For all intents and purposes, the original series of Kindle e-readers has been hugely successful for Jeff Bezos and the rest of the team at Amazon. They’re currently enjoying roaring success with the aggressively priced Kindle Fire. And now it looks like Amazon is ready for its next big move with the preparation of a so-called KindlePhone for next year.

According to Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney, Amazon is carefully working with suppliers now to get the puzzle pieces in place for a Q4 2012 launch of a Kindle smartphone. This is “based on [Citigroup's] supply chain channel checks in Asia led by Kevin Chang, Citi’s Taipei-based hardware research analyst.”

These checks are revealing that Amazon is working with Foxconn to jointly develop the phone, but it’s not Foxconn that will be actually manufacturing the phone. Instead, Amazon will turn back to Hon Hai’s TMS business group to make the KindlePhone itself. This makes sense, since Amazon is already using TMS to make its Kindle e-reader and Kindle Fire tablet. We could be getting ahead of ourselves, since it’s still a year out, but they’re also mentioning that the KindlePhone will get a OMAP 4 processor by way of Texas Instruments and a “dual mode 6-series standalone baseband” (HSPA+ / EVDO) chip by way of Qualcomm.

Putting it all together, the total cost for a KindlePhone is being estimated at $150 to $170. Whereas other phone companies have to put in a normal 30% gross margin, that’s not Amazon’s modus operandi. They use these devices — just like the Kindle Fire — as a delivery mechanism for its digital products and subscription services, which is where the real money is made. If an unlocked KindlePhone is sold for $150 outright, that could be as big a game-changer as the $199 Kindle Fire.

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Well, that makes sense. Apple has a habit of updating its product lines once a year and the current Apple iPad 2 launched in the United States in March 2011. It follows reason that the successor, likely dubbed the iPad 3, would release around the same timeframe in 2012. And it looks like Apple is getting its ducks in a row for exactly that.

Apparently, Apple has started to order some of the key components from suppliers in Asia for development and production of the next-generation tablet. These include sourcing parts like the chips and display panels. With an “early 2012″ release window rumored, the iPad 3 will reportedly get quadruple the resolution of the current iPad 2, bumping up to 2048×1536, giving it Retina Display level pixel density.

Moving into Q4, suppliers are reportedly ramping up production to keep up with this demand. It’s said that Apple has placed enough orders to build about 1.5 million iPad 3 devices in the fourth quarter, prepping for an early 2012 release. From what we can gather, Hon Hai Precision Industry of Taiwan will still be responsible for assembling the next-gen iTablet.

Aside from a higher resolution display and possibly a more beefy processor, what else do you want to see in the iPad 3?

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