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First Hands-On Impressions of 'The New iPad'

Lesser Evets said:
I know... oh, I know... that iCloud stuff is goofing up a beautiful future. Ah well. I think some accessory manufacturer could make a dock + storage solution that kind of does what is missing from the iPad; this way also sells more Macs to allow storage.

It'll be a few years before Apple realized iCloud was merely a transitory item blocking the light. SS memory will dive in price this decade, and the storage on the iPad or off will blow away the iCloud.
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The concept of "cloud storage" will not likely go away. But it may evolve into something different than companies are currently developing.

Where things are going is really towards a world where you have your data and it is stored somewhere, accessible everywhere. The debate in the tech sector seems to be over where that "somewhere" is. Some think it is in centralized services like iCloud/Dropbox. Some think it is your smartphone. Some think it will be in more advanced NAS systems.

Sounds like you fall into the third group. Personally? I think it will be all 3 to one degree or another. There are some real technical/social issues with personal clouds (either the NAS or smartphone variety) that aren't exactly easy to solve. Where at least some of them are considered solved when talking about centralized services.
 
figured i'd get voted down for last comment.

so more features is a bad thing? even if you don't use them and it doesn't affect whoever it is that voted me down. nice...

yeah sure would be terrible to be able to chat online or surf the web on ipad or do any 2 things at once...
 
daxomni said:
What's amazing to me is that you can blow through your entire monthly data plan in fifteen minutes. What happened to all those unlimited data plans that were going to allow Apple's iCloud to become a serious storage platform? In an era of ever increasing resolutions and ever shrinking data plans, why are we expected to settle for local storage that is less than a tenth of what the PC era gave us? Each of us has different expectations as to what makes a great tablet, but I don't recall reading post after post and thread after thread about how bad the resolution was or how slow the processor is. So why is Apple so busy fixing what isn't even broken and yet so hesitant to address (or even acknowledge) what people are actually upset about?
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i vote you for president... my exact concerns and issues... i just wante 32gb base model nothing else.
 
A5x?

So what's the story with the new A5X chip? Still Dual Core? Is it based on ARM A9 or A15?

I understand that modern tablets come with quad or penta core SoC like the Tegra 3. Will there be an iPad 4th Gen coming out this year?:confused:
 
Nungster said:
Do a couple of pushups for a week and you can lift this much "heavier" iPad.
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Heavier or not, the iPad as a whole is too heavy for a reading device. It's more than that, so it's a compromise to live with, but for reading alone it's too heavy (and because of the size and weight distribution weights down on the holding hand even more).
 
Rizzn said:
So the verdict on the name is "The new iPad?" We definitely can't just call it iPad, as we reference the original iPad all the time.
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The name is iPad. If you look at some of the web marketing material and the slides the 'iPad' is in bold and 'the new' part is lighter text. It is just a transitional phrase until they adjust to people to just calling it 'iPad'.

What will end up happening is the same thing that happens for the Mac Products (whose name doesn't change from year to year also.). The technical name will be iPad (early 2012) , iPad (early 2013) , iPad (early 2014 ) , etc. A little silly. They market it as a single name, but when need to deal with multiple products across time. This has been going on for a long time for Mac products. For instance the specs over time for MacBook Air

http://support.apple.com/specs/#macbookair

Similar with the iPod touch

http://support.apple.com/specs/#ipodtouch


The more significant wonky problem is what they are going to do with the iPad2 next year. In the 2013 transition, what is going to be the name for the $399 "last generation" price slot going to be????? ' iPad last Generation' or ' iPad LG ' ? Or just drop the $399 last gen price slot?

Or maybe that slot is where the 7" versions will go. 'iPad mini' ( although I suspect that is what the 'iPod touch' may transition to. )
 
Timur said:
Heavier or not, the iPad as a whole is too heavy for a reading device. It's more than that, so it's a compromise to live with, but for reading alone it's too heavy (and because of the size and weight distribution weights down on the holding hand even more).
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really should have said it's too heavy as a reading device twenty or thirty more times in your post. : /
 
Umm... not even close.

90% of the market using a desktop computer has requirements over and above anything these iOS devices can do. How much RAM is in the latest iPad now? 1GB How much is in the typical newer Mac or Windows PC today? At least 4x that much! How about video capabilities? You *really* think the iPad's video processor is anywhere near as capable as a mid-grade (never mind a "high end") video card from nVidia or ATI?

IMO, this has never *really* been about tablets supplanting desktops. It's about a world where you have more OPTIONS. If you really don't do much more than consume information (such as reading e-books on the go, checking email and surfing the web), an iPad is probably just what you need. If you actually write your own software (or heck, even design web pages), it's FAR from adequate.

