The Apple iPad Review (2012)
by Vivek Gowri & Anand Lal Shimpi on March 28, 2012 3:14 PM ESTThe Camera, It's Much Improved
by Vivek Gowri
iOS 5.1 brought with it a number of bugfixes along with a few minor changes to the core entertainment applications (Music, Photos, Videos), but the only real UI change it brought was the redesigned camera application for the iPad. It fixes our biggest complaint with the original—the shutter button’s location in the middle of the settings bar at the bottom of the screen—and ends up being a big improvement from a usability standpoint. The shutter now resides in a floating circular button on the right side of the display, right where your right thumb falls when holding the iPad with two hands. It’s a more intuitive location for the shutter, so taking a picture is a far more natural feeling exercise than it was before. Other than that, the app looks pretty similar—the settings bar now has the still/video slider, front/rear camera switch, an options button, and the link to the photo gallery.
In terms of camera options, there’s only one. You can either have the rule of thirds grid overlay visible or hidden....and that’s it. There’s no other settings for you to change. No exposure, white balance, ISO, shutter speed, or anything else that isn’t the shutter button. Unfortunately, even the HDR mode from the 4 and 4S is nowhere to be found on the iPad. You literally just point and shoot. That’s all there is for you to do.
In our review of the iPad 2, we summed up the cameras with just one word, mediocre. Looking back, I realize now that the word mediocre is a pretty charitable way to describe the iPad 2’s camera situation. Both sensors were borrowed from the iPod touch, and while the VGA front facing camera was acceptable, the rear facing 720p camera was legitimately bad by the standards of a $499 device.
The new iPad fixes that rear camera problem in a big way, with the five element f/2.4 lens and optics borrowed from the iPhone 4S paired with the Omnivision OV5650 CMOS image sensor from the iPhone 4. A quick refresher on specs: 5 megapixels, backside illuminated, 1080p video at 60fps. If you ignore megapixel count, it’s a pretty competitive camera on paper. There’s a lot of recycled parts here, with bits and pieces from other iDevices frankensteined together to come up with a new imaging system for the iPad, but parts-bin raids aren’t bad when the bins being raided from contain top-tier components. The result ends up being pretty good—as a camera, the new iPad is light years ahead of its predecessor in basically every way.
In practice, it’s nothing short of stellar. Image quality is comparable to most high end smartphones, though not quite good enough to be on par with the bleeding edge cameraphones (4S, Nokia N8/N9, HTC Amaze 4G, Galaxy S 2, etc). Interestingly enough, the preview image looks to be running below 30 fps, appearing a little bit choppy at times. This is likely due to the high resolution of the preview and upscaling it to a very high display resolution, but it doesn’t particularly affect image capture. I measured shot to shot time at exactly one second (I had a range between 0.98 and 1.04 seconds, averaged out to 1.0 when factoring in reaction time). That’s about double what Apple claimed for the 4S, and a bit longer than the iPad 2. Granted, the iPad 2’s camera was very quick in part because the amount of processing it takes to capture a 960x720 image is almost zero, with about 13.8% as many pixels as each 2592x1936 image captured by the new iPad.
The focal length is 4.28mm, a bit longer than the iPad 2’s 3.85mm. The difference is actually noticeable; when taking pictures of nearby subjects, you’re sometimes surprised by how magnified the subject appears. However, the camera is good for landscapes, as you can see from the sample gallery. I took the iPad with me on a weekend trip to Victoria, B.C. and used it as my primary camera on the trip. Now, while I wouldn’t trade my SLR for an iPad anytime soon, I can’t deny that the results turned out pretty well. Colours were vibrant, white balance was accurate, and the clouds were nicely highlighted. It’s a quantum leap from the noisy, 0.7MP mess that was the iPad 2 camera. Mouse over the links below to see some comparisons between the cameras on the iPad 2, 3rd gen iPad and TF Prime.
| Apple iPad 2 | Apple iPad (3rd gen) | ASUS TF Prime |
| original | original | original |
| Apple iPad 2 | Apple iPad (3rd gen) | ASUS TF Prime |
| original | original | original |
The new sensor can record 1080p video, up from 720p. Video quality was probably the best aspect of the iPad 2 camera, and it's even better here. Output is recorded at 29.970 fps and encoded in h.264 Baseline with a bitrate of 21Mbps and single channel audio at 64kbps. The recorded video impresses, with crisp detailing and adequate audio quality from the single mic.
The front facing camera keeps the Omnivision OV297AA sensor from the iPad 2, and as such, image and video quality remain unchanged. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, since it remains adequate for FaceTime and Skype, but it would have been nice to see an update to an HD-quality webcam up front.
With augmented reality apps, I’m starting to see the benefit of rear cameras on tablets. For example, the Yelp app, which takes location and compass data to display what restaurants are the direction the iPad is pointing, with a real-time street view of the search results. It’s not necessarily the most useful way to use the rear facing camera in an AR application, but overall it’s an idea that has potential. Apple also tells us that its business and education customers see usefulness in the iPad's rear facing camera as they can use it to quickly document something while using the iPad as a productivity tool. As a consumer, you’re going to get weird looks if you’re using the iPad to take pictures though, it’s a relatively comical sight.
