New iPad 3 Parts Emerge Suggesting Changes To Design

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If you were looking at the reports that suggested an iPad 3 release may be arriving a bit sooner than expected, and feeling a bit skeptical about the whole idea, you can scarcely be blamed. But a new surprise has emerged in the form of some newly-leaked parts, and the surprise may be a lot more significant than you might expect from such a small item.

We’ve been seeing parts from the iPad 3, from displays to dock connectors, coming out for some time now, but this newest leak is said to be the microphone flex cable, which is actually currently available for purchase from some Chinese retailers, according to reports.

The purported microphone flex cable itself, meanwhile, is highly unusual in its design and suggests some possibly significant re-design on the part of the iPad 3. The key to this revelation comes with the discovery that this cable makes a kind of “U-turn” at the end, while the iPad 2′s microphone flex cable, meanwhile, made a pair of 90 degree turns instead. That’s actually a pretty big difference in the way this is set up, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a resulting big change in the device’s overall appearance. After all, the different iPhone 4 models–the CDMA and GSM, for example–look almost identical on the outside but have some pretty substantial internal differences.

Still though, there’s a possibility here for some pretty substantial differences between the iPad 3 and the iPad 2, especially considering the big differences in display quality that we’ve already heard about.  And it’s clear that Apple is going to have to keep advancing the iPad if it means to get anywhere in the tablet market, especially with the variety of new competitors coming out like the models powered by Kal-El quad-core chips.

So what do you guys think here? What big–or small–differences do you think will be part of the iPad 3 release? Do you think the iPad 3 is going to be a huge difference from the iPad 2? Or will Apple stick to what’s worked so far? The comments section is waiting for you to tell us what you think below, so head on down and fill us in!