South Korean media is reporting that Apple will launch the next generation iPhone with 4.6-inch screen. The new screen will not only be bigger than current iPhone, but it will also be sharper.

Unnamed industry source told Maeil Business Newspaper that Apple has decided on the bigger 4.6-inch display for its next iPhone. Apple’s display suppliers for current iPhone 4S, LG and Samsung might be the likely supplier for the new bigger display, according to the newspaper. However, both the companies declined to comment.

The newspaper also claimed that the 4.6-inch Retina display iPhone is set to be launched around the second quarter of 2012.

Our sources have no information about a 4.6-inch screen on next generation iPhone. However, they said that Apple is definitely looking to use bigger screen, but the have only heard about 4-inch to 4.3-inch size. Apple might use an even bigger 4.6-inch screen to accommodate bigger chip, all the antennas for LTE and 3G, and bigger battery. [Via Reuters]

Investment firm Barclays released a research note in which they claim that Apple is currently testing and evaluating various radio components for next generation iPhone. Apple will be using Qualcomm’s next generation MDM9615 LTE chip that will be made with 28nm process technology in the next generation iPhone. The new chip from Qualcomm will support both voice and data on high-speed 4G networks and will be world compatible supporting variety of 4G LTE and 3G standards.

Apple currently use Qualcomm’s LTE cellular chip in the new iPad also, but the MDM9600 modem based chip can’t support multiple LTE networks and hence iPad with LTE comes in two different versions for Verizon and AT&T.

According to Barclays, along with Qualcomm other companies like Skyworks Solutions, TriQuint Semiconductor and Avago Technologies will also play a role in the LTE iPhone. Addition of 4G LTE components will increase the manufacturing cost for Apple by $3 to $10.

Barclays expects Apple to launch the next generation LTE iPhone in September. [Via AppleInsider]

Yesterday, Consumer Reports posted that the new iPad was running 13 degrees hotter than the old iPad 2 while playing graphically intense games like Infinity Blade II. Donna Tapellini wrote:

We ran our test while the new iPad was propped on the iPad Smart Cover, plugged in, and after it had run Infinity Blade II uninterrupted for about 45 minutes. The device's 4G connection was not turned on, though its Wi-fi link was.

Consumer Reports added that when the iPad was unplugged it reached temperature as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit compared to 116 degrees when plugged in. After this news was published, CNET contacted display technology expert, Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate, who said that the new Retina display might be playing a roll in this rise in operating temperature. Soneira gave CNET the following four reasons:

• Twice the LEDs: That means more heat coming from more LEDs. This is especially a problem at full brightness.
• 2.5X the power needed: The brightness efficiency is lower because the new iPad has more pixels (which means more transistors) compared to the iPad 2. More pixels and transistors take up more space, meaning less opportunity for light to pass. "So they basically have to blast light through the LCD to make it come out." Soneira adds: "I measured the LED power at maximum brightness--it's two and a half times greater than on the iPad 2."
• Battery generates more juice: The battery has to push out more power. This makes the battery warmer.
• Traditional LCD technology: Sharp's power-efficient IGZO technology was not ready for the new iPad. That forced Apple to use traditional--and less power efficient--amorphous silicon tech.

In our experience the new iPad does run hotter than iPad 2, but it’s not uncomfortable in hand. Actually, while doing normal things like surfing web, watching video and using general applications we didn’t feel any difference in temperature. However, when playing games for 40 to 60 minutes we did feel that the new iPad is getting hotter. We also noted that like the iPhone the new iPad also gets slightly hot when charging and if you are playing games while charging it that compounds the problem.

Last week, an image surfaced on Reddit that the poster claimed was of rumored Samsung Galaxy S III. And today, a Dutch website GSM Helpdesk has posted a new photo showing Samsung Galaxy S III, which looks very similar to the handset in the image leaked on Reddit. The on-screen graphics in both the images are taken from last year’s Galaxy S II launch, which would indicate that the handset in the leaked images is a mockup rather than the actual product.

