There are a few troubling technical
aspects of the new iPad that give me pause about the post-Jobs Apple.
I'll skip the obligatory praise of
the new iPad's Retina display. And for those readers who want to call me a
whiner, idiot, or Apple hater, go ahead, take your best shot.
On launch day, while I was pleased
to find that the new iPad was only slightly thicker than the iPad 2, this
raised the first red flag for me.
Dilution of Jobs Doctrine? The design decisions that led to a chunkier iPad are a
little worrisome and break -- in my opinion -- one of Steve Jobs' cardinal
rules: devices should get thinner and lighter, not bigger and heavier, as
another review pointed out. Stay on this current trajectory and iPads become
merely a better doorstop.
Chip slip As brilliant as Apple is, it's not primarily a chip
company. That means it can make mistakes with silicon design. Neither Texas
Instruments nor Intel is above reproach (and they've made their share of
mistakes), why not Apple? Case in point, the A5X. Respected chip review site
Anandtech found the chip lacking on some key performance metrics. And there are
plenty of other examples of reviews that found that the new iPad isn't faster
than the iPad 2 in many applications. Another red flag, in my opinion.
Battery Big battery. Too big? When the battery grows almost twofold
but doesn't offer better battery life, something is amiss. OK, so it's
necessary to drive the sophisticated display apparatus but, again, another red
flag.
I'll offer the disclaimer that the
display could turn out to be so dazzling -- as more applications tap in to all
of those pixels -- that the above bullet points are rendered immaterial. And,
of course, the A5X chip may become more of a factor in those cases, too.
I'll check back in a month or
two.
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