Is the iPad 2 Better than the New iPad?

[marfig]

Originally Posted by Brett Thomas

In exactly how many of our notebook reviews do we pan them for putting MORE in, and keeping as many of the original benefits as possible? Oh wait, none, except maybe if we were reviewing Apple.

[...]

In this case, Macman's not the crazy one, it's an entire industry aimed at needing to find SOMETHING to complain about.

Yes, he is. We all are in fact, on both sides of the camp and those choosing to sit in the middle but still going bananas at anyone chosing to extreme their position.

Let's face it, the iPad is a device for which too many people are still trying to find a reason for. We call it a consumer device to explain its whole purpose and do it with a convincing smug on our face, confident that explains it all. As if saying "he's 16 years old" would explain all the s* parents have to go through and that its ok and its his parents that are wrong. Let him ruin the rest of his life by being a prick and get his whole family into a depression because he's 16 years old. "He's 16 years old, for pete's sake! It's what his supposed to be doing". And we still have no idea what actually being 16 years old really means.

(oh and let's not forget the human kind have had 16 year olds for millions of years and that they never behaved like this... and when they did, they'd get their guts ripped off their bellies by their parents)

The reason the iPad is so debated (notice how the iPhone hasn't got 1% of the hot/heat argumentation the iPad "enjoyed") is because there's a huge uncertainty as to device real purpose or use. So anything goes. When there isn't a center mass that defines the rules of usage, anything is ripe for praise or flak.

And it's also because its a perfect device to sit with the white western middle-class and their stupid problems. Nothing cries out stupidity like making your whole life, or what you reveal of your life to others, revolve around a company or its products. Nothing spells out the misery of the human condition like it. The iPad is the current spokesperson of the degradation of our western culture and the worst in human beings it has to offer to an alien life form that comes to visit us.

Originally Posted by Brett Thomas

You want more? You have to give up something SOMEWHERE.

I briefly alluded to this on my first post in this thread. It's just a natural law that everything comes at a cost. Technological evolution is also the process of eliminating this cost after it is presented to us. Something I'm sure Apple and all other companies like it will keep doing; as they always did and as they keep launching new products that improve on old ones, and introduce new features with new associated costs that then need to be resolved.

BUT,

I'm not ready to accept that just because something is the better the market has to offer, it means I should be happy about it and should refrain from criticizing it. That I don't accept. My position on this matter is very simple: I'm a consumer, I bitch.

And that's about it. If I want to have any hope of keeping companies on their toes, I'll always want to be a critic of their products and I never want to be satisfied. Certainly I can be satisfied, but it won't stop me from moaning about the flaws of something that pleases me and serves me well. As little as they may be.

On the matter of the new iPad I totally agree that most of the criticism seems misdirected in grade. But not kind. If it heats, it heats. I don't care if someone wants to find excuses for it, but I also don't care if someone wants to make a big deal out of it. The only thing I care is that it heats. I'll be the judge of how much that will affect my life and whether that should be reason enough for me to shoot myself after having murdered a lot of people on the street.

I just want the information out that the new iPad is hotter than the old one. Like it, or hate it.

[marfig]

Originally Posted by marfig

Yes, he is. We all are in fact, on both sides of the camp and those choosing to sit in the middle but still going bananas at anyone chosing to extreme their position.

And let me make something perfectly clear once and for all (because I don't "throw bones" anymore to Macman. I gave up on doing it). Warning: I'll be acidic.

What really pisses me off about his posts on Apple products threads is that he's a constant, incessant, and terminally annoying interruption of the usual flow these conversations on these forums are taking before he decided to get his greasy hands on the keyboard.

For the most part (not all certainly, but the most part), we discuss Apple products on these pages. And the articles are centered always around the product. But Macman always barges in and immediately re-centers the discussion on the bloody company. All the time! It's unnerving to say the least.

We don't care about Apple! Get that in your thick skull. We aren't financial analysts. We are geeks in here. We don't care if its rich, or poor, has good of bad stock. We care if its products are good, cool, serve our needs or desires, or they are not. Who cares about Apple stock, for pete's sake. Heck, Logitech is a much bigger company than SteeSeries, but a good deal of what the latter gives us is on the list of the majority preferences. It's about the damn product, you ape!

And we start discussing that. What we care about. But soon enough, BAM! Here comes Macman and its completely irrelevant, financial analysis. Not even once he actually discusses Apple products. He doesn't ever construct a formed and comprehensive personal opinion of a product. He doesn't discuss its technological virtues or merits, its features in any detail whatsoever, its format, nothing. Absolutely nothing. But how could he? He doesn't even know them. For all purposes, he's a computer illiterate that having nothing better to do, pretends to discuss a product by showing a financial report of the company that makes it. He just doesn't know squat of the products we are discussing. Anything that exists as an actual technological opinion is presented to us by Macman in the form of a link to someone else's article. He's completely incapable of having a mind of his own. What a bloody waste of cerebral matter. I've eaten cow brains with more use.

And for that, almost every single thread on these forums ends up dying a miserable death. Be it because we just give up on the discussion because its meaning has been completely
lost, or because the other ape (me) gets his nervous system riled up and chooses to do a "Fatality!" on it, like this very post.

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Brett Thomas

People wanted a true HD display. Check. People wanted it to be able to game. Check. People wanted it to still have 9 or 10 hours of battery life. Check. People wanted 4G. Check.

