Rumors of an iPad 3 release started early in 2011, even before the iPad 2 was released. Taiwan’s Economic Daily continued the speculation on Tuesday.

[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]According to the report, the iPad 3 is scheduled to be launched in the fourth quarter of 2011. One interesting note is that the image resolution is reportedly 5-6 times higher than the iPad 2.

I have no specific knowledge of an iPad 3 release this year, but I did write about it in February and why it may make sense for Apple. Here are a few excerpts from that story that I think are still relevant.

The annual iPod event takes place in September, but the iPods aren’t selling like they used to. They are still a huge money-maker for the company, but when you’re looking at the holiday shopping season, having something like a new iPad would boost sales by an incredible amount.There’s another reason that Apple could release an iPad in the September timeframe that I feel has been overlooked. The iPad’s competition.Currently the iPad has no competition, but by this summer, there will be a lot of tablets on the market. RIM’s PlayBook, HP’s tablet and many others.Instead of competing with over 100 previously announced tablets, I believe Apple will want to change the game. And they’ve done it before.Remember the iPod mini? It was Apple’s most successful iPod outselling all other models of its time. And Apple discontinued it. Just as the competition could say, “we have a music player just like the iPod mini,” Apple canceled it and started over, releasing the iPod nano.This threw the competition into a tailspin. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple do it again, this time with the iPad.