5 things the iPad didn't get right

[53x12]

Retina display - still a little early with battery life and costs to balance

SD card/USB - until a real file system is implemented, this has less meaning

Thunderbolt - will come in time, it has just been released and no compatible devices anyway

NFC - meh

4G - still early for this as well if you consider Apple's timetables and history

This. Basically answers everything.

BTW, cnet sucks.

 

[meder87]

I don't get why everyone over hyped this announcement and expected so much. Apple doesn't do major overhauls so quickly. We've seen that with the iPhone over the last 4 iterations. What they did was add exactly what they needed to move it to the next step. If you really want great specs right now and the other items such as NFC and LTE then go with the Xoom or future tablet. No one is holding you down and telling you to buy an iPad.

 

[Breitling65]

Just 3 from me:

USB card,
FLASH
Barometer

 

[bob5820]

Yes. Because YOU are so smart that you can predict things AFTER a product is released?

Innovative. Magical. Different. These are all buzzwords that are rightfully attributed to Apple because Apple never ceases to surprise people with what they CAN do. So to strut in here AFTER a product release and slam people for having high expectations of a company that tends to EXCEED expectation is ridiculous.

Sure, retina display wasnt likely but that doesnt mean Apple was incapable of figuring out a way to balance it all out. And Apple wont stay at the top of the heap if people dont believe they will deliver the future, today.

Arrogantly, if some what naively put. Henrikox made valid points that were pretty much in line with the majority of what was being predicted for the iPad2 before it launched. There was no good business reason for Apple to exceed expectations at this point. The iPad2 will be a success in large part due to Apple's decision to keep the price point low enough that the competition is going to be at a disadvantage no matter how many features their tablet has.

I tend to agree that CNET's 5 things the iPad didn't get right sounds like more of a wish list than realistic expectation. Could Apple have pulled some of these features off? Yes, but what would be their motivation to do so. The fact the Apple could do something has very little impact on how likely they are to do so. Apple could begin licensing their OS to clone PC again, but you would have to be smoking some pretty premo stuff to believe thats ever going to happen. Apple could enable Flash in iOS, but that's not happening either.

Most of the objections to CNET's logic posted in this thread have been valid, but there are a few I'd like to add.

Retina Display - Even if they could bring a high res / low power display in at an acceptable price point there they still run into a problem since none of the apps that run on the iPad are designed for this resolution. Do you really want Apple to force developers to rewrite all their apps so soon? Increased resolution will happen eventually, just not any time soon.

SD card - When has Apple ever shown any indication that they are going to let the user access the file system? The whole SD theory started when someone saw a slot cut into a leaked picture of an iPad2 case. It was never anything more than a shot in the dark.

Thunderbolt / USB- Once again people are trying to force the iPad into the role of laptop replacement. It's not, nor has Apple ever intended it to be. (Off topic but Lightpeak's a much better name than Thunderbolt)

 

[URFloorMatt]

NFC strikes me as something way more suited to a phone than a tablet, and they are waiting to roll it out with OS5.

Agreed NFC will be a perfunctory add to the iPad 3. It will probably require iOS 5 anyway, so no reason to unveil it now.

So long as the iPhone is the flagship and the top-line iOS revisions come with it, then the iPad will always be about 9 months behind the iPhone. Presumably we'll see that this summer when the iPhone 5 has both NFC and global/universal 3G.

Only time where that might not be true is next year with iPad 3. I'm thinking it'll kick off the LTE/4G releases because if Apple waits until 2013 for LTE, it'll be playing catch-up in a serious way.

 

[bob5820]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I feel like a broken record but no other competing tablet has a SD slot. They have microSD slot which can be useful but it's not a replacement for the iPad's card reader.

Yet I see time and time again people and media say something about "so that I can copy pictures from my camera..." No, your camera probably uses a full size SD card (I know some uses microSD) The Xoom, the Galaxy Tab, the Archos, the Nook Color, none of them will read your SD card, only the iPad will with the accessory reader.

