The Apple iPad 2 Review
by Brian Klug, Anand Lal Shimpi & Vivek Gowri on March 19, 2011 8:01 PM ESTThe UI & Honeycomb Comparison
The iOS UI hasn't changed much at all since the iPad launched last year. Apple eventually added folders and multitasking but this is still the same basic iOS we were introduced to with the iPhone 2G. On the plus side it keeps things simple. If you're an iOS user you're likely to feel right at home on an iPad. You can then pick up an iPhone or iPod Touch and get the same experience and even run many if not all of the same apps. Apple has always done a good job of taking care of its users that don't stray from the ecosystem and the iOS universe is no different.
There are still elements of iOS that I believe are unmatched in the industry. Apple does a great job focusing on how something should work and doing its best to implement that. To date I enjoy setting alarms/reminders more on iOS than any other mobile OS I've used.
Unfortunately, the iOS UI remaining relatively constant isn't always good. The multitasking UI is still not what I'd consider ideal. Switching between apps still requires a double tap of the home button, scrolling through a horizontal list of icons and tapping again once you found what you wanted. It's basically a less convenient alt-tab.
Notifications are also horribly obnoxious. When there was no support for 3rd party notifications in iOS it didn't really matter and the simplicity of the notification system was actually a benefit. However now all apps have the ability to send you notifications and many of them will actually attempt to do so. This results in an experience-breaking barrage of popups front and center on the iPad. While multitasking allows you to switch between an IM app, your email and a web browser, if you're casually talking to someone over IM you'll find yourself interrupted by popups as you try to simultaneously read email or browse the web.
The multitasking and notification limitations in iOS are actually two significant barriers that prevent the tablet experience from actually evolving.
In contrast we have the Motorola Xoom running Honeycomb. You can argue that the Honeycomb UI isn't nearly as smooth or consistent as iOS 4.3, however Google is experimenting with more productivity oriented UIs. Notifications in Honeycomb pop up in the lower right hand corner in a manner similar to what you'd expect from a desktop OS. Multitasking isn't perfect under Honeycomb either but you have an easily accessible list of the five most recently used applications that you can get to via a single tap. Google also took a very desktop-OS-like approach to navigation in Honeycomb - the nav/notification bar at the bottom always occupies screen real estate. It may fade out when you're in certain apps (e.g. watching a movie) but otherwise it's a permanent fixture. While not quite as invasive as the menu bar in OS X or the taskbar in Windows, the Honeycomb nav/notification bar is of the same family.
While Apple has definitely stepped up its ergonomics and performance with the iPad 2, the UI remains dated. I must point out that today, two years after the introduction of webOS, Apple still has yet to offer a multitasking experience that's anywhere close to what Palm did with significantly less resources. I'm not sure if this is a pride thing or a fundamental difference of opinion. If Apple keeps up its release schedule maybe we'll be surprised this summer with iOS 5.
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Azethoth - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
No! 22 seconds is not fast enough. That is 20 seconds wasted each time you do that in a day.benonemusic - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Excellent writing and content as usual. As a longtime reader (this is my first post) with an editorial eye, I had a suggestion for future articles such as this with multiple authors but in which the main review is written in the first person singular. It was slightly disorienting to see three authors (Brian, Anand, Vivek) but then much of the article written with "I" (presumably Anand), you might want to avoid listing all three authors as "ands" in that case. One idea would be make the first author the one who is speaking in the first person voice (presumably Anand in the case) and the other two to be listed as "with." If the review is written as "we" then having all three of the authors as "ands" makes sense. There are multiple solutions. You can simply keep the "ands" and then indicate who the "I" is in the first instance. You could obviously say "one of us" in the first instance and indicate "Anand" in parentheses. And so on. Sorry for going on this long, but I'm big on bylines. Keep up the great work with the articles!embeddedGPU - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Can you clarify the floating point precision for your GPU GFLOPS figures ? You mention 20-/32-bit for nVidia, but I think the SGX is only 16-bit precision. If so, it's not a totally fair comparison...wellortech - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
"If you fell in love with the original iPad, the iPad 2 is a significant upgrade."Really? Since when is thinner and a crappy camera a significant upgrade?
mcnabney - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
You guys missed noticing something when documenting the huge step forward with the iPad2 GPU power.We now have iOS fragmentation.
The entire iPad1 generation was obsoleted in the graphics department. Now developers have to choose between writing for the iPad1 or iPad2. There is far too large of a gulf between the two platforms. To benefit from the GPU advancement, the massive installed base of the iPad1 will have to be written-off.
kmmatney - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
I don't think this is true. First, we are only talking about 2 models, and second, they can just enable more graphics features for iPad 2. I can see where some truly advanced games might only be written for the iPad 2 in the future, but there is really no way to avoid that.Azethoth - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
There always was and always will be iOS fragmentation since the 2nd iDevice shipped.As for what it means in a practical sense: check out Infinity Blade on multiple devices (iPhone and iPad). See, not a big deal, content providers are used to scaling artwork and design.
Furthermore, iOS will suffer less from this than Android (fewer device specs). It is one of the aspects of the competition at this form factor that makes me think that Apple will do better than it does at the PC level. (Not that Apple PC profits are not insanely good for their industry: over 50% of entire industry by some accounting).
araczynski - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
if you're after a notebook/pc replacement, you're kidding yourself with any tablet.if you're after a gaming device, you're golden :) especially if you think gaming on phone sized screens (this includes psp/ds/etc) is plain stupid.
mine is filled to the brim with games, no room for audio/video/etc, just pure games.
i love it, my daughter loves it, even my technophobe wife loves it.
its for entertainment, nothing more.
Azethoth - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
It is for more than entertainment:You can amuse your cat with it as well!
coolio68 - Monday, March 21, 2011 - link
Great review Anand,regarding this comment though:'The real competition for the SGX 543MP2 will be NVIDIA's Kal-El. That part is expected to ship on time and will feature a boost in core count: from 8 to 12. The ratio of pixel to vertex shader cores is not known at this point but I'm guessing it won't be balanced anymore. NVIDIA is promising 3x the GPU performance out of Kal-El so I suspect that we'll see an increase in throughput per core.'
Worth bearing in mind a couple of things:
SGX 543MP can already incorporate 2 to 16 cores
The even higher performance SGX 554MP cores have also been announced in December
Power VR Series 6 (Rogue), the next-generation, can scale from 210 GFLOPS to 8 TFLOPS , and is already licensed by the usual suspects.
The A9600 chip announced by ST-E at MWC ,containing Rogue, is sampling in H2 2011.
Nvidia are gonna have their work cut out methinks, but the competition is great for the industry and consumers.