Apple did the thing today. New iPad event, San Francisco, Yerba Buena Center, and I spent most of my afternoon with a liveblog open in one tab and actual work open in another, guiltily alt-tabbing every time the refresh icon spun. Tim Cook ran the whole show this time, which still feels a little strange to type out loud. First keynote since Jobs died back in October and everyone was watching to see if the room would feel different. From what I read it mostly didnt, which I think is a good sign honestly.
So heres the thing everyone is already making fun of: they didnt call it the iPad 3. They didnt call it the iPad HD either, which was the rumor mill favorite for weeks. Its just "the new iPad." That's the actual product name. I get why, kind of, Apple likes the iPod-style naming where the current model is just THE model and old ones fade out, but it makes writing about this stuff a nightmare. Six months from now when theres a new one and we all still have this one, what do we call it, "the old new iPad"? Someone in the comments over on a forum I read already called it the iPad 2S out of spite and honestly that might stick better than Apples own name.
Specs-wise its a real jump though, not just a spec-bump refresh. Retina display, 2048x1536, which Apple is calling "Resolutionary" in their marketing copy (their word, not mine, and it made me groan audibly at my desk). Thats something like 3.1 million pixels, more than a 1080p TV crammed into a 9.7 inch panel. New chip is the A5X, dual core CPU but quad core graphics to push all those extra pixels, because apparently a screen that dense needs its own muscle just to keep up with itself. 5 megapixel camera on the back now with 1080p video, up from the pretty mediocre camera on the iPad 2. And theres a 4G LTE version this time, AT&T or Verizon depending which one you buy, though Ill believe LTE actually works well in most cities when I see it.
Pricing stayed put which surprised me a little. $499 for the base 16GB wifi model, same as always, up to $699 for 64GB wifi, and the LTE versions run $629 to $829. iPad 2 isnt going away either, it drops to $399 and becomes the budget option, which is smart because a lot of people dont actually care about Retina and just want something cheap-ish that runs Angry Birds and lets grandma video chat.
They also refreshed the Apple TV box, still $99, now doing 1080p output where the old one topped out at 720p. Barely anyone talks about Apple TV on these liveblogs and I get why, its the least interesting product in the room every single time, but I own one and use it constantly for Netflix so Im quietly happy about this one.
Preorders are already open and it ships March 16th, which is fast, thats like nine days. I keep going back and forth on whether Im actually going to buy one. My iPad 2 works fine. It does everything I need it to do. But then I look at that pixel density number and I know myself well enough to know Ill see one in a store and immediately want it, the way I wanted the first iPad even though I told myself for months I didnt need a tablet at all. Screens are my weakness, I think, more than any other category of gadget. Give me a sharper screen and my willpower just evaporates.
One thing nobody is talking about much yet: no mention of Siri coming to the iPad. Feels like an odd omission given how much they pushed it on the 4S last fall, but maybe thats a software update thing down the road rather than a hardware launch thing. Well see.
Anyway. Going to go read three more liveblog recaps before bed even though Ive basically already absorbed everything there is to know about this thing for one day.