The Wall Street Journal's usual people familiar with the matter are weighing in on the iPad 3, which is expected to arrive sometime in early 2012. The sources focus largely on Apple's interactions with suppliers—the company is said to have lined up its key components for the next iPad and has begun to place orders for 1.5 million iPad 3s to be produced during the fourth quarter of 2011.

The other details in the WSJ report are largely rehashed from previous rumors when it comes to iPad 3 speculation. The main point is the display resolution, which is said to be going up from 1024x768 to 2048x1536—basically double the number of pixels in both directions. But this in itself isn't a new revelation; evidence found within the iOS 5 SDK back in June showed embedded images that were twice the size of the iPad 2's screen, sitting at 2048x1536, indicating that Apple was indeed planning to increase the iPad's resolution to match those images. It's also worth noting that DigiTimes' own sources claim the next iPad will have the same 2048x1536 resolution.

Rumors about a higher-resolution iPad date prior to the release of the iPad 2 earlier this year. Many expected the iPad 2 to come with a similar "retina" class display as the current iPhone 4, but such an expectation was unrealistic—Ars explained why such a thing wouldn't make sense until at least 2012.

Now that 2012 is drawing nearer, it's no surprise that these rumors are popping up again, and they will likely continue to pop up in increasing numbers through about March or April of 2012. Let's be realistic though—Apple usually (but not always, as we have learned from the iPhone this year) sticks to a general yearly release schedule for its iDevices. Who isn't expecting an early 2012 iPad update?