Or CF but good point

 

[bob5820]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

5 Things Apple does better than CNET

- Revolutionize the way we consume media.
- Redefine the way we communicate.
- Understand and define consumer
electronics.
- Differentiate themselves from the competition.
- Make a profit.

 

[Coukos34]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

5 Things Apple does better than CNET

- Revolutionize the way we consume media.
- Redefine the way we communicate.
- Understand and define consumer
electronics.
- Differentiate themselves from the competition.
- Make a profit.

While you are being a bit fanboy-ish, who cares? CNET has not been relevant for years now. I could give two ***** what they have to say

 

[Funkymonk]

Add flash support.

 

[hamean]

Thunderbolt technology is based on a PCI-E bus which no iOS device has, it is a intel PC technology. The secret to Thunderbolt is its adaptability to other transfer systems so in the future you might see an iOS device have higher transfer speed capability of its own which through a interface cord works with Thunderbolt but it won't ever have its own "Thunderbolt port".

^^^^^^^^^^^ This

 

[bob5820]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

5 Things Apple does better than CNET

- Revolutionize the way we consume media.
- Redefine the way we communicate.
- Understand and define consumer
electronics.
- Differentiate themselves from the competition.
- Make a profit.

While you are being a bit fanboy-ish, who cares? CNET has not been relevant for years now. I could give two ***** what they have to say

Personally I thought I was being a bit more of a smart*** than a fanboy (lol) Point taken though, probably spent more effort on this topic than it merits.

 

[Shagrat]

Android app store surprise for some...

Here's one thing that didn't get added to the iPad world...

 

[DeeEss]

iPad 1 users are in their millions, they're not realistically going to upgrade until another year at least, probably 2 or 3. Only a small percentage of the hardcore fans (there really aren't that many people like the ones posting here) will adopt each new generation. Most people leapfrog upgrades 1 or 2 at a time. Data contracts are for 2 years alos which gives you an idea of the life expectancy of your average upgrade.

iPad 2 is for people, like me, who waited. I waited for facetime. I got it and a whole lot more. Corporations have built the machine into their workflow. The app store is huge and people are very familiar and comfortable with their apps. There is a user base far bigger than all the other tablet sales put together and they're not going anywhere, in whole, for at least a couple years.

iOs5 will kick in mid way and keep everyone happy, breathing life and new functions into their older device making if feel like new again until iPad 3.

Then iPad 3 will come along. It will be a big upgrade to keep iPad 1 users in the loop, the hard core fans of iPad 2 will upgrade and the late adopters, and product skeptics will have their hearts won also.

It's a grand plan of genius. Apple are so far ahead they are lonely. Especially when their only real compeition is the Xoom. You can get a refurb Macbook Air for almost the same price and I'd much rather the mba. It's already game over but I'm sure the others will toe the line and continue.

 

[iPadLad]

CNN Fortune also didn't agree with all the things said at the keynote yesterday and ripped into Steve Jobs a little bit:

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/03/steve-jobs-reality-distortion-takes-its-toll-on-truth/

 

[fertilized-egg]

CNN Fortune also didn't agree with all the things said at the keynote yesterday and ripped into Steve Jobs a little bit:

Understandable in many points but also pretty sloppy rant from CNN Fortune, especially the one about Samsung's Galaxy Tab sales"

Both Apple and Samsung measure sales the same way -- into the channel. Apple has just as many points of sale for the iPad as Samsung has for the Tab and likely many more. So Samsung sold 2 million (in the last quarter) in 2010. Apple sold 14.8 million (in three quarters). That seems like a pretty fair comparison.

CNN claims it's "a pretty fair comparison" without doing much research. We cannot find out how many Galaxy Tabs actually were sold to the consumers worldwide except that Samsung admitted it wasn't meeting their expectation.

However we did recently get some telling numbers about Samsung's performance in its homeland, South Korea.

