Official new iPad (3rd Generation) Announcement Thread (3 Viewers)

[Ronald Epstein]

Dave,

Congrats on your purchase. Welcome to the club.

When you get it set up, head on over to the APP STORE and get the Weather Channel app for iPad. It's free and really nice.

I am sure others can suggest some great apps as well.

 

[DaveF]

Thanks

It's registered, updated. Now to start getting apps setup from my collection

I've got a handful of iPad apps I downloaded a year ago I've been waiting to try

 

[JohnS]

I joined the club as well.
Bought an Ipad3.
Should be here in a few days.

 

[Sam Posten]

Compelling reasons for the iPad 4th generation coming in the same year as the 3rd:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/11/why-did-apple-release-the-ipad-4-so-soon-after-the-ipad-3/
Forseman's logic is giving me that little hint of self doubt regarding not upgrade from 3rd to 4th gen. I have gone on the assumption that I will upgrade every year as Gazelle has made that a no brainer for me. I had no intention of upgrading twice this year, and I even had my 3rd Gen personalized so I was expecting to pass it to a niece or nephew instead of Gazelling it. But now faced with an 18 month cycle instead of 12, does it make more sense to upgrade now? I could get rid of every 30 pin cable if I did that. =p

 

[Sam Posten]

Rumors heating up for next iPad. Again, rumors, but multiple 3rd party case vendors seem to be corroborating each other's designs showing a smaller bezel (which you know I am theoretically against!) and a thinner profile (which I am for. Biggest complaint on current iPad, besides the price is the weight). Case vendors have been the most reliable source of leaks in the past but as always take them with hyuuuuuuuge grains of salt.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/16/pics-show-off-ipad-5-case-with-ipad-mini-like-design

Could an iPad mini inspired full size iPad come with a lower price? That would certainly be welcome but also hard to imagine given Apple's steadfastness on maintaining profit percentages.

It's now April 16th and Apple hasn't announced a single update to any product since November 23rd 2012. The only thing they have done is minor software updates. Granted a LOT of products got refreshed in November but that is still a big gap, even for Apple.

The difference between 2013 and 2009-2012 is striking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Apple_Inc._products

Cue "Without Steve Apple is lost" gnashing of teeth!

 

[DaveF]

Tell you what, I love my iPad 3. No upgrade for at least a year. (i might get an AppleTV next.) but I'm curious what's next in the iPad line. I think a retune mini would be awesome, and would be a strong consideration for an upgrade in 2014.The one hardware design feature I don't like is the speaker. The rear facing, off-center, mono speaker is not great. I wonder how front facing stereo speakers fare (for movie watching orientation)

 

[Sam Posten]

Apple's been surprisingly consistent on the value of the speakers on all three products, iPhone, iPad and iPT: If you want GREAT stereo sound, wear a headset or output to TV. Very few "normal" people are going to be able to tell the difference between mono and stereo sound on these small devices.

I love my 3rd gen iPad too. Was not in any way tempted to jump on the minor 4th gen with Lightning connector. I want to think that the 5th gen is not going to have enough to make me change my trade up every major rev via Gazelle history tho. What can they add that I really need? They can make it smaller, longer lasting, more memory, faster cpu/gpu. Maybe those are enough, maybe not. Thinner bezel and lower price might actually deter me from upgrading.

It's a mature design at this point. What more do we want?

 

[DaveF]

I don't want great sound, I want decent that is easily heard by me and my wife without cupping my hand to make a crude megaphone. Hardware is mature. There's faster and NFC and more storage. But the real action will be iOS. We need inter-app sharing, better multi-tasking, improved cut/copy/paste, iCloud upgrades, and so on.

 

[Sam Posten]

Yup. And agreed. Louder speakers are 1000x more important than stereo ones.

 

[Greg Chenoweth]

I bought an iPad mini through AT&T so it has its own unique "phone number" because of the 4G service but Apple is only letting me use my iPhone number for Facetime and Messages. Isn't there any way to be able to keep it all separate so that I can use the iPad Mini number for Facetime and Messages and keep everything separate from my iPhone and my iMac? Just curious.

 

[Sam Posten]

Nope! Your only choice would be to have a separate account just for that.

 

[TonyD]

I don't want great sound, I want decent that is easily heard by me and my wife without cupping my hand to make a crude megaphone.

Same complaint I have with their ipad2.I either cup or stick a piece of paper under the speaker in the case to make it louder.

 

[Citizen87645]

There was a guy on Shark Tank who made an attachment that did the cupping for you. Don't remember the name of it, though I'm sure there are many variations available.

 

[DaveF]

Saw that ep. Almost bought it, but Amazon reviews were surprisingly poor.

 

[Sam Posten]

Ya canna break the laws of physics, Cap'n. The louder these small speakers play the more distorted they have to sound. There are tricks that can be done but they all have tradeoffs. Apple has made it clear that engaging in such trickery is not worth it to them for the current generations especially since they make decent headphones, others make excellent ones, and doofuses playing their tablets at ridiculous levels isn't good for anyone anyway =) I'm sure present company would never do that tho....

We're about a month away from WWDC and now a half year from the last iPad spec bump and due a full refresh sometime between June and November, maybe the speakers will be better maybe they won't but I'm not expecting huge differences.

 

[DaveF]

I want to visit the parallel universe, where iPads have speakers in the front face, to see if the aesthetics are so much worse that the improved sound is not worth it. After that, I'll hop over to the world where the Atari ST was a smashing success, and not the undeserved flop it was in our dreadful dimension