“With Apple expected to take the wraps off its second-generation iPad in the next few months, talk has focused largely around the potential hardware enhancements to the tablet device, including rumors of an SD Card slot that AppleInsider sources now suggest is unlikely to materialize,” Kasper Jade reports for AppleInsider.
“That particular rumor appears to have gained its legs back in December when a pair of China-based case manufacturers leaked images of their upcoming iPad 2 protectors, which were presumably based off design schematics that often originate from Apple ahead of new product introductions and get passed around gray markets in the Far East,” Jade reports.
Jade reports, “In a mockup analysis of all the openings and recesses in those cases, it was speculated that that left-side opening could represent the much-rumored SD Card slot. However, a person that AppleInsider trusts on matters such as these has since rebutted that notion, stating instead that the break in the next-gen iPad enclosure at that location is actually a relocation of the tablet’s SIM card slot.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It was just a rumor. 
ROlandMac, finally someone who talks after thinking it through. After a simple look at apple’s case for my iPad, it shows the same as what you are saying.
Don’t know what it will be for or if it was only a trial mockup, but SIM- slot…not likely.
Failure to provide some way for users to back up their work locally when away from home would be a supremely bad move on Apple’s part. How can this not be a priority for the next iPad???
@Pedrag
Sounds like you don’t travel out of your country much. I live in Singapore and my job requires me to travel regularly to 3 other countries.
When I travel, I *do* remove my SIM card from my iPad (and occasionally my iPhone) and change it to a local SIM card so as not to incur expensive data roaming charges on my Singapore phone’s account. This is fairly normal practice by frequent travelers in Asia.
@Tim, wouldn’t you be able to use it for your floppy drive too?
Just use the damn sd card with wifi built in. Card slot problem solved. Get over it already. And forget USB ports already. It’s wifi or bluetooth all the way. Apples way.
There is no need to include such crap. It disrupts the design.