An article in Korean:
Samsung reported 500,000 Galaxy Tabs sold to carriers, only 270,000 were activated by carriers

Maybe Samsung vastly overestimated the demand in its home turf and not anywhere else, but regardless that's a huge % discrepancy between the sell-in and the sell-out numbers and most signs point to the Galaxy Tab under performing it's purported two million units sold when it comes to the number of units sold to the end consumers worldwide. Apple has many iPads are still in the retail channel, but Apple is famous for keeping its stocks fairly tight and I somehow doubt Apple sold only 54% of 14.8 million iPads.

 

[URFloorMatt]

Worth pointing out, but if Apple can release an iPad 3 with a Retina display, a quad core A6, LTE support and universal 3G support, and still maintain that 10 hour battery life--then the iPad will truly be a magical and revolutionary device.

 

[HommePomme]

The one thing that Apple could have (and I think should have) done would be a capacity bump. That would be the icing on the cake for a solid iPad 2. I think it's pitiful that the iPad is still maxed out at the same capacity as the iPod touch, considering the huge increase in potential for high-res apps and movies on the iPad...

 

[herruberraschen]

Apple has a unique fan base. People obsessed with Apple will buy each iPad they put out. If they put out a retina display iPad 3 on April 11 they would sell just as many as they did March 11. So, yes they can afford to withhold features.

 

[fpnc]

Yes. Because YOU are so smart that you can predict things AFTER a product is released?

Well, in further support of those who think CNET is a little off base, I offer this post which I made on January 16. It's also instructive as to why we got what we actually got.

I would like to ask everyone who is arguing that a 2048x1536 display is a "done deal" to consider trying to design such a product at current iPad price points. Given the competition shown at CES the next iPad will need a dual-core ARM9 and a significantly improved GPU. Add into that increased memory (because I really can't see the iPad remaining at 256MB when some of the tablets/phones at CES were running with 1GB) and the FaceTime camera that we pretty much know will be included and I think you've already got a product that will be pushing the limits of the current price structures.

Personally, I'd like to see a doubling of the included flash memory since the entry-level 16GB is really inadequate and even the current top-end 64GB is a little restrictive for those who want the full-media experience on a large-screen mobile device (e.g., I just purchased the Life magazine guide to digital photography which occupied 0.5GB of space -- for a single multimedia "book" -- then consider that one HD movie runs almost 4GB). Of course, going to 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB models would be a little pricey so that too may be out of the question (the other "too" being the Retina display, which I would argue isn't price/benefit competitive in the 2011 tablet space).

Let's start with the Motorola Xoom specs since that was pretty much the tablet of choice at CES:

Tegra 2 CPU/GPU (1GHz, dual-core ARM9 with NVIDIA GPU that appears to significantly out perform today's iPhone/iPad SGX535 graphics processor)
1GB DDR2 RAM (standard)
32GB flash storage (standard) with additional storage via built-in SD card slot
10.1-inch widescreen 1280×800 display
Front and rear facing cameras
Built-in gyroscope, barometer, e-compass, and accelerometer
micro USB2 port, HDMI output, and a few other extras

Now consider that Apple very seldom offers really cutting-edge hardware (if you exclude the form factor and industrial design). However, they do offer well designed products that tend to hit the market sweet spots on performance, features, and usability. Of course, they also charge somewhat elevated prices for any given hardware spec, something that should not be overlooked in any proposed redesign on the iPad. Next consider that the iPad needs to be a high-volume product, one or two million units shipped next quarter won't be acceptable and here we're getting into the very definition of what makes cutting-edge hardware so rare -- you can't produce a lot of it because the technology is new and supplies are going to be limited.

As far as using the iPhone 4 as a model for the iPad's evolution, let's start with the admission that the iPhone 4 is pretty much a repackaged iPhone 3GS with the addition of the Retina display and FaceTime camera (yes, I know, it's got the Apple A4 processor but that's just a tweaked version of the ARM8 that is in the 3GS -- along with double the DRAM). Is Apple going to do the same with the iPad? You might say they could -- add the Retina display, FaceTime, and double the DRAM and presto! -- the new iPad. But, frankly, this time around Apple needs to do more than that and besides with the iPhone 4 that is just about all they could have done (since dual-core ARM and faster graphics were largely unavailable or impractical when the iPhone 4 was introduced).

