Let’s cut to the chase. The "new iPad" doesn’t have the much-rumoured haptic touch technology. In fact, its list of major new features can be counted on the fingers of one hand. It doesn’t even have a number after its name. How disappointing is that? Apple New iPad 3 And yet, after a weekend of gazing longingly at the …

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Monday 19th March 2012 14:56 GMT Randy Hudson

Is it just me...

or does the Infinity Blade II capture look like the 3D is being rendered at 1024x768, and then resampled to 4x the resolution? If you look at edges that are nearly vertical/horizontal, it's strange that the "steps" along the edge always jump by 2 pixels at a time (modulo the blur from the resample).

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1. Monday 19th March 2012 15:05 GMT JDX
  
  Re: Is it just me...
  
  You can render at the old 1024x768, or at the new 2048x1536. OR at anything in between.
  
  From what actual devs are telling me, if you take your existing 3D game and keep it at 1024x768, it runs about 2X as fast on the iPad3 than on iPad2. BUT if you render it at 2048x1536, it is substantially slower on iPad3... i.e. the 3D rendering capability improvements have not kept up with the 4X pixel count.
  
  This is from real developers running real code. They suggest we might see lots of games running at a reduced resolution (lower than iPad3, higher than iPad2). Or that people will stay at 1024x768 and use the extra power to enable much nicer special effects.
  
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  1. Monday 19th March 2012 16:27 GMT Peter 48
    
    Re: Is it just me...
    
    I think one major problem with 4x the pixels is that for 3D you actually need 8x the power (2x 2y 2z axis) This also applies to the texture memory requirements. That is one reason why the Xbox 360 and PS3 rarely run at 1080 lines - they usually render at 720 lines and then scale up.
    
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Monday 19th March 2012 14:56 GMT Anonymous Coward

interesting choice of screenshot for iplayer...

Why, out of all the content on iplayer, did you have to choose a moment when two people look on as their colleague is having a heart attack?

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Monday 19th March 2012 15:06 GMT Anonymous Coward

hires - needed?

the fact that Apple bring this out with >HD resolution but noone else is in the ballpark

makes you wonder if the 'hi-Res is the thing!' is on the money. after all, why have more pixels

than you can see (well, at 15 inches or whatever the qualifying 'retina' distance is - they seem to change the goalposts for each device...the iphone4s is 12 inches IIRC) ?

my Kindle (proper e-ink version, not the new backlit Android clone) is very comfortable to read text with and its resolution is way way lower than the new iPad. my 17" PC screen is comfortable to read the web on - and thats only 1440x960 - so, bigger screen and still less resolution.

I think the iPad2 but with the ipad3 battery would have been the winner here.... did they make a tech-change for tech-change sake? the benchmarks make the A5X seem very very slightly slower too... hmmm.

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1. Monday 19th March 2012 15:43 GMT Charlie Clark
  
  Yebut, nobut...
  
  Other manufacturers already have HD screens in the works if not in the shops. So the competition is aware of the issue. Albeit most of them already have higher resolutions than the Ipad 2 so the difference is less marked; my Galaxy 8.9 already has around 170 ppi versus 120 ppi for the old Ipad.
  
  Higher resolution is important for text-rendering and presumably makes it easier when connecting to a larger monitor. The main appeal for tablets is crisper and clearer rendering of text in magazine applications. The aspect ratio is wasted on watching movies as illustrated by the screenshot and that extra screen real estate weighs quite a lot. The competition should push the weight advantage as it is really noticeable if you hold the thing for anything more than two minutes.
  
  E-ink is easier on the eye because of the higher contrast and lack of the backlight. Look closely and text on the Ipad will look nicer - it's a similar effect to different types of paper from newsprint (e-ink) to glossy magazine (Ipad), but your "newsprint" is infinitely more readable in bright sunshine.
  
  Heise notes significant performance issues on things like Google Maps.
  
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2. Tuesday 20th March 2012 00:21 GMT ThomH
  
  Re: hires - needed?
  
  It's not fair to compare it to a Kindle; on electronic ink devices the pixels exactly meet up so that a grey line is a continuous black line. On LCD devices the red, green and blue elements have gaps between them so that a grey line is a series of discontinuous half-lit red, green and blue pixels. As a result the electronic ink looks infinitely better at a much lower resolution.
  
