On the heels of HP dropping it’s tablet and home PC line, Apple is working with component suppliers and its assembler in Asia to begin trial production of its next generation iPad in October, DJ Newswires reported Friday, citing people familiar with the situation.

The Cupertino, Calif., company has ordered key components such as display panels and chips for a new iPad it is aiming to launch in early 2012, said the people.

The next generation iPad is expected to feature a high resolution display — 2048 by 1536 compared with 1024 by 768 in the iPad 2 — and Apple’s suppliers have already shipped small quantities of components for the sampling of the iPad 3. Suppliers said Apple has placed orders for a 9.7-inch (24.6-cm) screen device.

One component supplier to Apple said the company has already placed orders for parts for about 1.5 million iPad 3s in the fourth quarter. “Suppliers will ramp up production and try to improve the yield rate for the new iPad in the fourth quarter before its official launch in early 2012,” said a person at the supplier.

Apple, like many other big personal-computer and consumer-electronics brands, does not actually make most of its products. It hires manufacturing specialists — mainly companies from Taiwan that have extensive operations in China — to assemble its gadgets based on Apple’s designs.

They use parts from other outside suppliers, many of which also are from Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia. The arrangement frees Apple and its fellow vendors from running complicated, labor-intensive production lines, while the ability of Taiwanese companies to slash manufacturing costs helps cut product prices over time.

Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. assembles the iPad. A company spokesman declined to comment.

Apple would benefit greatly to produce a much smoother release then that of the iPad 2 which saw many delays in production and shipping. This created long wait times for many who ordered iPad 2s within the first few months of release.

It took me 5 months before I could buy my iPad2 seen below.

Apple reported blowout earnings for its fiscal third quarter ended June 25 in part due to the popularity of its iPad. The company sold 9.3 million units in the quarter, nearly triple what it sold a year earlier. Together with the robust sales of the iPhone smartphone and other electronics devices, Apple’s net profit for the period more than doubled to $7.31 billion from $3.25 billion a year earlier.

Still, the next-generation iPad would be coming at a time when there is more competition in the market.

Companies from Samsung Electronics Co., Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., ZTE Corp. and Toshiba Corp. have launched similar devices using Google Inc.’s Android software. Apple is also embroiled in several lawsuits spanning various countries with Samsung Electronics over alleged patent infringement.

Apple still firmly holds the majority of the tablet market that they’ve created. Android and WebOS releases have yet to gain real traction in the market. HP has already reduce the price of their tablet after less then a month on the market, then says it’s selling the vary division.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has not sold as well as many had expected. The legal battles between Samsung and Apple also continue to wage on. Apple recently won an injunction against Samsung denying them access to sell the Galaxy Tab in Europe.

The iPad 3 is shaping up to be a well made device which could once again revolutionize the tablet industry. Recent rumors of a subsidy at the release of the iPad 3 make it seem that Apple is going to fight to hold onto the tablet market. Android has taken a large portion of the market share in the phone market and continuing to grow. Apple has surely learned from their mistakes and missteps in handling the iPhone line. At this point in time I still believe their is no tablet market in the United States, simply an iPad market. By continuing to release revolutionary products Apple may be able to hold onto those beliefs.

Apple’s iPhone 5 Coming

This report from WSJ means that the iPhone 5 and the iOS 5 release will take center stage this holiday season. This gives the iPhone 5 plenty of time to be the center of attention. It also provides Apple a highly marketable device for the holiday shopping period. The iPad 3 will then be released in March-April of 2012. For those following all of Apple’s products the question then becomes when will the iPhone 6 be released?

Below is a mockup, courtesy of 9to5 Mac, which shows what Apple’s iPhone 5 could look like – isn’t it beautiful?

Information for this article was also supplied from other media sources.