Who asked for a "true HD" display? Who asked for a "true HD" display that packs in 50% more pixels than are available in a 22" monitor? When did it suddenly become imperative to have such a small pixel width? I don't think it ever has. This is just a case of Apple fixing a problem that never existed. 1600x1200 couldn't have sufficed?

Most of the problems mentioned in the article are a direct result its over-zealous resolution. The iPad runs hotter because the GPU needs to work harder, and data plans take a hit because content doesn't get scaled down to the previous SD-resolution (which for the record was fine by most people). I don't think anyone who picked up an iPad 3 expected it to have all the caveats it does.

The iPad could have followed the 1080p regarded standard and likely avoided some of these issues, such as overheating. Even desktop GPUs have to put effort forth to 1080p+ resolutions, and here we have a mobile chip pushing 50% more pixels than that.

I am being honest when I say I'd purchase an iPad 2 quicker than the new one, given the problems it brings. I am not one of those mobile demons that always needs to adhere to the latest standard, and it can be argued that the resolutions on all pre-iPad 3 tablets was just fine (I never used an iPad to a great extent but I've used many other tablets of equal size).

Originally Posted by marfig

Warning: I'll be acidic.

/me pours some water on marfig. Damn, man!

I think the best course of action is when you can't seem to have a normal conversation with another poster, it's best just to leave it and not add fuel to the fire. Easier said than done, I know.

[Brett Thomas]

lol marfig, none of this was really meant about your go with macman...I'll just put that out there. ;-) More the anti-Apple vitriol that has gripped the media as of late.

I'll respond to the on-topic points of your post later, though! :-D

[marfig]

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

Who asked for a "true HD" display? Who asked for a "true HD" display that packs in 50% more pixels than are available in a 22" monitor? When did it suddenly become imperative to have such a small pixel width? I don't think it ever has. This is just a case of Apple fixing a problem that never existed. 1600x1200 couldn't have sufficed?

I'd wholeheartedly agree that it went too far. The resolution and pixel size of the new iPad is just disproportionate for a device such as this. But I do remember reviews of the iPad 2 mentioning that the resolution should increase and people requesting it here and there. There was an actual desire for this to happen.

Of course I think the sole motivation behind it was that of "moar!". And nothing else. There's no technical reason why a tablet should have these many pixels on such a small display, outside perhaps of a very elite group of professionals. And since this is a so-called consumer device, not even them. It's like buying the Space Shuttle to watch international shows.

If the Apple conduct for the iPad is to produce top of the line products, then it all makes sense. I do marvel still at what was crammed inside such a thin plastic object. And the actual nags of the new iPad do seem minor to me, with the exception of the aforementioned battery recharge time.

What I feel however is that this hyper-technological device is becoming distanced from the real needs of consumers. All its top-of-the-line features, while commendable from a technological point of view, are entirely useless to anyone, and much less feature-full devices will end up giving customers what they need, as they need it, and for a lower price. It' becoming the Ferrari of tablet devices. But few people drive a Ferrari and are perfectly happy with other cars that get them from A to B in good time and in a comfortable and safe manner.

[Greg King]

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

Who asked for a "true HD" display? Who asked for a "true HD" display that packs in 50% more pixels than are available in a 22" monitor? When did it suddenly become imperative to have such a small pixel width? I don't think it ever has. This is just a case of Apple fixing a problem that never existed. 1600x1200 couldn't have sufficed?

When you have an expected product refresh cycle, sometimes you have to find things to add to it's list of features. That said, I don't have any issues with the additions to the iPad 3. I think everything added will find uses by most everybody

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

/me pours some water on marfig. Damn, man!

I think the best course of action is when you can't seem to have a normal conversation with another poster, it's best just to leave it and not add fuel to the fire. Easier said than done, I know.

Impossible at times. I couldn't bring myself to wade into this thread's waters. It was exhausting reading the nonsense and I would have found it difficult making time for a cohesive post between the constant screaming I was doing at my monitor.

[Brett Thomas]

Originally Posted by Greg King

It was exhausting reading the nonsense and I would have found it difficult making time for a cohesive post between the constant screaming I was doing at my monitor.

<3 And this is why I love you, Greg.


@ Rob:
Who needed 1080p before TVs came out with it? Someone started with "we just want to do more." So though the iPad's display is a bit ridiculous, the idea that it was never asked for or solving a problem that didn't exist is a bit unfair - that's pretty much every new technology. "We didn't have it before, so we couldn't use it" would be what the programmers would say. The idea that Apple shouldn't have NOT made the leap simply because the industry standard is 1080p makes no sense. Particularly if the only trade-off is heat - the new device isn't much thicker, not that much heavier and has the same battery life. So unless it sets my hand on fire, I'm with marfig that frankly all I want to know is that it gets hotter than previous versions.

And if you really would persist in that argument, then fair's fair. I would say that the next time one of the graphics cards companies releases a new card (like the NV 680), you need to pan it publicly in a news post as overblown and unnecessary, solving problems we don't have while taking on more heat and power. After all, if it plays current games at 60FPS, that's really all we need, right?

[Glider]

Originally Posted by Brett Thomas

Thats the way I pretty much think about all new things... /me hugs his AMD Athlon 2600+