Just before break, Apple announced the “New iPad.” Instead of calling it the iPad 3, they referred to it as the “New iPad,” making it more similar to their iPod nomenclature. 

First off, hats off to Apple for porting their crazy awesome “Retina Display” as seen on the iPhone 4(S) to the New iPad. That’s actually an impressive technological feat that Derek and I both are in agreement of. My biggest problem with it is that they can’t just do something great and let it stand. They had to come up with a clever little marketing term. They’ve called the New iPad “resolutionary,” similar to how the iPad 2 was “magical.”

Don’t insult my intelligence. I’m buying a technological device, not a toy. It’s not a mythical machine created using unicorn dust or dragon’s breath. It’s made of aluminium, and underneath it’s packed with microchips and batteries. Apple has created a great device. Let’s respect it rather than subject it to marketing gimmicks.

The new iPad features a nice iSight camera. Five MP in fact, with 1080p video recording. Derek and I are in agreement here, that’s a pretty good camera, IF we were talking about a phone, but this is an iPad and that’s where I disagree. I dare you to come up with a situation when you’d pull out your iPad before you pull out your iPhone (which actually has a slightly better camera) to take a photo. On the iPad I feel like a better front facing camera would actually make more sense as the only valid reason to use a camera on an iPad would be for Facetime. My point here: I saw a picture on Imgur the other day that showed some guy holding up an iPad to take a picture at a concert. Please don’t be that guy.

Another issue or problem that the New iPad brings to the table is the lack of Siri. Where is she? One of the largest selling points for the iPhone 4S was the ability to befriend your know-it-all smartphone.

They included dictation for typing but didn’t include Siri. And this is where Derek and I disagree the most, as I think the iPad is ready for Siri now. You’d think that’d be as easy as adding the Siri code into the iPad, but maybe it’s more complicated than that. More likely, it’ll be the major selling point of next year’s iPad, and we’ll all rejoice that Tim Cook had the wisdom and foresight to bring Siri to the iPad.

The New iPad is the first Apple device to feature 4G LTE technology. First, a problem for our area, neither AT&T or Verizon have a 4G tower in Ames. And even if they did, they’d charge you ridiculous prices. AT&T is posting 3GB and 5GB plans for $30 and $50 a month respectively. There’s a 50mb plan for $15, but that is a joke of a plan in my opinion. Verizon has plans for 1GB, 2GB, and 5GB for $20, $30, and $50 respectively. AT&T’s 3GB package is a slightly better deal than Verizon’s, but either way you go, good luck with those overage fees.

Where was the “one more thing”? As typical with an Apple keynote, there’s usually a little something extra that they show us at the end. There wasn’t one at the iPad announcement; in fact, there hasn’t been one in awhile. Where are the new innovative or revolutionary devices they “think we’re going to love.” There’s several factors at work, but I think the biggest point here is the fact that Apple has such a “lead” on the rest of the manufacturers in terms of mind share and sales, they don’t even have to innovate anymore, rather incremental upgrades once a year to force obsolescence and maintain their relevancy.

Tim Cook recently told us that their pipeline is “full of stuff,” which could mean anything in terms of innovation or incremental speed bumps to their existing products. I hope for the former, and I’m sure Derek would agree, but I personally believe the latter will come to fruition. Only time will tell.