Mission Repair has posted photographs of an iPad back case that has two dock connectors; one for portrait and one for landscape.
Weve all seen the Apple iPad Design Patents showing dual dock connectors. . .but we want to see the real thing!
Ask and you shall receive: Heres a shot of an iPad back case showing the dock connectors both on the bottom of the iPad (as were used to) and on the side of the iPad so you can dock it in landscape mode. Just as we hoped.
Mission Repair speculates that this is the back case for next iPad; however, MacRumors suggests that it might be an old case for an iPad prototype design that was scraped.
I agree with the thought that it's probably an early prototype, either of a landscape dock, or just a normal size SIM card slot. It really is unlike Apple to add multiple features to a device, that both do the same thing. To them that complicates things too much, and they like keeping their design simple. I doubt they'd actually release an iPad with that.
It'll be interesting to see how they deal with the EU's requirement for Micro SIM slots on all phones. They really like their dock connector, because it does everything, yet the idea of having two ports with the same functionality probably drives them crazy, makes everything way to confusing. We'll see what they do....