A further problem with the iPad-as-iPhone approach is that this largely ignores the competition's Tegra 2 CPU/GPU and it also tends to minimize the difficulty in producing a 2048x1536 9.7" LCD that could match the quality of the IPS display used in the current iPad. Making the jump to a 9.7" display at the so-called retina resolution (or near to that) is a lot more difficult than doing the same on the iPhone's 3.5" display (as someone said earlier, it's not simply the case of "gluing" together four or more iPhone screens to make one for the iPad). One of the reasons for this is that the manufacturing yield of LCDs is strongly influenced by the total square area of the display -- simply put, a larger display (by area) is more difficult to produce even if both products are at the same pixel density (pixels-per-inch).

Just try to compare the price on a 35" LCD HDTV to one at 97 inches (if you could find the latter, which I don't think you can) and note that a 97 inch, 1080p HDTV has a much lower pixel density than does the cheaper 35" set (I'm not trying to claim that the manufacturing problems and market dynamics are the same for HDTVs as they are for tablets, but this comparison should give you a hint as to why larger -- in area -- is not necessarily easy).

Lastly, let's look at the the Motorola Xoom's 10.1" 1280x800 display. If you do the math and assuming square pixels that works out to be a 149 pixels-per-inch (ppi) display. The current 9.7" iPad has a 132 ppi display which is a difference of 13% (in favor of the Xoom). Would that be visible? Perhaps with careful examination, but maybe not that significant given other factors (such as brightness, contrast, and viewing angles).

So here's the challenge, design the retina-display iPad and make the determination of what needs to be "cut" and what must stay. Realistically, you can't be equal to and/or better in every major hardware category than Apple's competition -- at least not given Apple's historically high profit margins. The baseline might be Apple's current iPad hardware with the addition of just the rumored 2048x1536 display (not a likely scenario, but you've got to start somewhere).

 

[MrWillie]

Thunderbolt technology is based on a PCI-E bus which no iOS device has, it is a intel PC technology. The secret to Thunderbolt is its adaptability to other transfer systems so in the future you might see an iOS device have higher transfer speed capability of its own which through a interface cord works with Thunderbolt but it won't ever have its own "Thunderbolt port".

Thunderbolt port on the iPad would be for hooking up the iPad to a computer for file transfer, not for hooking devices up to an iPad. Like the Thunderbolt ports on the external hard drives on the TB demo video. A slave device. (If that's the proper term).

 

[fpnc]

Thunderbolt port on the iPad would be for hooking up the iPad to a computer for file transfer, not for hooking devices up to an iPad. Like the Thunderbolt ports on the external hard drives on the TB demo video. A slave device. (If that's the proper term).

That's true, except that you'd also want support for Thunderbolt/DisplayPort out so that you could hook your iPad to an external display.

 

[joehahn]

people with other worldly expectations need to have their own forum.

 

[lPHONE]

would you rather have a ZOOM?

 

[ghostlyorb]

I think the iPad 2 is good. Yes I would love for a little hight resolution display.. but it's still HD.. not 326ppi HD.. but like 3/4 the pixels of the original MBA! I don't get why people complain about what it doesn't have. If you don't like it, don't buy it. I didn't buy the iPad 1st gen... because I wanted to wait for the 2nd gen.

 

[Dr Kevorkian94]

Retina coasts more and eats more battery, buy just a little bump would of been nice but not practical so that is out. Thunderbolt isn't to practical either cause it is ment for a better hardware like a laptop/computer. Plus only a couple of computers and devises have it. An SD card slot might be a good idea but they feel you have to sync it anyway so just put the pics on a computer first. An USB port will only used for accessories and things like external displays etc, so apple feels y not just make an adapter. And 4G is not too standard yet to implement it so that's nit happening either. Plus all of this will be ultra expensive. But one thing they should of aced is a "glare resistant able to read in the sun screen" so I can still read without the sun disturbing me.