  It's the iPad 1, but check out http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/pictures-kindle-and-ipad-screens-under-microscope/ to see the difference under a zoom lens and a microscope.
  
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Monday 19th March 2012 15:29 GMT ducatis'r us

it's hot stuff!!

Anyone contemplating the new iPad should visit their local Apple store (or pc world as I did). Compare them side by side. The screen is much better but worth an upgrade from an Ipad2? I doubt it. More seriously though, those extra pixels and bigger battery generate significantly more heat which you can feel if you hold both models, especially in a store environment where they have been running for hours. This has produced a lot of posts on Apple discussion pages with some people claiming it gets too hot to hold under some circumstances!

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3810951?tstart=0

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1. Tuesday 20th March 2012 00:18 GMT ThomH
  
  Re: it's hot stuff!!
  
  Having taken ownership of one thanks to my job, I can confirm that the new iPad gets noticeably warm whereas the old did not. On the plus side, my cat loves it.
  
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Monday 19th March 2012 15:32 GMT Si 1

I'm upgrading from an iPad 1. My main reason being the lack of RAM (256MB) in the first model. While it just about copes, surfing with multiple tabs quickly becomes a problem with the device forgetting the page I've just looked at because I've switched tabs. The single core CPU is a bit slow at loading web pages too, and the upgrade to iOS 5.1 seems to have made things just a touch slower all round as well.

I'm definitely looking forward to the new screen, but a faster more stable device is also something I'm really looking forward to. I was such a sceptic when Apple announce the iPad, yet it hardly leaves my side these days!

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Monday 19th March 2012 15:54 GMT Jim 59

Tablets/pads

How do you hold an iPad ? Put it on a flat surface ? Hold it up and get a tired arm ?

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1. Monday 19th March 2012 16:03 GMT Windrose
  
  Re: Tablets/pads
  
  "How do you hold an iPad ? Put it on a flat surface ? Hold it up and get a tired arm ?"
  
  No, you upgrade your arm to a stronger model.
  
  Serious, I DO wonder the same at times. I've tried reading books on the iPad 2, and the new one weighs in about the same as the "Programming Perl" (Camel) book from O'Reilly does. Which I later bought as PDF to *avoid having to carry half a kilo brick around*.
  
  Confuses the hell out of me.
  
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Monday 19th March 2012 16:06 GMT Cliff

Hipster factor?

If it looks nearly the same, how are the hipsters going to show the surrounding world they spanked a few hundred quid on a nice screen? Isn't that the whole point of queueing for iStuff? To show it off like people care?

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Monday 19th March 2012 16:56 GMT Sklar

I've just popped in to say well done to the commentators who are having a well researched and reasoned debate without the usual crap I have to endure on most other tablet articles.

Carry on

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1. Monday 19th March 2012 17:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  It's OK
  
  Sklar's gone. You can get back to the pointless snarky pro- & anti-Apple sniping.
  
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Monday 19th March 2012 18:12 GMT TakeTheSkyRoad

Windows ?

"If you don’t already own an iPad or an Android tablet then the new iPad could be the one that finally breaks down your resistance. It certainly blows away the Android competition and should ensure that the iPad continues to dominate the tablet category – especially with the iPad 2 still on sale at a reduced price."

I see what you're saying here but I'm not interested in either Apple or Android since neither do what I want. My requirement is a device which work work stuff fine (Citrix mainly) as well as web surfing, flash and games. I know that there is a Citrix app now and flash has been added but windows wins because citrix and flash "just work" plus on the gaming front there is far more choice (proper games, not angry birds).

My tablet purchase was the Acer w500 running windows 7 Home Prem.

The citrix "just works", any web stuff "just works" over multiple browsers and gaming it runs retro games fine (Fallout 1/2) plus some modern stuff at a scrape on lowest settings (Civ 5).

Down sides are the windows 7 doesn't work very well with a touch screen interface but I hit what I want with my finger most of the time and for serious stuff a light weight bluetooth keyboard & mouse do the job fine :)

So ipad 3 ? Love the screen... looking forward to seeing it in other andoid/windows tablets though on windows I think I'd be powering up the mouse more often at that res ! Windows really wants more RAM than the w500 has though and the cpu chuggs sometimes.... fix those and I'd upgrade to another win7 tablet but still going to pass on apple/android

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Monday 19th March 2012 19:16 GMT werdsmith

Pointless

I have my ipad3, and the extra res on the display is useless. What exactly can I do with it?

