On Friday, the new iPad goes on sale. Be sure to ask for it by name: the iPad.
Because if you ask for the iPad 3, the Apple representatives will look at you funny. Last year?s model was called the iPad 2, but this third-generation model is just called the iPad. (Why not continue the numbering pattern? ?That would have been too predictable,? says Phil Schiller, Apple?s senior vice-president for marketing.)
Really, the new iPad should have been called the iPad 2S. In the past, Apple added the letter S to iPhone models that weren?t exactly new but had been tastefully enhanced (iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4S). That?s exactly what?s going on with the new iPad. Its improvements keep it at the forefront of desirability ? just ahead of the snapping jaws of its Android competition ? but don?t take it in any new directions.
The biggest new feature is what Apple calls the Retina display: like the one on the iPhone 4S, it?s a very, very sharp screen. It?s four times as sharp as the iPad 2 ? in fact, it?s the sharpest ever on a mobile device. This screen has 3.1 million pixels, which is 1 million pixels more than on a high-definition TV set. (At least Apple says that that?s how many pixels it has; I quit counting after three days.)
In principle, that avalanche of pixels (and their increased colour saturation) means that photos, videos, maps and text should look jaw-droppingly good ? and, in apps that have been rewritten for the new screen, they do. Apple?s own apps, like Photos, Maps and iBooks, are just incredibly sharp and clear.
So are Apple?s inexpensive, newly enhanced iPad apps ? iMovie, GarageBand, the Numbers spreadsheet and the Pages word processor. And as touch-screen apps go, the new iPhoto for iOS is a masterpiece.
But apps that haven?t been rewritten don?t benefit as much. In most apps, text is automatically sharpened, but not in all of them. After enjoying the freakishly sharp text in Mail and Safari, you?ll be disappointed in the relatively crude type in, for example, the non-updated Amazon Kindle app. (Amazon says that a Retina-ready update is in the works.)
Similarly, high-definition videos look dazzling. This is the world?s first tablet that can actually show you hi-def movies in full 1080p high definition. But Netflix?s streaming movies don?t come to the iPad in HD (yet, says Netflix), so they don?t look any better.
There?s another price you?ll pay for all this clarity, too: in storage. Tests performed by Macworld.com revealed that the graphics in Retina-ready apps consume two to three times as much of the iPad?s nonexpandable storage than pre-Retina apps. To update their apps for the new display, software companies must redo their graphics at much higher resolution, which means much larger files.
(Worse, each app is usually written in single, universal version for all iPad models. So those apps will eat up the same extra space, pointlessly, on older iPads, too ? and even on iPhones, since many apps are written to run on both the tablet and the phone. In other words, iPhone owners, too, will wind up losing storage space because of this graphic-bloat ripple-down effect.)
The resolution revolution isn?t the only change in the iPad That Shall Not Be Numbered. Another big change is 4G LTE. That is, the cellular iPad models can now hop onto the very fast 4G wireless networks for data that Verizon and AT&T have built in big American cities.
(Apple has not changed the prices and configurations for the new iPad. The base model still costs $500, has only Wi-Fi and holds 16 gigabytes. The top-of-the-line model still costs $830, has 64 gigabytes of storage and can also get online via a cell network. You have to choose either the AT&T or the Verizon model, in that case, and pay a monthly fee ? $15 to $50 a month, no contract required. These iPads can also get online overseas, although only at 3G speeds; LTE uses different frequencies in other countries.)
Being on LTE flavour of 4G is really, really nice. Apps download quickly. Web pages appear fast. You don?t have to wait for videos to load before they start playing. The Verizon iPads offer tethering ? a feature that converts that cellular Internet connection into a Wi-Fi hot spot ? so nearby laptops can now enjoy the same high Internet speeds. (AT&T says it?s working to get tethering.)
