• Home

New iPad: see it to believe it

Perhaps the the sign of the times, that I write more about iPad than Mac lately. As Apple is progressing into the post-PC era, so am I, I guess.

One sign of that is that I rarely take the work notebook with me home anymore, instead relying solely on my iPad to do what I need to do outside of the office.

But that’s a topic for another day. Today I thought I’d share my first encounter with the new iPad. Yesterday I walked into a store and got my first taste, and all I can say is a loud “wow.”

The guy in the store doing a short demo of the iPad first brought up a photo on the screen, one that he said he had taken with the new iPad in the store. The same photo was displayed on the iPad 2 right next to the newer model. On the new iPad it was like I could zoom in and then zoom in some more, and the photo kept its sharpness and details. On the iPad 2, the photo still looked good, but the pixels were clearly visible, and the photo didn’t look as detailed by far.

In terms of speed, there wasn’t that much difference, although the new iPad seemed a bit quicker browsing the web. Perhaps that’s due to the increased amount of memory.

The physical design is virtually identical. One noticeable difference, and you see that only if you lay a new iPad next to an iPad 2, is that the new one is about a milimetre thicker. In reality this means most cases will still fit. New iPad is also slightly heavier, but I could only really tell what difference that will make after using the tablet for a longer period of time.

When it comes to apps, some apps that I tried looked really good, with updated interface elements and graphics. Others still looked good, but you could tell that things were just blown up, presumably these apps did not yet take advantage of the retina display.

Of course this demo in the store was set up so as to make the new iPad look good, but, I admit it, I fell for it. I told the sales guy that before I walked in I was actually thinking that perhaps I should save some money and buy the iPad 2, which now has a lower price. I told this to the demo guy and he quickly retorted, “you’re not anymore.”

And he was completely right, after spending just a few minutes with the new iPad, I have no thoughts about buying anything else.

I think it’s safe to say that the new iPad will leave a mark every bit as big as iPad 2, and, by the looks of it, it’s set to surpass the sales of the predecessor as well. And I can say that after spending just a few minutes with Apple’s latest creation. To put it simply, the new display alone is well worth it.

Magnus Nystedt @mnystedt

• UAE