Apple has made a very minor hardware change to the iPad in the days running up to it going on sale to the public. What was previously described as the “mute switch” in Apple’s diagrams is now referred to as “screen rotation lock”.
It goes without saying that the iPad is much like the iPhone in the sense that it can change screen orientation just by changing the orientation of the device due to the use of an internal accelerometer. This hardware switch would negate this and lock the screen the orientation it was currently in when the button is pressed. This should come in handy for users who are lying down.
In other hardware news Engadget points out that Apple has submitted two filings to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, and these filings have now shown up in the FCC’s online database.
Apple, of course, has a track record of timing its FCC filings perfectly so that virtually nothing is revealed before Cupertino wants it to be, and frankly, you’re not going to get much here that you didn’t already know — the photographs (both external and internal) and the user manual are both still under confidentiality. Both units were tested for WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth, while one — model number A1337 — adds in GSM 850 / 1900 and UMTS 850 / 1900, so it appears that Apple has bundled all of its 3G and non-3G models into just two filings regardless of storage capacity.
These filings come with requests for 180 days of confidentiality on things like external and internal photos and user manuals.
Images courtesy of MacRumors.
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