And that’s really the problem: from an ergonomic standpoint, smartphones are just so much easier and more comfortable to use as cameras. And because the imaging hardware is so similar, I’m not sure I see the real benefit of having a rear facing camera on a tablet except in very specific use cases.
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mr_ripley - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
It's a shame some people argue that against the workers when over a hundred of them have committed suicide over the working conditions. How can you still say that they are being offers a better deal here??On the other hand, it is also unfair that Apple is being singled out here. The world of Chinese manufacturing is a dirty one and all major corporations have a part in it. I'd trust Apple over most other companies to make a difference in that regard, and I'm happy to see something is being done in that regard. Ever heard McDonalds CEO touring the slaughterhouse of the meat packing companies??
name99 - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
Reporting suicides as a number not as a rate shows you to be either a fool or a deliberate liar. How many people, over how many years, comprise the pool from which this suicide number is drawn? Everything I have read says that the actual suicide rate is not only lower than the average rate for China, it is lower than the average rate for the US.mr_ripley - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
In 2010, 18 workers attempted sucide, 14 succeeded. To me even one in a whole year is not acceptable. If you think that is ok I hope that statistic turns out to be you!!name99 - Saturday, March 31, 2012 - link
The argument was NOT that suicide is a tragedy, it was a claim that FoxConn employees specifically tied to Apple production have such lousy lives that they commit suicide in higher numbers that other people around the world.You have done NOTHING to prove this claim; all you have done is bring up a very different issue.
mr_ripley - Saturday, March 31, 2012 - link
There is no disputing the fact that these deths are related to working conditions. I'm pretty sure this has been well established and documented. However, I did say in my previous post that Apple is unfairly singled out. It could have been any other company.Comparison between suicide rates is irrelevant. Higher sucide rates elsewhere does not justify this problem. Again the fact remains that many people have died and it is directly related to the working conditions.
Apple happens to be in a position to directly influence their lives and make it better, after all they profit in billions from the work these people do. Corporations typically place little value over human life and living conditions (IBM sold equipment to the Nazis to track the Jews in concentration camps). Somehow, I feel Apple is different.
doobydoo - Sunday, April 1, 2012 - link
Dude, sorry but you're talking no sense at all.First of all, pretty much any product you want to buy, electronics wise, uses parts from China where conditions are far worse on average, than Apples factories. So if you actually factored working conditions into the product review, it would look favourable for Apple.
Secondly, your argument that comparison between suicide rates is irrelevant, is absurd. Higher suicide rates where legislation is such that no jobs suffer such terrible conditions that suicide is the only option, such as is the case here, prove that even if working conditions are refined, you still get some depressed people. Your argument, therefore, is with the people who committed suicide. You say it is 'directly related to the working conditions' but where have you evidenced this, at all? You simply haven't. The fact that the suicide rates at Apple factories are lower than some American ones further backs up my point on this.
Every company is in a position to change lives and make them better. You too, are in a position to do this. But guess what. You, just like companies, can do WHATEVER YOU LIKE with your OWN MONEY and have NO OBLIGATION WHATSOEVER to solve the worlds problems. Apple already has amongst the best conditions of factories in China. The amount of profit they make is absolutely irrelevant, if you say Apple should be putting money into this then a lot more manufacturers should also put a lot more money into this. It's very easy to decide what other people 'should' do with their money now, isn't it?
Corporations don't have to adhere to moral values - they are not people. They are there solely to make money. Nothing else. Don't confuse them with people. And I hope you donate every single spare penny to charity and spend every spare second of your time working to build homes in the 3rd world. Oh wait, you're on here crying that other people should do it instead.
Get a hold of yourself you illogical fool.
mr_ripley - Sunday, April 1, 2012 - link
Like I have said before it is a shame some people argue with great zeal against others who are suffering and devalue human life. Fortunately, Tim Cook is not one of them.If scores of people killing themselves citing poor working conditions is not enough proof what is? If your claim that there are work environments in America that have higher suicide rates because of working conditions is true that needs to be investigated as well and rectified.
You give charity to people who are in need and cannot earn for themselves. If you think giving someone fair amount of compensation for hard work is charity you are delusional.
If working in those factories is such a pleasent experience I suggest you try it out for yourself. Maybe the experience might broaden your perspective.
Although, I don't see the point I will attempt to educate you. Legally, a corporation is considered as a person, that is right just like a live human being. Regardless of that corporations are run by people and actions of a corporation reflect upon the morality of the people running them.
I will stop here as there is no point in continuing but you can respond with more insults and accusations of what I do or have done which frankly is no concern of yours.
PeteH - Monday, April 2, 2012 - link
I've not seen a single report of people killing themselves and citing "poor working conditions" as the reason. Can you provide a link?There have been reports of people killed because of unsafe working conditions, but that's a different issue. Maybe you're confusing the two.
mr_ripley - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
Here's a Wikipedia link: you can read some of the circumstances and judge for yourself.They may not have said it in so many words but it is clear they were unhappy with ther work environment.
Imagine your boss coming and beating you up because you lost an iPhone prototype!!!
mr_ripley - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides