Apple Unveils New iPad 989
adeelarshad82 writes "As expected, Apple announced the new iPad complete with a Retina Display, quad-core processor, 4G LTE, and an improved camera. The new iPad will run the rumored A5X processor, which according to Apple will provide four times the performance of the Tegra 3. The revamped tablet will also include a 2048-by-1536 display, apparently the most in any mobile device. And finally with 4G LTE, the new iPad will provide up to 73 Mbps download speeds; partners for which include Verizon, Rogers, Bell, Telus, and AT&T."
Still don't want one (Score:0, Insightful)
I want a keyboard.
73mbps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally, someone is innovating (Score:0, Insightful)
They managed to pack a 5 megapixel camera, into that tiny tablet! Wow, we wouldn't have dreamed that was possible back when the iPad 2 came out. It's amazing how far we have come in a year.
Yes, I bought an iPad 2 nearly 3 months ago and yes, I am bitterly disappointed that I didn't think to consider how shitty the camera was before making my decision. Hindsight is 20/20, even if the camera on my piece of shit iPad 2 isn't.
Re:yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw somewhere that there are about 1300 of said Chinese co-eds at the gates every day trying to apply for a job at the plant
siri (Score:5, Insightful)
I am pretty surprised that siri is not fully implemented on this device. it is only being used for dictation
Re:Someone take that awesome display... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hell, I hate everything Apple but I'm still going to buy one just to read technical papers on. I've been waiting for a near-300 dpi reader device for ages.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
the new ipad (Score:5, Insightful)
Is literally the new name. Am I the only one that thinks this is lame. Would Steve have ever okay this?
Hopefully this will usher in higher-res monitors (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm just hoping I'll finally be able to get a monitor with a similar resolution for a reasonable price. If Apple can make a 10" display with that many pixels, plus other computer guts, for $500, I don't think a 22-24" monitor with that resolution for $500 is too much to ask.
Re:lol (Score:5, Insightful)
The same resolution as my old CRTs, which I absolutely, wholeheartedly welcome back.
Re:Nice upgrade, but no big surprises in the new i (Score:5, Insightful)
That's OK. iPad is still in the rapid growth phase. They need to appeal to people who don't yet have an iPad, not people who already have a slightly older model.
Re:Still don't want one (Score:5, Insightful)
So don't buy one. Geez. I don't have a need for a dump truck, a B-52 or a complete set of Star Wars action figures, but I don't particularly care if other people find them interesting or useful.
Do you log into the American Dolls website to say you don't want one of those either?
Re:Nice upgrade, but no big surprises in the new i (Score:5, Insightful)
"Without Steve Jobs doing the dramatics, watching the Live Blog was almost as exciting as Watching Grass Grow."
Tim Cook may be as wooden as a door, but that man knows distribution. Jobs may have had the charisma, but Cook deserves a lot of the credit getting Apple to where it is today.
Which is an... odd way to talk about graphics (Score:5, Insightful)
Graphics is so highly parallel that the concept of a core doesn't really apply to graphics processors, at least ones I've seen. You talk about them in terms of shaders, ROPs, TMUs and so on.
Re:73mbps != 4G (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what the standards body thought too, but the telcos started marketing 3.5G as 4G and the standards body did the worst possible thing and accepted the money.
FTFY :)
Re:New iPad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still don't want one (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you aren't the target market. The target market is people who want to read email, watch youtube, check facebook and surf the web. Tablets are for consuming on.
I own an iPad 1. Its more convenient to sit on my couch, read a magazine that was delievered wirelessly, play a quick game that I either got for free (or paid $.99 for). It's nice at work to listen to music, and the battery life is amazing. Lasts from 8 in the morning until I go to bed. No need to lug around a cord for my laptop. No I can't create on it, wouldn't want to. I have a desktop and a laptop to do "real" computing on.
Re:Hopefully this will usher in higher-res monitor (Score:5, Insightful)
Fingers crossed also that it might prompt a return to a more useful aspect ratio in affordable monitors.
Re:Hipsters ASSEMBLE (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's actually spelled "manna" in this context, but hell - there could be something there trading Greater Mana Potions, sure.
Re:Which is an... odd way to talk about graphics (Score:5, Insightful)
The concept of cores absolutely does apply – the term "it has 2000 fragment shaders" is a misnomer – in reality, it should be "it can run 2000 fragment shaders on its 2000 shader cores".
waiting for the competition (Score:5, Insightful)
... which will hopefully have an open platform version somewhere so I can run my own stuff on it.
Re:Still don't want one (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck with that... (Score:4, Insightful)
Judging from the history of these things, Apple probably has the entire supply tied up for the next 18 months.
Re:Nice upgrade, but no big surprises in the new i (Score:5, Insightful)
The best camera is the one you have with you. The iPad in your backpack is better than the DSLR in your closet at home.
Re:Queue the stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get the Apple hate... well, I get part of it. It must feel good to trash some product/company, makes you feel superior (I guess). Since their success defies geek sensibilities (?) their customers must all be sheep or something.
