The new Apple iPad 3 ships to stores on march 16. From Infinite Loop: “Apple announced a new version of the iPad at an event today in San Francisco. The new hardware will have a retina display, a 5-megapixel rear camera, access to 4G LTE networks, and an A5 X chip with quad-core graphics. […] While the iPad’s new camera doesn’t match the iPhone 4S’ resolution, it will adopt some of the features of the phone’s camera, including backside illumination, an IR filter, and built-in stabilization. The camera will also be able to record 1080p video. The iPad isn’t getting Siri yet, unfortunately, though Apple has added a microphone key to the keyboard that allows users to dictate text to the tablet. Supported languages will include English (British, Australian, and American), French, German, and Japanese.”
Here’s an English translation from The Times: “It features a faster processor — an A5X quad-core chip — and a higher resolution screen — 2,048 by 1,536 pixels, more than 3.1 million pixels, or four times more than the current iPad. It will also operate on the fourth-generation cellphone network technology known as LTE. In the United States, the new iPad will work on AT&T’s and Verizon’s networks. The iPad will also allow users to dictate e-mails, though Apple did not introduce an iPad version of Siri, an iPhone virtual assistant feature that can schedule appoints and perform other tasks using natural-sounding commands.”
And: “[I]n a sign that Apple intends to more seriously protect its market share in the tablet market, the company said it would continue to sell its second generation iPad, dropping the price to $399 from $499. […] The new product, called simply the new iPad with no numbers or letters following the name, is an effort to keep growth chugging along in a two-year-old business that has turned into a major technology franchise for the company. Apple’s $9.15 billion in iPad sales over the holiday quarter were almost double the amount of revenue Microsoft brought in from its Windows software and not far from Google’s total revenue as a company during the same period. […] Apple sold 15.4 million iPads over the holiday quarter and has sold 55 million of the devices in total since they first went on sale in 2010.”
A more incisive sum-up from The Guardian: “Wednesday’s iPad 3 launch had a wider purpose than introducing an upgraded tablet. It was Apple’s most coherent effort yet to bind its family of screens closer together, in a way that prepares the ground for the world’s largest technology company to disrupt the world’s most important entertainment medium – broadcasting. […] Another binding technology we already know about is AirPlay, included in Apple’s latest operating systems. This streams images from a phone, PC or a tablet onto a TV set. The Apple devices are increasingly able to produce and share high definition content, the kind of material that looks good on the biggest screen in the living room. Apple TV is a rare misfire: it came to market in 2007 and has sold just over 4m units. Paltry compared with 55m iPads in two years. After its latest upgrade, Apple TV can now be seen as a sleeper device, a hint of its maker’s vision for the reinvention of broadcasting, and a test bed for bigger things to come.”
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