I want a screen that doesn't grease up, and doesn't glare in the sunshine. Real USEFUL things.

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Monday 19th March 2012 20:04 GMT Jolyon Smith

Thanks for the screenshots...

.. from which I can see that the iPad has a display that's as good as the crystal clear, vibrant CinemaDisplay on my iMac.... unless I move the browser window to my 2nd monitor - a crappy, dull, washed out old AOC piece of turd. At which point I have to say the new iPad display sucks. ;)

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Monday 19th March 2012 21:39 GMT Chris 171

Ergonomics of Tab

They're neck and wrist killers when hand holding/laying flat, yet doesn't often get a mention..

I'd find mine pretty awkward if not for the small keyboard thankfully available with Swype too.

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Monday 19th March 2012 22:54 GMT P. Lee

re: Ergonomics of Tab

Agree with that! If you want to watch a film, get a laptop which can sit up on its own. It's only a couple of hundred dollars more for a Mac Air if you want tiny and light.

My wife and I have ditched the big TV and gone laptop-only. It actually works quite well. Tablets are for short-term couch-surfing only.

For me, a better display is nice, but not purchase-inducing or even platform-swaying. I would rather have had a gps on the wifi model or a better forward camera or just longer battery life. Video won't be any better and stills at that resolution will need to be stored locally, in order to be loaded with any speed.

Call me when you've got thunderbolt - that is a real upgrade. Even better, lightpeak with an IP stack included. Maybe a 1gig wired ethernet port. I want to use my own storage, not icloud and at these resolutions, wireless is a bit slow.

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Tuesday 20th March 2012 00:15 GMT dajames

Nice screen ...

I'm almost tempted to get a "New iPad" just for the screen ... but I don't really want a tablet - what I really want is that resolution in a laptop (though maybe a 14" version).

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Tuesday 20th March 2012 03:11 GMT b166er

Well it's another impressive number for the salesdroids to seduce you with.

Perhaps no Android tablets have such a high resolution display because it's really not that important?

There is nowhere left to go with innovation on tablets, so it's the same old nibbling away at your pocket with staged improvements and version iterations.

The next innovation needs to be folding/scrolling screens, which will be the culmination of years of handheld device ergonomics evolution and the fusion of phone, netbook and tablet.

In other words, something that will never happen :)

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Tuesday 20th March 2012 08:02 GMT Anonymous Coward

Surprised at how heavy the new iPad is actually, but it's still fine to hold when reading...and the screen is worth every penny.

Good riddance to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the shoddy app ecosystem on android.

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Tuesday 20th March 2012 10:13 GMT Anonymous Coward

first impressions

I just got it last weekend (the 4G version with 32GB).

It does get warm, still nice in the cold weather now but it will suck in summer

Kindle App is much easier to read even in the smallest font size. To the point that it replaces the classic Kindle when at home (Kindle is still unbeatable on the move).

I like that it's a bit thicker, I can hold it better

Can't see a difference when I have high definition pictures so far

Some applications (Mindjet Mindmap) that are drawing on pixel level can be zoomed in more

Skype's animations are a tad slower

The Register's banner in Safari looks pixellated now

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Friday 23rd March 2012 12:53 GMT Anonymous Coward

ESPN Screenshot - Bad Taste

The ESPN screenshot used is at exactly the moment in the match where one of the players is having a near fatal heart attack, with his boss looking on. Can it not be changed for something in better taste?

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Monday 26th March 2012 11:01 GMT NHS IT guy

Ergonomics

I've had no problems whatsoever with the ergonomics of my iPad 2.

For general use I have it portrait with the bottom edge resting on my lap, a hand either side.

For watching movies the 'smart cover' can be turned into a toberlone shape and it stands the iPad upright in landscape orientation. Great for on trains, or for watching a TV show in the bath.

In bed (checking facebook, twitter etc) I tend to use it landscape, leaning against my raised knees.

Find it so much more versatile and comfortable than a laptop. The 'smart cover' was a great investment, as it allows you to stand/lean/hang the iPad in many many ways.

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