But isn't this just the free market at work? It isn't as if they are like Microsoft* in the 90's, using their monopoly to rake users and customers over the proverbial barrel. They are selling into a very competitive market, doing the best thing of inventing stuff people want (not just pulling a Microsoft* and hanging out for ~4 years working on their copy), and raking in the money as stuff flies off the shelf to happy customers in record numbers. Selling the number of items they do, week after month after month after year, and maybe just maybe they've figured out the key component of the market: selling stuff customers want to buy.
If the only way you can rationalize their success is claiming the bulk of their sales is to fashion conscious wealthy hipsters chasing status symbols, you are deluded worse than the customer base that exists in your imagination. That explanation might fly for low numbers over a few quarters, but this is the same crap critics have been leveling for nearly 10 years of their gizmo selling. Time to grow up and deal with it. Or even better, do the "free market competition" thing and create better (better as in defined by the market) alternatives. Or, hang in the shadows crying about how the market isn't obeying your carefully constructed world view.
They're working constantly to keep ahead of Google/Android... customers and the industry benefit, right?
*Not trying to throw Microsoft under that bus, but that's just how its turned out over the last ~12 years or so.
Re:The one downside... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if FaceTime is bandwidth-limited or someting, it'd be nice to take pictures of, say, yourself and your kids in greater than 0.3MP.
That's why its got a 5MP camera on the back. Or you could use a proper camera with decent ergonomics and a lens bigger than a bead. Capturing your fizz for a video call is about the only practical use of the front camera.
Oh, and the name--iPad, iPad 2, The new iPad.
Well, every new iMac since 1998 has been "The new iMac" and that seems to have gone OK.
Of course, Apple should really take a tip from proper, grown-up consumer electronics manufacturers like Sony or Samsung and give its products proper, grown-up names like the "IPD2048-16B2(W)/A" :-)
Re:Still don't want one (Score:2, Insightful)
So I can't type on my iPad at all? Shit. What the hell does this virtual keyboard thingie do then?
Idiot.
The simple truth is that most people don't do any "content creation" above blog entries, tweets, etc on their full-sized computers. So why single out the iPad? Or do you just have a hard-on for bashing Apple?
Did he mention Apple in his post? Or did you miss the "large media conglomerate" part, or that it applies equally well to Android (or WP7, if you prefer that route).
I'm thinking the only person with a hard-on here is you, and for Apple.
Re:Still don't want one (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Screen (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure why the media is playing down this as non event upgrade. I agree with the parent that the new screen is incredible.
5 years ago I could get 1920x1200 in a 17" laptop. Now they are all gone with 1920 x 1080 the highest offer (which are even hard to get with 1600x900 being more common), which is a sucky resolution for CAD & programming work.
Maybe with windows non vectorness the PC comapnies had too many returns when people with poor eyesight returned hi res offerings?, but man I would love a 2560x1600 17"/19" laptop.
Re:Still don't want one (Score:5, Insightful)
You can easily get two laptops for the price of one iPad.
Re:Nice upgrade, but no big surprises in the new i (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:siri (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess is they are artificially holding back on that small switch for the next iPhone release or iOS 6.0. Siri is much more useful on an iPhone than on a tablet in it's current state. Until they allow Siri to (officially) start interacting more with some 3rd party apps and controlling settings in iOS then there isn't as much of a point by putting it on a tablet. They aren't as mobile as phones.
Re:Hipsters ASSEMBLE (Score:5, Insightful)
This thing is a $500 compact 2048x1536 LCD monitor for all I'm concerned, and to me that's a very welcome product. I don't give a rat's whisker about Apple's ecosystem otherwise.
(Now, to wait for sanely available purchases and software support to allow that use...)
However, to be fair to your stated point, the iPad line really is the first time that Apple has made an inexpensive product relative to the market. Pre-iPad, tablet PCs were slabs that were more expensive than laptops, typically starting in the $1500-2000 range. The iPad came out far cheaper than any competitor could have hoped to (due to price lock-ins from suppliers as prices were increasing), and pulled off a good form factor. Things have normalized more nowadays, but Apple actually had an undercutting product.
Re:Still don't want one (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see...what apps did Apple cover in the keynote? Autodesk Sketchbook, GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto, the iWork suite and a couple games. Yeah, no content creation at all.
It doesn't surprise me that you were modded up, as Slashdot is full of geeks that spend their lives in front of keyboards. However, it might surprise you to discover that the world managed to create a great many things before keyboards were ever invented. It's hardly a requirement for creativity, and in many tasks is even a hindrance.
Demanding that the iPad come with a built-in keyboard to suit your needs is like musicians demanding the iPad come with guitar strings or artists demanding it come with stylus support and a set of digitizer pens. The iPad is generic. If you have specific needs, buy a damn accessory.
Re:siri (Score:5, Insightful)
Mobile computing companies are all deathly afraid that their customers will wake up one day and realize that a tablet and a phone are the same device, just in different sizes. That is why you can't get cellular voice service on a tablet, and probably why you can't get siri as well.