However, GSM Helpdesk claims that the final Galaxy S III will look almost like the image and come with Super AMOLED display 720p, 1.5GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor, Android 4.0, 12-megapixel camera and new TouchWiz UI. The handset will support 42Mbps HSDPA, WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and MicroUSB 2.0.

Rumors are Samsung will announce the Galaxy S III on May 22nd and should ship it by end of Q2 2012 to compete with Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5.

Seagate has become the first hard drive maker to achieve the milestone storage density of 1 terabit (1 trillion bits) per square inch, producing a demonstration of the technology that promises to double the storage capacity of today’s hard drives upon its introduction later this decade and give rise to 3.5-inch hard drives with an extraordinary capacity of up to 60 terabytes over the 10 years that follow. The bits within a square inch of disk space, at the new milestone, far outnumber stars in the Milky Way, which astronomers put between 200 billion and 400 billion.

Seagate reached the landmark data density with heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), the next- generation recording technology. The current hard drive technology, Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) was introduced in 2006 to replace longitudinal recording, a method in place since the advent of hard drives for computer storage in 1956, and is expected to reach its capacity limit near 1 terabit per square inch in the next few years.

“The growth of social media, search engines, cloud computing, rich media and other data-hungry applications continues to stoke demand for ever greater storage capacity,” said Mark Re, senior vice president of Heads and Media Research and Development at Seagate. “Hard disk drive innovations like HAMR will be a key enabler of the development of even more data-intense applications in the future, extending the ways businesses and consumers worldwide use, manage and store digital content.”

Hard drive manufacturers increase areal density and capacity by shrinking a platter’s data bits to pack more within each square inch of disk space. They also tighten the data tracks, the concentric circles on the disk’s surface that anchor the bits. The key to areal density gains is to do both without disruptions to the bits’ magnetization, a phenomenon that can garble data. Using HAMR technology, Seagate has achieved a linear bit density of about 2 million bits per inch, once thought impossible, resulting in a data density of just over 1 trillion bits, or 1 terabit, per square inch – 55 percent higher than today’s areal density ceiling of 620 gigabits per square inch.

The maximum capacity of today’s 3.5-inch hard drives is 3 terabytes (TB), at about 620 gigabits per square inch, while 2.5-inch drives top out at 750 gigabytes (GB), or roughly 500 gigabits per square inch. The first generation of HAMR drives, at just over 1 terabit per square inch, will likely more than double these capacities – to 6TB for 3.5-inch drives and 2TB for 2.5-inch models. The technology offers a theoretical areal density limit ranging from 5 to 10 terabits per square inch – 30TB to 60TB for 3.5-inch drives and 10TB to 20TB for 2.5-inch drives.

Apple today announced it has sold three million of its incredible new iPad, since its launch on Friday, March 16. The new iPad features a stunning new Retina display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics, a 5 megapixel iSight camera with advanced optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video, and still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life while remaining amazingly thin and light. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G supports ultrafast 4G LTE networks in the US and Canada, and fast networks around the world including those based on HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA.

“The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold - the strongest iPad launch yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad, including the stunning Retina display, and we can't wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday.”

While announcing the new iPad, Apple claimed that the new Retina display on the new tablet is the best display ever on a mobile device. And today DisplayMate put Apple’s claim on test with iPad display technology shoot-out, in which they compared the new iPad’s display with displays on iPhone 4 and iPad 2.

In the shoot-out DisplayMate provides in-depth objective side-by-side comparisons with the iPad 2 and iPhone based on detailed laboratory measurements and extensive viewing tests with both test patterns and test images. DisplayMate also compared the new iPad test results with results on other tablets.

The results of all the tests showed that the new iPad really shines with accurate colors and picture quality. It decisively beats (blows away) all of the tablets DisplayMate has previously tested including the iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Barnes & Noble Nook and the worst rated Amazon Kindle Fire. With its virtually perfect 99 percent of Standard Color Gamut and excellent sharpness, DisplayMate says that iPad now qualifies for professional level applications.

