Apple teams with Pegatron to ship iPad 3 units in March

Apple is rumored to have made some changes to its outsourcing strategy by employing Pegatron to handle the majority of iPad manufacturing and Foxconn to handle iPhones moving forward.

However, both companies will serve as auxiliaries for each other in 2013, meaning Foxconn will produce a small amount of iPads and vice versa. 

According to Digitimes, "the sources noted that Apple's new strategy is meant to decrease risk and increase the quality of its products and the company has already visited Pegatron's plants in China several times recently to ensure the smoothness of the shipment process."

Sources also claim that Pegatron has already received a small batch of iPad 3 orders ahead of the March shipping date. 

That all seems plausable, but then Digitimes goes off the rails by saying the following:

Pegatron "is expected to see a significant increase in its orders for Apple's "iPad 4," which is scheduled to launch in October, with an initial volume of about 7-10 million units, according to sources from the upstream supply chain."

An iPad 4 only 6-7 months after the iPad 3? That seems downright absurd - throwing Digitimes' credibility on the entire matter in question. Indeed, the Taiwanese publication has a hit or miss history of accuracy with regard to Apple rumors.

That is of course, unless the iPad 4 is actually a smaller, more budget friendly version iPad 3 designed to compete with tablets like the Kindle Fire. Then these rumors start making some sense. 

At any rate, many of the rumors floating around out there are pointing to March as the likely month for iPad 3 shipments - so we are bound to see something from Apple in the next few months.