The rumor mill surrounding the next generation iPad has built itself into a frenzy of late as the pundits are trying to second guess what Steve Jobs and his team at Apple will do to improve the iPad.

Apple lit the touch paper on the tablet market when they launched the iPad and the competition have been quick to respond with devices that try to trump the iPad’s features. It is fair to say that the next generation iPad is likely to include those key features that were missing from the initial launch.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs are reported as saying that Apple’s next-generation iPad will likely include a camera, a mini USB port and will be lighter. They also believe that Apple are considering making a smaller tablet.

I don’t think that you need to be a highly paid analyst to guess at these features as they are the shortfalls of the current model that have been widely lamented by the trade and consumers alike. They are also the feature included on BlackBerry’s PlayBook which was unveiled this week and expects to ship in early 2011.

The iPad’s screen measures 9.7 inches diagonally, but the PlayBook comes in at the smaller 7 inch size, and computer maker Dell recently offered a teasing glimpse of a 7-inch tablet of its own. So could it also be fair to expect that the next generation iPad will have a 7 inch screen too? Probably.

According to Apple Insider the new iPad will feature a front-facing camera with FaceTime video conferencing capabilities currently found in the latest iPhone 4. There is also talk of FaceTime being opened up to other manufacturers in the hope that this will become the industry standard for video calling.

Depending on which source you read we are lead to believe that Apple is pushing hard to get this next generation iPad to consumers no later than Spring next year and some sources even suggest that the new iPad is already in final testing stages to be ready for the fast approaching holiday season! Again, this is no great scoop as Apple are well known to have a 12 month product cycle.

By next summer we could easily be talking about a head-to-head competition between the iPad and other tablet devices that run on Android 3.0 which are due for release early next year. Android 3.0 devices will have the competitive advantage over other iPad competitors because of its stability but will they ever have the brand presence of Apple’s market leader?