The Apple iPad Review (2012)
by Vivek Gowri & Anand Lal Shimpi on March 28, 2012 3:14 PM ESTWiFi & GPS
The WiFi stack gets an update with the new iPad courtesy of Broadcom's 65nm BCM4330, compared to the BCM4329 used in the previous two iPads. Both 2.4GHz and 5GHz operation are supported, although as I mentioned earlier the carrier-dependent personal hotspot is only available over 2.4GHz.
As with most smartphone/tablet designs the BCM4330 only supports a single spatial stream, for a maximum link speed of 72Mbps. Similar to the iPad 2, Apple hides the WiFi antenna behind the speaker grille at the bottom of the tablet. The cellular antennas (there are now two) are at the top of the tablet, behind the plastic RF window.
| WiFi Performance Comparison | ||||||
| Distance from AP | 3 feet | 20 feet (Different Room) | 50 feet (Different Room/Floor) | 100 feet (Different Room) | ||
| ASUS TF Prime (2.4GHz) | 26.9 Mbps | 9.85 Mbps | 13.5 Mbps | 2.20 Mbps | ||
| Apple iPad 2 (2.4GHz) | 35.1 Mbps | 29.9 Mbps | 26.9 Mbps | 10.6 Mbps | ||
| Apple iPad 3 (2.4GHz) | 35.1 Mbps | 29.9 Mbps | 27.9 Mbps | 9.98 Mbps | ||
| Apple iPad 2 (5GHz) | 36.7 Mbps | 36.7 Mbps | 36.7 Mbps | 11.9 Mbps | ||
| Apple iPad 3 (5GHz) | 36.7 Mbps | 36.7 Mbps | 36.7 Mbps | 11.7 Mbps | ||
With a similar WiFi stack and similar antenna placement, it's no surprise that I noticed very similar WiFi performance to the iPad 2.
The same goes for GPS performance between the new iPad and the iPad 2. Both devices were able to lock and track me driving around in a car with comparable accuracy from what I could tell.
Airplay Support with the new Apple TV
When paired with a second or third generation Apple TV, the iPad supports wireless display mirroring or content streaming to the iPad via AirPlay. In other words, if you have an Apple TV hooked up to your HDTV, you can use your HDTV as a large, mirrored, secondary display for your iPad—wirelessly. The only requirement is that you have a 2nd or 3rd generation Apple TV and that it's on the same network as your iPad. With those requirements met, enabling AirPlay mirroring is simple—just bring up the iOS task switcher, swipe left to right until you see the brightness/playback controls and tap the AirPlay icon.
Mirroring gives you exactly what you'd expect—a complete mirror of everything you see on the local iPad screen. All sounds are also sent over and come out via your TV's speakers—the local speaker remains silent.
The frame rate isn't as high on the remote display, but there's virtually no impact to the performance of the iPad itself. There's noticeable latency of course since the display output is transcoded as a video, sent over WiFi to the Apple TV, decoded and displayed on your TV via HDMI. I measured the AirPlay latency at ms, which is reasonable for browsing the web but too high for any real-time games. If you want to use the iPad to drive your HDTV for gaming you'll need to buy the optional HDMI output dongle.
While AirPlay mirroring on the iPad works at 720p, if you're playing a 1080p movie on the new iPad and you have a 3rd generation Apple TV, the video is also displayed in 1080p rather than downscaled to 720p.
Video playback is an interesting use case for AirPlay and the iPad. If you don't have mirroring enabled, you can actually start playing a movie on the iPad, have it stream to your TV via the Apple TV, and go about using your iPad as if nothing else was happening. Most apps will allow you to stream video in the background without interrupting, however some games (e.g. GTA 3, Infinity Blade 2) and some apps (e.g. iMovie) will insist on streaming their UI to your Apple TV instead.
Although iOS and the iPad don't do a great job of promoting multi-user experiences, using AirPlay to push video to a TV wirelessly is an exception. If you frequently load your iPad up with movies you can use it to keep others entertained while you either get work done or just goof around on your iPad at the same time. It's a great fit for families where people want to do two different things. If you do put a lot of movies on your iPhone/iPad, the 3rd generation Apple TV is probably a must buy for this reason alone.
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vol7ron - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Think you meant "except" :)adityarjun - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
No, you aren'tsiddharth7 - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
Yeah! Kind of a typo :). Also forgot the question mark. :-)Wanted to edit it, but was not able to after posting. :)
Xyraxx - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Ok, gaming clearly the TF came out ahead. Why the backhanded commentary in that section? I don't see that for the sections that the iPad clearly won. TF takes the overall top spot for its gaming performance. But instead of commentary on that, we get aggressive talk about how they should be pushing even further ahead, and how they are failing at it.The controller compatibility is an absolute win for the Android side, but instead of talk about that, we get this "Yeah, but who says controllers will win over touch". Its like every advantage the iPad doesn't win over, gets trotted out and downplayed as if to say it doesn't mean anything, or somehow doesn't matter.
darkcrayon - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Interesting. I got a different impression entirely. It seems like games specifically optimized for the Tegra 3 by nVidia were somewhat better visuallyr, but the iPad has a more extensive game library and considering the GPU is far more powerful than the Tegra 3's, it's only a matter of time before there are far better graphics to be had on iPad games.Though there is no OS level controller support in iOS, both Bluetooth and dock connector controllers are possible (hence the iControlpad iCade, and a few others). It may be that more games support them now on Android, but nothing is stopping developers from supporting them on iOS at this point.
Finally, it's pretty important that ~100% of the iPad games in the App Store will run on the new iPad, which can't be said for the TF as shown in the review, or probably for any other individual Android tablet.
mr_ripley - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
It seems to me that the iPad does charge when I plug it into the USB port on my Macbook Pro. In fact I was surprised to see that not only did it not say "not charging" and show the "plugged-in" icon, it also seemed pretty fast (I will have to try it again to see if it was as fast as the power charger).However, when I tried to this morning to plug it into my Lenovo laptop it showed "not charging". Does this only work when plugged into Apple products?
vol7ron - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
This question seems better suited for the Apple support forums.doobydoo - Sunday, April 1, 2012 - link
This reply seems better suited to the kids-r-us forum.Aenean144 - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Modern Macs have special USB hubs that output 7 to 8 Watts of power (~5V at ~1.6A). Most Windows machines or non-Macs and older Macs output about 4.5 Watts max. There's a USB battery charging specification, but I'm not aware of any computers that have this implemented.So, most Mac should be able to charge an iPod, iPad, iPhone relatively quickly. A PC with the normal USB specs will typically do it a little bit slower. 40 to 50%. 4.5 Watts is basically the bare minimum. Doable on an iPad 2 with the screen off, but the 2012 iPad will be tough. If you have the screen off, turn off WiFi and Bluetooth, it'll charge ok if Apple lets it. The screen has to be off with 4 Watt power source.
mr_ripley - Thursday, March 29, 2012 - link
Ah ha! Thanks for the clarification. When I saw that I was able to charge my new ipad while using it with my Macbook pro USB, I neglected to bring along my charger to work. Seems like that was unwise.But I still have around 50% power left so should be fine for today. And yes I do use it at work.