To use a construction analogy, the iPads are a little bit like having an electric jig-saw. Very useful tool in its own right, and depending on the work you do, might be all you really need. But quite likely, you also need to cut a lot of 2x4s and other such "structural wood". A jig-saw's blade isn't long enough for some of that, and it would take too long, and be harder to achieve a straight cut, in other cases. Think of a desktop PC as your circular saw.

All in all, I'm not sure I'd even care much about what you're proposing here; a way to interface a large hard drive to my iPad? I can imagine it'd be useful in a few niche cases, such as photographers who need to change up what's actually displayed on their iPad, on the fly, from a large "master collection" of images on the external drive.


Lesser Evets said:
I felt the Tim Cook intro would lead to something just a TAD more revolutionary. He's absolutely right, but in the wrong year: it is a PC supplanting desktops. I was on the edge of my seat for him to say something, like...

But, no. Figures. The moment Apple gets off its iAss and makes something like that, they shut down about every other desktop out there for 90% of the market, and conquer everything ever made.
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Text up-scaling necessary?

I wonder if text from apps that aren't yet upgraded will have their text up-scaled or if it's more likely the iPad would have native storage of high-resolution fonts for increased sharpness?
 
I finally got through and got an ipad, but not a cover or an AppleTV. It kept removing them from my cart! Come on Apple! Like you didn't know this was going to happen. Sheesh.
 
JHankwitz said:
I beg to differ. As the chart showed, there were more iPads sold last quarter than any PC on the market. At what point do you think it would apply? When no PCs are sold?
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It is the post horse era.

It is the post bow and arrow era.

It is the post VHS era.

PCs are still mainstream. They are still very common and provide a need that IS NOT met by the tablets such as high end gaming. Desktop publishing. Engineering. Photo and video editing and production. They can do a little of most things but they do it in a limited fashion. There are many things they do quite well, but not well enough to push the PC into being irrelevant for computing. That is why it still isn't a post PC era.


The technology for a post PC era is here right now and these devices are the ones that will lead to that era. Having your cellphone be your "everything" computer is going to be great. At work and at home I would have my large monitor, my full size keyboard and a mouse. I come into work and plug in my phone and I've got everything there. All my files, all my programs. When I go home, I unplug my phone and take that device with me and plug it in at home to a similar setup and surf, game, whatever. When that is a common reality, we can cheer in the post PC era. Until then, the PC is still very relevant.
 
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Ugg said:
What do you want Apple to do? Buy ATT? I don't know how Apple can solve the problem although I'm sure their business would pick up if the problem was solved.
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If Apple built a new network and offered lower prices and/or unlimited data plans it would get me a lot more excited and help bring me back into the fold. Yes it would take a lot of time and money, but who is in a better position than Apple to afford the costs and sell the result? That would make me a lot more impressed by their post-Jobs strength and abilities than these rather predictable improvements to displays and processors.
 
kingtj said:
All in all, I'm not sure I'd even care much about what you're proposing here; a way to interface a large hard drive to my iPad? I can imagine it'd be useful in a few niche cases, such as photographers who need to change up what's actually displayed on their iPad, on the fly, from a large "master collection" of images on the external drive.
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You mean something like this hard drive as an example of what is available now.
 
JHankwitz said:
I beg to differ. As the chart showed, there were more iPads sold last quarter than any PC on the market. At what point do you think it would apply? When no PCs are sold?
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The iPad is a Personal Computer.

This whole "Post PC" thing is just misdirection to put the iPad in a category by itself so it has a dominate market share.

The problem with "PC" is that is it common used as a ephumism to mean "Windows OS based Personal Computer". At some point people let Microsoft subsumed the whole general notion of a Personal Computer.

"Post PC" is only putting PC back into more general usage. Sort of like "the new iPad" phrase is putting iPad back into more general usage.
 
Maschil said:
i vote you for president... my exact concerns and issues... i just wante 32gb base model nothing else.
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I've seen that comment a few times recently and don't understand it at all. What does it matter to anyone whether the base model is 16gb or 32gb (unless you want the 32gb at 16gb price)?
 
deconstruct60 said:
The iPad is a Personal Computer.

This whole "Post PC" thing is just misdirection to put the iPad in a category by itself so it has a dominate market share.

The problem with "PC" is that is it common used as a ephumism to mean "Windows OS based Personal Computer". At some point people let Microsoft subsumed the whole general notion of a Personal Computer.

"Post PC" is only putting PC back into more general usage. Sort of like "the new iPad" phrase is putting iPad back into more general usage.
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I agree, the iPad is a personal computer, always was. There was a thread about this a while back.
 
phillipduran said:
It is the post horse era.

It is the post bow and arrow era.

It is the post VHS era.
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I agree. But it is NOT the post-PC era now. iPads are PCs. Just a different type of PC to what most people are used to calling a PC. So every time Apple says post-PC I cringe a little inside. Because I know how very wrong Apple are in saying that.
 
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