holding an event where the company will introduce the iPad 2. Engulfed by countless rumors, the second-generation tablet may have an exciting, albeit speculated, feature — 4G LTE.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Verizon CEO Daniel Meade “expects Apple to offer mobile devices on the carrier’s 4G technology”. “You’ll see more coming from Apple on LTE,” he said. “They understand the value proposition of LTE and I feel very confident that they are going to be a part of it.”
Under normal circumstances this interview might have gone unnoticed, however there’s a twist. There are three different iPad 2s in the SDK: K93, K94 and K95. Granted, this may refer to a WiFi-only model, GSM (3G+WiFi), and CDMA. Here’s the twist: the Verizon iPhone uses a Qualcomm GOBI chipset which allows both CDMA and GSM connectivity so a dedicated CDMA model is not necessary.
As the tension builds going into Apple’s iPad 2 event schedule for March 2, we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed that Apple will include 4G LTE support. There’s at least one competitor who would hate to see that happen.
via 9to5Mac