God forbid, users might choose between tablet or phone, instead of having both.
Re:Still don't want one (Score:2, Insightful)
Ummm, an iPad in a cover with a built in bluetooth keyboard, how is that different from say a netbook at 1/3 the cost?
Re:The Screen (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason for it is not to push the resolution beyond 1080p, which is fairly pointless on a screen that size. They did it because they have to double the previous generation 1024x768 screen so that all the old apps can scale exactly 2:1. The decision not to make apps resolution independent like most other systems is forcing Apple's hand.
It's actually not so good for web browsing. Images at 1:1 scale are too small and 2:1 is too large like 1024 is. 1280 pixels is the sweet spot for browsing which is an awkward 2:3 that is exactly what they tried to avoid with apps.
Re:Still don't want one (Score:5, Insightful)
But I bet they feel more prestigious.
Because so many applications suck in DPI (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do all notebook displays suck in dpi?
Because so many applications suck in DPI. Vertical market applications may not have been tested at any DPI other than the Windows default of 96. So if you set your window system's DPI so that text remains readable [pineight.com], your applications are likely to become ugly at best or unusable at worst. This has caused a lack of demand for laptop-sized high-DPI panels.
Re:Still don't want one (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still don't want one (Score:3, Insightful)
But it will task switch better (Score:2, Insightful)
I spent about a year with a first generation iPad as my primary computing device. I'd purchased a blue tooth keyboard and it worked fine for what I needed it to do, most write term papers.
What I found is that it was a royal pain to switch back and forth between my text editor and my web browser (or PDF viewer). This was the largest draw back for me.
I also found Mobile Safari to be less than stellar. Now that I've switched to a Mac Book Air, I tend to have 20 to 30 Chrome tabs open at once. Good luck with that on Mobile Safari. And, worse, it would tend to refresh the page and lose its position when I switched to the text editor and then back. That makes it difficult to write term papers.
Lastly, my preferred text editing solution (LaTeX) was unavailable (and will always be unavailable) for iOS. This meant that I'd have to borrow my kids computer for a half hour to an hour to finish up my term papers. In the grand scheme of writing 10 or 15 thousand words from start to finish, that's not so bad.
I still miss the iPad. Gestures on the touch screen were a thing of brilliance. Lion makes up for some of that with the track pad. But it just isn't the same. I also miss the battery life and the ability to take it somewhere without the keyboard.
For many people, an iPad is probably all the computer they really need. For me, not so much. But the hardware limitations weren't what I bumping into. The problem was policy. Apple does not want apps that can run turing machines. LaTeX with its macro language is right out. Apple hasn't made a way to task switch back and forth between programs in an intuitive fashion. Maybe by the time it comes to replace my Mac Book, they'll finally be there. They aren't there yet.
Re:Hipsters ASSEMBLE (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:yawn (Score:4, Insightful)
Just imagine if they had shitty third rate execs who only got $90 million in bonuses.
They might have to pay the workers 40 cents an hour! The sky would fall in.
Re:Quad core (Score:5, Insightful)
no. It's like you paid for the critical operation that kept me alive. IT didn't matter how much it was, if you didn't do it, I would have died.
Re:Quad core (Score:5, Insightful)
In dollar terms, perhaps not. In crowd-psychology terms? It was huge. It was Apple being able to allay investors' fears: "Look, we have this commitment from a hugely successful hugely profitable company like Microsoft. Do you really think they'd give us this money and make this commitment if they thought we were circling the drain and about to fold?"
There's a reason why their stock went up about 33% that day, added ~800 million to their market cap, and effectively doubled their stock price from the time Gil Amelio left. When you're a publicly traded company that needs money to keep operating, having a big, wealthy company say "These guys are doing great things and we want to work with them," is a pretty helpful vote of confidence.
Re:Queue the stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
There's the fact that this was the worst point in your crappy post. Apple makes a tiny profit off the App Store but they treat it as a loss leader. Most of the money goes first to developers, then to credit card companies, then to store maintenance, then a tiny profit left over for them.
But, Apple Haterz gotta Hate. By any means necessary.
Re:Pay More Do Less (Score:3, Insightful)
not true. It does different stuff.
And it doesn't cost more then an Apple Laptop; which is the only valid comparison. Well, any laptop you cna buy running iOS or OSX.
And, of course, there are a lot MORE laptops that cost more money.
1) I can't easily carry a loptop around and enter data as I walk.
2) A laptop doesn't fit on a music stand
3) a laptop is less intuitive to children
4) a lop top is more difficult to keep clean in hospitals.
5) A medical professional can walk from patient to patient and read and enter data
6) magazine/comic books are FAR easier to read using the iPad over a laptop.
Any where where a laptop is hard to use on the fly, the table is superior.
I'm not saying it's replacing the laptop, just that there are areas where it is far more convenient and handy then a laptop.
A laptop costs more than a desktop and does less. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your move, Einstein.