There has been a lot of iPad related talk these days, with the imminent release of iPad Mini. Apple finally sent out invites to the media for a special event taking place on October 23. We had previously heard from a number of sources that in October Apple will definitely announce their 7.85 inch tablet.

That being said, the full fledged iPad has been a major cash cow for Apple ever since it first came out in 2010. Surely Apple is not going to neglect such a lucrative product. There have been rumors that a mildly upgraded New iPad might be announced alongside iPad Mini, but common sense dictates that this is not going to happen. Instead, according to latest reports, we can expect next generation iPad to release in mid 2013.

Apple has pretty stringent product release cycles, it usually releases a new model of its various products every year. The iPad 2 was released in March 2011 and the current iPad was released exactly one year later in March 2012. Going by that probability, we can almost be sure that the next generation iPad will be released in March 2013. Though this new report from DigiTimes, which has a hit or miss record, claims that the release will come in mid-2013, or in other words, Q2 2013.

Nothing substantial has been rumored up till now regarding next generation iPad. I hope that there's a substantial design change, because there was virtually none between iPad 2 and the New iPad. Rumor has it that Apple will be reducing number of LEDs used for backlighting from 84 to a currently unknown number. The company is also expected to use two-chip packages for LED backlights instead of the current setup.

We can expect improvements to be made under the hood as well. A quad-core processor on next generation iPad is a possibility, and so is an even thinner and lighter profile. Hopefully we'll get to know more about this upcoming iPad as we approach 2013.