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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: The New iPad Edition

So, Apple announced the latest 1.4 pound object to burn a hole through your wallet yesterday but the general reaction around the blogospheres have been lukewarm to put it mildly.  Personally, I didn’t see enough to motivate me to buy this iteration of the iPad.

To be honest, I didn’t have very high hopes for this iPad.  I figured that there might be some kind of bump to the screen and processor but, I knew in my heart that I wasn’t going to be “wow’ed.”  Forgive me all those people that were amazed at the horizon corrections.

I put together some bullet points for the good, the bad and the ugly bits to the iPad 3, iPad HD, iPad 2S, new iPad. Take a look below.

Good

  • LTE present in the device.  My theory: If market leader has leading technology = better competition for consumer dollars = better products for the consumer to choose from.
  • Battery life is quoted at the same time as its predecessors.
  • Bumped up screen resolution will make text, iBooks look amazing.
  • This knocks the iPad 2 prices down across the board.
  • So many bands. Great precedent set for this. More radios, please!

 

Bad

  • No changes to LTE/ data pricing. Stream Avatar in HD on that iPad and you will go over your monthly allotment on AT&T or put you right at the mark for Verizon.
  • Seems like there’s no 4G/3G data love for T-Mobile or Sprint.
  • Looks like no NFC.
  • Apps get bumped up look, sure, but not optimized unless the dev does more work to it.
  • No changes in gestures, bezel.
  • No announced changes to FFC.

 

Ugly

  • It’s heavier (truthfully that’s understandable).
  • There are still no other ports aside from the dock connector and audio.
  • Still haven’t provided a compelling reason to get an iPad with a data connection!!
  • Continues to alienate MacBook Air users.
  • Looks like AT&T version and the Verizon version might be two different models 🙁

 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

  • What do you call this thing now? Won’t people who just bought the iPad 2 be disappointed that they don’t have the new “iPad?” (Only half-kidding)
  • How the hell is this supposed to be a “Post-PC” device when the best experience you will have will come from loading content from a PC (referring almost exclusively to digital cameras)?
  • Nothing about increased Safari performance?
  • Still only one form factor?
  • With a beefed up 5-megapixel camera, would you, the consumer, walk around with this to take pictures for an event?
  • Now that there’s LTE, will you be able to FaceTime over data without jailbreaking?

 

My Quick Takeaways From the Conference

  • Mike Capps (president of Epic Games) mentioning that the New iPad runs on a higher resolution than the PS3 and an Xbox 360 made me giggle.  It’s a true statement, sure, but then again those video game consoles were made to display on a TV which only recently embraced “High Definition.”  Comparatively, the same year that the Xbox 360 launched (in 2005), the Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX came to market and that also spit out QXGA aka 2048 x 1536 graphics…on two screens…at 85 Hz.  But hey, welcome to the Post-PC era (hate that term but Apple is great at marketing)…
  • With Jelly Bean and Windows 8 tablets looming at the end of the year, I don’t feel like I saw enough from Apple to influence my decision on which tablet to buy in the future.  Of course, my opinion wont matter because the pre-orders are probably through the roof already.  There’s an advantage to launching first and Apple has made full use of said advantage each and every time.  I just feel like we’re starting to approach critical mass with their latest hardware revisions.
  • No Siri actually made a lot of sense to me.  Until Siri can launch apps, leave it out.
  • The price drop for the iPad 2 might just have made me a believer.  Now, I have a serious decision to make about a backup/chop-em-tablet.  I’ve been waiting for a stable version of CM7/9 for the Nook Tablet but a jailbroken iPad 2 for around the same price might just be the move.  Stay tuned.
  • Immediately after the iPhone 4S conference, I felt like Apple was daring the competition to come after them.  I had the exact same feeling here.  Maybe Apple only truly innovates when facing stiff competition.  Who knows?

 

Photo credit:  IMDB

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