Analysis of the new Apple iPad
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 9, 2012 1:37 AM ESTFinal Words
In many ways the new iPad was a known quantity. We knew to expect a faster SoC, a significantly higher resolution display and LTE support - Apple delivered on all fronts. The new iPad, much like another iPhone, is simply a tangibly improved version of its predecessor.
The iPad 2's display quickly became unacceptable from a resolution standpoint. The 3rd generation iPad's Retina Display completely addresses the issue and creates a new benchmark for other players in the tablet and ultraportable notebook space to live up to. It really is great to see Apple pushing display technology so aggressively and at reasonable price points. I do hope it's only a matter of time before we see a similar trend on the Mac side.
The finer details of yesterday's announcement were interesting - a much larger battery and 4x-nm LTE baseband. Arguably the most important information however is what Apple didn't talk about.
Today we have a first-world-problem with tablets, including the iPad - they are spectacular for certain usage models, but frustrating for others. Tablets aren't notebook replacements yet, but they can be more useful than a notebook depending on what you're doing. At the same time, tablets can be considerably worse than a notebook - again, depending on what you're doing. The solution to having the best of both worlds is to switch between or travel with two devices: a tablet and a Mac/PC. Ideally we'd like to see consolidation where you'd only need one.
Windows 8 proposes a solution to this problem: a single OS that, when paired with a convertible tablet (or dockable tablet like the Transformer Pad), can give you a tablet experience or a full blown desktop OS on a single device. Apple hasn't tipped its hand as to what the iOS UI strategy is going forward. I suspect we'll get some update at WWDC this year, but Apple is playing it very quiet at this point. Microsoft's strategy does bode very well for Windows users who also want a tablet, however it does alienate Windows users who want a more robust desktop experience. It's clear to me that Apple is trying to move the iPad closer to the MacBook Air in its product line, but it's unclear to me whether (or when) we'll see convergence there.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
161 Comments
View All Comments
steven75 - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
Yes when you see actual usage stats (website hits, etc), it's quite clear that the majority of iPhone owners use their phone as a smartphone and the majority of Android owner use their phone as a replacement for their dumbphone. In other words, Android is the new dumbphone for whatever reason.Also it's been TWO YEARS since the original iPad cam out, and still Android fans say Android tablets are "eventually" going to overtake iPads in sales.
Didn't happen so far and there are no signs of that changing anytime soon. There still are barely any Antroid tablet apps!
iSayuSay - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
I don't have problems with competition. In fact, competition is what makes iOS and Android being progressive as fast as they are today.Like I said earlier, I'm aware that Apple needs suppliers, and Samsung is one of them.
But I really hate the way company like Samsung compete with Apple. No, I'm not talking about copying, it's an old story. But let's just see
After the new iPad announced last week and turns out it has 2048x1536 resolution (and ready to sell it of course), oh yes Samsung come with another bluff that they will release (it's still prototype of course) another tablet with 2560x1600.. REALLY?
I thought Android has made 16:9 aspect ratio as standard for their tablet? Why go with 16:10? I know why! Because Samsung want to make things just bigger than iPad, 2560x1440 (16:9) ratio will be perceived that horizontal lines still worse than iPad (1536 vs. 1440). Samsung want everything LOOKS bigger than Apple, albeit it does not always better.
Company like Samsung is so ambitious about taking down Apple, they don't think that much anymore in terms of ergonomic, a careful design choice and comfortability, NO. As long as it looks bigger/more powerful than iToys, they'll sell it and boast it around. LOOK, our Galaxy Note or S2 have bigger screen, and it has 720p! nothing like a small/inferior iPhone. REALLY? Their design will make it to the market as long as it makes iToys looks puny (while the fact is it still sell extremely well no matter what Samsung do), other design considerations are not really that important.
doobydoo - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
'But how on Earth is that better for customers? 'He didn't say it was. 'Straw man'!!! lol
I do agree with you that it's better for customers to keep Samsung and others trying to compete with Apple - but the original post never said anything which contradicts this.
iOS to Android is not 1 to 3, either. It's about 3:5 (iOS has 30% ish, Android has 48.6%). Google even admits it gets more search revenue from iOS users, and the iOS app store is many times more profitable than Android.
doobydoo - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
Nice Apple-hating, dude?And good addressing of the points made.
The obvious fact is that Apple is way ahead of both Samsung and Asus. The response is always 'but a new device out in x months will compete' - the point is that's too late. Everyone else is playing catchup right now.
Penti - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
Won't happen, Apple uses off the shelf parts. The same parts as any one else, the tech does allow you to create a 9.7" 2048x1536 display, just like they did that resolution on the same tech in lower end/last gen older fabs ten years ago at 15" laptops. It's a standard resolution, one normally supported by CRT monitors and VGA-cards via the analog connections. At least since we had 300MHz RAMDAC. Which ends you up back in the 90's. Much higher then our current resolutions won't be supported on laptops though, so you can forget about 2880x1800 resolution on Macbooks (the is no reason to go 4 times the resolution here, laptops hasn't been stuck at a specific resolution and held back for that matter) as the integrated Intel graphics won't have the bandwidth to drive that resolution at 60Hz (or above) and GCN is the first architecture that has the bandwidth to drive 4k displays over DP/HDMI or anything over 2560x1600 @ 60Hz for that matter. You will need enough LVDS, TMDS or Displayport bandwidth to transmit a resolution like that as well as video card support. Others have showed up a range of other resolutions up to 1920x1200 because that's what is out in the supplychain or what they custom order, they of course has other considerations then to market it as as much pixels the eye can see. While Apple was intentionally not upgrading it's 1024x768 display others where doing 1280x800 way down to 7.7" on the same display tech, planning on going 1920x1200 on displays that is far less prototypes then the devices showing them, but major product updates and releases won't come at any time, so you would have to wait until they replace their top products. Just as you would have to wait for Apples release cycle to put out new stuff. Of course Apple uses parts from these companies that is "babbling", like displays, memories, NAND-storage, batteries, SSDs, harddrives, gpus, wireless hardware, mobile graphics vendors and so on. The PowerVR SGX 543MP4(+) is already out in consumer products like PS Vita for example.Samsung is one of the major manufacturers of these new iPad LCD-panels. It's Samsung's, LG Display's or Sharp's own tech.
vFunct - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
It's entirely possible for Apple to add an ARM cpu to a Macbook Air and allow for iOS operations to happen in a separate window.Actually, this could be a function of the monitor itself.
tipoo - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
Intels own SoCs can use binary compatibility for any ARM apps, so two chips would be unnecessary. They could do it for power savings though with an instant on iOS mode or something, but I doubt they would since they already worked on instant on with SSDs.macs - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
The sad part is that probably we won't see an A15 iPhone for the next 18 months...tipoo - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
Cortex A15 wasn't due for another year anyways.Subzero0000 - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
Does it really look that bad ?'cus I tried really hard looking at my iPad 2 screen and the Safari icon looks nothing like the image on this article.
Maybe it's a good thing that I can't tell the difference...
Texts are a bit blurry, that's true though.