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Apple Unveils New iPad

Posted by samzenpus on from the new-and-improved dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "As expected, Apple announced the new iPad complete with a Retina Display, quad-core processor, 4G LTE, and an improved camera. The new iPad will run the rumored A5X processor, which according to Apple will provide four times the performance of the Tegra 3. The revamped tablet will also include a 2048-by-1536 display, apparently the most in any mobile device. And finally with 4G LTE, the new iPad will provide up to 73 Mbps download speeds; partners for which include Verizon, Rogers, Bell, Telus, and AT&T."

12 of 989 comments (clear)

  1. Nice upgrade, but no big surprises in the new iPad by xmas2003 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Glad to see this finally announced/released and while I'd love to exchange for my iPad2, I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade. Without Steve Jobs doing the dramatics, watching the Live Blog was almost as exciting as Watching Grass Grow.

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  2. Someone take that awesome display... by bemymonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And put it in a netbook with a Thinkpad-style trackpoint... I'd buy that right away.

  3. The Screen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That screen is just incredible. I mean, here I am working on a dual monitor setup - two 22" 1680x1050 monitors, side by side. That's about 3.5 megapixels. But along comes the new iPad, with a 3 megapixel screen in a 10" form factor - 85% of the pixels in about 15% of the area. Crazy. I'm not planning on buying one right now (already have iPad 1, which at this point I'll use until it dies), but I'm really glad that somebody is pushing screen resolutions above the relatively low 1080p we seem to be stuck with today on virtually every LCD.

    1. Re:The Screen by rsborg · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That screen is just incredible. I mean, here I am working on a dual monitor setup - two 22" 1680x1050 monitors, side by side. That's about 3.5 megapixels. But along comes the new iPad, with a 3 megapixel screen in a 10" form factor - 85% of the pixels in about 15% of the area. Crazy. I'm not planning on buying one right now (already have iPad 1, which at this point I'll use until it dies), but I'm really glad that somebody is pushing screen resolutions above the relatively low 1080p we seem to be stuck with today on virtually every LCD.

      The sad thing this device exposes is how current desktop operating systems don't handle resolution independence nearly as well. I have 3x1080p 24" screens on my work desktop setup, and I still have to squint to see stuff because Windows7 and the apps I run have built-in assumptions about pixel sizing. Hopefully Win8, ChromeOS or OSX-next help to resolve this.

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  4. Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs... by internet-redstar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... no he is no Steve Jobs, he even forgot to tell the public WHAT THE NEW IPAD IS CALLED! ... ipad 3, ipad HD? iPad Retina? He could have done better!

  5. Re:Nice upgrade, but no big surprises in the new i by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Everyone who ever took a photo cares about white balance. They might not know the phrase white balance. But they care if the pictures look too orangey or too blue. And auto white balance means that problem is mostly fixed without ever having to learn what white balance means.

  6. The one downside... by sootman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is exactly what everyone predicted, and I'm fine with that. I'm just a hair disappointed that the front camera is still VGA. Even if FaceTime is bandwidth-limited or someting, it'd be nice to take pictures of, say, yourself and your kids in greater than 0.3MP.

    Oh, and the name--iPad, iPad 2, The new iPad. :-( Reminds me of my file versioning system: index.html, index-old.html, index-new.html, index-newer.html, index-newest.html, index-final.html, index-absolutely-final.html, index-final-i-swear-to-god-i-mean-it-this-time.html...

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  7. Wow, if that isn't pointless nitpicking... by Petersko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "excuse me here, but i thought a retina display implied ~300dpi this one falls a fair bit short of the mark if i'm not mistaken so once again apple marketing triumphs over al"l

    264 dpi, 2048x1536 in 10 inches... maybe your complaint is about some imagined deficiency, but if you'd care to explain how this is actually a failure, I'd love to hear it. Are you actually complaining that if you freeze frame and squint really hard from two inches away you can actually make out... (gasp)... pixels? Because you couldn't make them out at normal viewing distance.

    In other words, tell me how your post isn't just a knee-jerk, pointless, anti-apple jab with no redeeming value.

  8. Re:Which is an... odd way to talk about graphics by Xrikcus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Oh I don't know about that. I gave a talk only last week in which I described AMD's latest GPU (HD7970) as having 32 cores and I ran that content past some of the chip's architects first. If you look at the design of the chip it quite clearly has 32 cores: 32 scalar cores each of which having 4 16-wide SIMD units hanging off the side.

    Of course, how the marketing department at Apple defines cores is open to question, but 4 strikes me as a reasonable number for an embedded GPU. The ARM Mali designs are around that kind of core count.

  9. So where are the rest of the super hi-res screens? by edmicman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Alright, so count me as a doubter that didn't think they'd pull out the super hi-res screen and keep it at the same price. So all of a sudden Apple comes out of nowhere with screen resolution that leapfrogs everything out there, including pretty much all of the LCD desktop monitors that I've used. So where is everyone else with super hi-res screens on commodity LCD monitors, laptops, etc.? Let alone Android tablets? When and where will we see those?

  10. Re:Still don't want one by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have a desktop and a laptop to do "real" computing on.

    But how long until the iPad becomes so deceptively capable that people buy it as their only computer?

  11. Re:So where are the rest of the super hi-res scree by narcc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Apple painted themselves into a corner resolution-wise. They have to double it, or not change it at all.

    For some reason iOS developers all forgot how to code for multiple screen resolutions -- even though they've (for the most part) been doing it for years, and handling highly variable aspect ratios at the same time.

    Even when I'm targeting a specific mobile device, I make sure that the layout adapts correctly to various resolutions and aspect ratios. It takes very little extra work and the rewards are great when your needs change in the future and you need to port it to a different device or class of devices with different resolutions and aspect ratios.

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