“The new iPad” has arrived, and thanks to months of mostly accurate rumors, the only real surprise wound up being the name (so much for iPad 3 or iPad HD!). But that doesn’t mean this year’s iPad is perfect -- we’re the sort of users who are always left wanting more.
Retina Display: Check. 4G LTE: Check. Better camera: Check. The rumor mill nailed the big stuff for “the new iPad,” which left some of us feeling underwhelmed yet again (shades of the iPhone 4S launch?). Once again, Apple will probably have the last laugh -- even now, white models of the AT&T iPad are selling out in Apple’s online store, so clearly the public is hungry for the third-generation tablet.
As well they should be -- it’s an incredible update, and the Retina Display alone would have made it a worthwhile purchase (after all, we’re talking about a device that’s mostly just a screen to begin with). That said, we’re going to take a look at the glass being half empty and focus on the things we didn’t get with the new iPad -- but still hope to for the 2013 edition.
Many of us felt certain that Apple would unleash the new iPad with an A6 processor inside, just as they did with an A4 on the original iPad in 2010 and an A5 processor for the iPad 2 last year. As Wednesday’s event loomed, that speculation turned instead to the A5X, which was touted by sources as being a quad-core version of the existing A5 with improved graphics and more RAM. The rumor mills got it mostly right, although the A5X processor itself isn’t quad-core (the GPU, however, is). Does that mean we’ll see an A6 debut in this year’s iPhone? We wouldn’t place bets on it -- but next year’s “new(er) iPad” would seem to be a shoo-in for it.
Now this one is a bit of a mystery to us: Why include Siri’s voice dictation feature on the new iPad but not go whole-hog with Siri herself? The answer probably lies with the backend servers needed for Siri to do her magic -- adding all those new iPads on top of the current iPhone 4S load was probably deemed too much to handle at this time. That said, the question of Siri coming to the iPad is mostly a “when?” at this point, and given all the improvements unleashed with this year’s model, Apple is probably holding the ol’ girl back so they have something for next year.
Yeah, yeah, we know there’s a $29 Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit for getting our digital photos and movies onto the new iPad, but would it have killed Apple to just add an SD card slot to the 2012 model? After all, the entire Mac lineup (save for the Mac Pro) now features a card slot, and with something as thin and light as the iPad, it’s just one less thing for us to carry around -- or worse, lose entirely.
Can’t say this one was a big surprise, but Apple is still pimping the same old Smart Covers from last year, available in the same rainbow of colors, at the same relatively steep prices. There were rumors leading up to Wednesday that the company may be introducing a new Smart Cover which is, um, smart enough to cover the back of the tablet as well. But that didn’t pan out, and now we’re going to have a scratched-up back on our sweet new iPad. Pooh!
You’ll have to pick a favorite when buying a 4G LTE-equipped new iPad: AT&T or Verizon. That’s because the two largest U.S. carriers use different spectrums to do their respective magic -- despite many of our hopes that there would simply be one unicorn-bearing 4G LTE iPad capable of hopping between networks at will. The good news is, both models are capable of using GSM/UMTS networks worldwide -- simply pop in a local SIM card and you’ll be browsing away at 3G speeds from almost anywhere.
For a while, the iPod touch was the king of the flash storage hill, topping out at 64GB. While it took the iPhone five generations to hit that amount (with last year’s iPhone 4S), the iPad has offered it all along. So the natural question is, when will that storage capacity double to 128GB? After all, iPhoto and 1080p video recording are going to start consuming storage space like crazy on the new iPad, and many users may soon find themselves stuck with a 64GB ceiling. 128GB may sound like a fantasy for iOS users today, but in 12 months it may look like a reality for the post-PC era.
Let’s face it: The iPad is gradually becoming a replacement for the PC, whether we like it or not. Apple CEO Tim Cook spent a great deal of energy on Wednesday talking about the “post-PC” era and how Cupertino is at the forefront of the revolution -- but like it or not, we’ll eventually need a way to connect to external peripherals directly. Can you imagine plugging in a mammoth external USB 2.0 (or 3.0) hard drive into your iPad? (Bottomless storage!) Once again, we realize that one-half of the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit provides a proper USB 2.0 port, but dongles just aren’t our style, dawg.
There’s almost always some kind of wild, last-minute rumor just before an Apple event, and on Wednesday the prize went to Senseg, a Finnish company whose technology creates “interfaces you can feel” thanks to haptic feedback. To be fair, it was kind of Apple’s fault by putting "We have something you really have to see. And touch" on those media invitations, which immediately sent bloggers into full-on “connect the dots” mode. Despite the bits and pieces of evidence, haptic feedback is not part of the new iPad -- but there’s always next year.
Perhaps even more vital to the iPad’s post-PC future is the inclusion of Thunderbolt, which is now celebrating its first anniversary on the Mac. There have been plenty of rumors predicting its inclusion in the iPad -- first with the iPad 2 last year and again with the new third-generation model, but fans of high-speed connectivity remain empty-handed. Short-term, it may seem unlikely to appear now that Apple is focused on cutting the cord with wireless syncing and AirPlay, but we wouldn’t start ruling out a Thunderbolt port in the future -- perhaps as a replacement to the dock connector?
This final entry in our wish list remains the most elusive of all: A smaller iPad, perhaps mimicking the seven-inch form factor of Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Despite the protests of Steve Jobs and other Apple executives, smaller tablets do have their place, and many believe it’s just a matter of time until Cupertino decides to think smaller. There may be rumors that an “iPad mini” could be released later this year, but we wouldn’t place too many bets on those -- you’ll likely have to wait another full year to see if this wish pans out or not.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
(Some images courtesy of Ars Technica, MacRumors, iPadWalker.net)
teng029
March 09, 2012 at 10:25pm
Riddle me this. How do you propose Apple integrates Thunderbolt into the iPad when the technology is owned one of ARM's major competitors? Or have you forgotten that Intel owns Thunderbolt?
solafide
March 09, 2012 at 6:26am
I'd like to see the move to the next Wi-fi standard that chip-makers will begin to support this year: 802.11ac (gigabit wireless) - accompanied by its inclusion in the Airport Extreme, Apple TV and iMac.
