<a href=”http://www.apple.com”>Apple</a> really gave it a go at dropping the numerical suffixes by calling the new iPad “<a href=”http://www.apple.com/ipad/”>The New iPad</a>,” but I have to think they’ve realized the error of their ways and will likely begin calling it what all consumers already are, the iPad3.
To be honest, the new (no pun) name was a bit of a shock to me. On one hand, it makes sense to get away from tacking numbers on to the ends of your products, but on the other, those numbers made sense to consumers. You know what doesn’t make sense? When they come out with the next iPad and “The New iPad” is no longer the new iPad. The person responsible for the new (no pun) name clearly didn’t think it through far enough.
I call it the iPad3, reviewers call it the iPad3, its internal code calls it the iPad3. It’s the iPad3 and I’ve been using it for three days now.
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Initial impressions:
<ul>
<li>The increased weight (10%) is fairly noticeable. I believe teardowns have revealed that a larger battery is responsible for this. Why then does it hold the same charge time as the previous generation? It’s a lot more powerful. Regardless, I think they’ve tipped the scales to “a little heavy.”</li>
<li>It takes a heck of a lot longer to charge. The iPad2 was no gem here, especially since it required a “high performance” USB port or a wall outlet, but this thing takes FOREVER. It’s the same tech, but with 70% more capacity to juice up? Yeah…</li>
<li>The new display (probably the biggest new feature) is pretty amazing for small text, but most of the time is noticeable when an app or site is using “old tech” graphics… jaggies/pixels galore.</li>
<li>The new camera is a huge improvement. You can take photos that aren’t embarrassing with this thing. I wish they had upgraded the user-facing camera, though, as that gets 90% of the use from me; I tend to not pull out my iPad when I see something to shoot… I use it for video chat and such.</li>
<li>Benchmarks have shown that the processor is really not any faster, and that’s fine as only Android and PC users care about processor power more than WHAT THE DEVICE CAN ACTUALLY DO. They beefed up the graphics and RAM, and that shows in a slightly zippier experience. Some of the new Retina-supporting games that were released are pretty draw dropping when you consider how many pixels they’re pushing.</li>
<li>Dictation is very cool. I’ve used it a handful of times now. I don’t have the ability to think like a writer and speak, but I do think it’ll be useful to jot down notes and such. I can only hope I remember to use it often. Given the button placement (it’s a keyboard button), I have to think it’ll be difficult to forget.</li>
<li>4G leaves something to be desired. Sure, it’s ridiculously fast, but coverage is still a bit flaky (AT&T in Northern Virginia), which can cause the device to bounce between it and 3G, a is not an entirely smooth transition as the device establishes a new connection.</li>
<li>Apple still fails on the device upgrade process. Everyone I know has faced similar hurdles when upgrading their device, but all different as well. And these are people who work on the devices every day and are very tech-savvy. I had to manually reinstall/resort every app from a list of apps I’d previously purchased and I lost saved data on about 50% of them, a coworker had to re-sort all of his apps, and another had to start anew after his restore caused every app to crash.</li></ul>
So… should you get one? To summarize <a href=”http://www.marco.org/2012/03/07/which-ipad-3-should-i-get”>one of my favorite tech writers</a>, do you have an iPad2? Then no. Otherwise, yes.
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