Apple’s manufacturing partners are slated to build 5 million iPad 2 units in July alone, DigiTimes reports. The new claim follows an earlier report stating Apple will ship between 12 million and 14 million iPad 2 tablets in the third quarter of 2011, doubling the Cupertino-based technology giant’s second-quarter shipment volume. DigiTimes claims Cando, Sintek Photronic, Chimei Innolux, TPK Holding and Wintek will combine to supply 5 million touch sensors this month, matching the volume they reportedly filled in June. Apple’s iPad 2 remins one of the best-selling consumer electronics devices on the market, and Apple may launch an updated version of the tablet later this year according to rumors.

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A report from DigiTimes is suggesting that Apple will begin to slow the production and shipment of the iPhone 4 in preparation for the arrival of the iPhone 4S, which could land as soon as this September. Apple has reportedly dropped its planned shipment volume for the second quarter from 20 million units to 17.5-18 million units. DigiTimes is also reporting that the iPhone 4S will be available in GSM / CDMA flavors and will offer an upgraded 8-megapixel camera — with optics provided by OmniVision Technologies and Largan Precision. Production is expected to begin in August. While Apple may be planning iPhone 4S launches on T-Mobile and Sprint, it appears that a 4G LTE model won’t hit the market until next year.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

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The mobile phone market grew almost 20% year-over-year during the first quarter of 2011, IDC has stated. The reason? Smartphones, smartphones, and more smartphones. The firm reports that worldwide smartphone growth was particularly fast in the Asia/Pacific region, as well as in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. As far as hard numbers, it’s stated that 371.8 million units were shipped in the first quarter of this year, contrasting with 310.5 million units in the first quarter of last year. Nokia remains the world’s largest mobile handset maker, however, the company’s market share dropped over 5% YoY. Apple maintained the number four spot while also posting the highest rate of growth amongst the top 5 worldwide leaders, with over 5% of the market share and 114.9% growth year-over-year. White iPhones not included.

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Finally, Congress passes a piece of legislation that citizens on both the right and left side of the political spectrum can get behind. Late yesterday, Congress approved the CALM (Commercial Advertising Loudness Mitigation) Act, which “requires TV advertisers to ensure their ads don’t play at a volume louder than regular TV programming.” The new bill requires ad makers to use “industry technology” to prevent the volume annoyance from occurring.

“Consumers will no longer have to experience being blasted at,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democrat from California. “It’s a simple fix to a huge nuisance.”

The bill currently awaits President Obama’s signature. Once enacted, commercial makers will have one year to comply with the new law.

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2008 turned out to be a milestone year for LG as it managed to leapfrog past both Motorola and Sony Ericsson by outselling them for the first time in their history. With 100 million phones sold, LG’s 2008 sales are no small feat considering the turbulent economic times. However, it must be said that LG only just surpassed Motorola by 100,000 devices. Motorola, which has quite a lot of new devices headed for Verizon in 2009, is going to have to push very hard for sales in 2009 to regain the number three slot but that might be difficult considering that an LG executive had previously said that his company aims to release over 100 devices in 2009. Yikes. Oh, and in case you were wondering how many units the industry sales leaders in Nokia and Samsung sold, the answer is 470 and 200 million respectively. Add in Sony Ericsson’s 96.6 million and that’s nearly 1 billion phones from the top five in 2008.

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