APPLE FANS may have been expecting an iPad 3 for 2012, but the latest addition to the iPad line-up was a bit more subtle. It didn’t even get a new name, referred to simply as “the new iPad” by chief executive Tim Cooke at its unveiling. Sort of like New Coke.
On the outside, not much has changed. The third generation iPad is a bit thicker – 9.4mm compared with 8.8mm for the iPad 2 – and a bit heavier at 662g compared with the iPad 2’s 612g. It’s still nowhere near the original iPad’s dimension of 13.4mm thick and 680g. To the naked eye the differences between the iPad 2 and the latest version are practically indistinguishable.
The reason for the change is to allow for a larger battery, which is necessary because of a few improvements to the device.
The first is the screen. It has been improved, making it worthy of Apple’s “Retina” tag. There are 3.1 million pixels packed into the 9.7-inch screen, with a resolution of 264 pixels per inch (ppi). We’ve all heard the standard comparison by now – the pixel count is higher than your average high definition TV. It’s double that of the previous versions of the iPad which had 132 ppi.
It sounds impressive, but do you actually notice the difference? You may have thought not, but you can. Text is noticeably crisper, the colours are more vibrant. When you watch high definition video content on the screen, graphics are sharp and vibrant.
But that, of course, is a major power drain on the battery. Hence Apple’s decision to make it 70 per cent bigger. The extra couple of millimetres suddenly seem a bit more impressive when you put it like that.
The flip side of the high definition screen is, unfortunately, that some websites just don’t look as good. The text looks brilliant, but the photographs, which are, more often than not, not high definition, don’t always match up. It’s a small price to pay, though.
Another of the big news items about the new iPad was the voice dictation. If you already have an iPhone 4S this won’t blow you away for the simple reason that it’s not Siri. There’ll be no smart remarks from your iPad, but you can use it to dictate emails and messages instead of typing them out. It works better with some accents than others, but the usual rules of dictation apply – speak clearly and try to minimise the background noise.
The camera in the iPad has also been given a shot in the arm. While photography is not the first use you think of when the iPad is mentioned, it’s increasingly common to see people snapping with them at conferences and other events. So don’t rule it out just yet. For those who do want to use the iPad’s camera, it’s been increased to 5 megapixels for the rear facing camera, and video has been bumped up to full HD at 1080p. The improvements earn the iPad camera the title of iSight, another of Apple’s own standards.
The third generation iPad also brings 4G into the mix for those with access to the networks in the US. The fast mobile broadband connection is not much use to Irish users; because of a lack of 4G networks here, we’ll have to stick with 3G for the time being, with Vodafone boosting speeds on its HSPA+ network to 42mbps.
The reality is though that due to different bands used for 4G in the US, this iPad is unlikely to ever work with 4G networks on this side of the Atlantic. The iPad uses the 700Mhz and 2100mhz bands for LTE, which covers the US ATT and Verizon networks and Canada’s Bell, Rogers and Telus networks.
It’s something that consumers in other countries have already fallen foul of. Apple has already offered refunds to third-generation iPad customers in Australia, where 4G networks are available, but won’t work with Apple’s device.
Hiccups aside, the new iPad is more of an evolution than a revolution. But if you like your graphics sharp and your technology up to date, it might be time to make the move.