DisplayMate concluded the shoot-out by saying:

Apple has taken the very good display on the iPad 2 and dramatically improved two of its major weak points: sharpness and color saturation – they are now state-of-the-art. Our lab tests and visual tests agree with Apple’s claim that the new iPad has “the best display ever on a mobile device” so we have awarded the new iPad the Best Mobile Display Award in DisplayMate’s Best Video Hardware Guide. But there’s more…the new iPad’s picture quality, color accuracy, and gray scale are not only much better than any other Tablet or Smartphone, it’s also much better than most HDTVs, laptops, and monitors. In fact with some minor calibration tweaks the new iPad would qualify as a studio reference monitor. So we have also awarded the new iPad the Best Mobile Picture Quality Award, which was previously held by the original Motorola Droid (not the more recent Droids, which all have poor picture quality). Finally, almost as impressive is that Apple has maintained the base price of $499. Who says Apple doesn’t compete aggressively on price!

Below we have added screen shot of some of the test results. You can see complete test results on DisplayMate’s website. The article on the website explains in-depth things like actual Retina Display, resolution, sharpness and other factors.

Early today, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the new iPad launch was very successful. He didn’t give any specific numbers, but said, “We has a record (iPad) weekend, and we’re thrilled with it.”

Just after Tim’s announcement, AT&T released the following statement:

On Friday, March 16, AT&T set a new single-day record for its iPad sales and activations, demonstrating robust demand for the new iPad on the nation’s largest 4G network, covering nearly 250 million people.

Many analysts estimate that Apple sold over 1 million iPads on the launch weekend. However, these two announcements together indicate that, as always analysts are again wrong about Apple product numbers. We believe pre-orders and weekend sales combined Apple would have easily sold over 2 million iPads on the launch weekend.

As always folks at iFixit got their hands on the new iPad that Apple started shipping last Friday and ripped it apart to see what’s ticking inside. Although most of the things that the teardown revealed we already knew, but it showed the monumental task Apple went through to fit so much in such a thin and light package.

Not only is the new A5X processor larger by 36% to accommodate quad core GPU, the battery is bigger by 70% going from 25 watt-hours to 42.5 watt hours. Also the new iPad has the most number of antennas on a mobile device supporting LTE, HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, WCDMA, WiFi, Bluetooth, GSM, CDMA and GPS. And, don’t forget the Retina display (which is made by Samsung and not Sharp) that requires double the number on LEDs (gone up from 32 LED in iPad 2 to 72 LED now) for backlighting and bigger display connector for transferring more data to light up those 3.1 million pixels.

While iFixit’s teardown showed all the component in the new iPad, Chipworks went one step further and analyzed parts to find out more information about manufacturers and other technical specifications. And they found the following.

As Apple has said previously the camera on the new iPad uses the 5-element lens from iPhone 4S, but the sensor behind the lens is from iPhone 4. It is the same OV5650 BSI image sensor from iPhone 4 featuring 1.7 µm pixels and 1080p video recording. A deeper look at the A5X processor revealed that it is manufactured by Samsung using 45nm LP CMOS process and not by TSMC with 28nm process as was rumored.

Overall, the teardown revealed that the new iPad combines cutting edge technologies like the class leading new Retina display, multimode network support including LTE and DC-HSDPA, powerful quad core GPU and industry leading 42.5 watt hours battery in a sleek tablet that weighs less than 1.5 pounds, that’s impressive.

Apple today announced plans to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program commencing later this year.

Subject to declaration by the Board of Directors, the Company plans to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012.

Additionally, the Company’s Board of Directors has authorized a $10 billion share repurchase program commencing in the Company’s fiscal 2013, which begins on September 30, 2012. The repurchase program is expected to be executed over three years, with the primary objective of neutralizing the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs.

“We have used some of our cash to make great investments in our business through increased research and development, acquisitions, new retail store openings, strategic prepayments and capital expenditures in our supply chain, and building out our infrastructure. You’ll see more of all of these in the future,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Even with these investments, we can maintain a war chest for strategic opportunities and have plenty of cash to run our business. So we are going to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program.”

“Combining dividends, share repurchases, and cash used to net-share-settle vesting RSUs, we anticipate utilizing approximately $45 billion of domestic cash in the first three years of our programs,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “We are extremely confident in our future and see tremendous opportunities ahead.”