Found an interesting article you want to share with iMore? Have a burning question about that feature you just can’t figure out? There is ALWAYS more happening just a click away in the forums. You can always head over and join in the conversation, search for answers, or lend your expertise to other members of our community. You check out some of the threads below:

• Favorite Retina-optimized game titles?
• [Question] Charging iPhone + Mophie Juice Pack Plus
• Favorite web browser?
• Traveling to Europe — Any Money-Saving Suggestions?
• What’s your Draw Something ID?
• 2012 iMore community Twitter user name exchange

If you’re not already a member of the iMore Forums, register now!

I have been impatiently waiting for my favorite iPad photography apps to update for the new iPad‘s Retina display, and a great one for creating collages finally has — PicFrame. PicFrame is universal for both iPhone and iPad and comes with 60 frames, or as Photographers call them, storyboards.

Of the many different apps that offer similar functionality, PicFrame has always been one of my favorites. It’s very easy to use and offers some of the best options for traditional looking collages. All of the frames are customizable and adjusting them is as simple as dragging the borders around the screen. You can also adjust the color of the frame with the color picker or choose one of the 36 patterns.

There are 60 different templates available and each one is available in 1:1, 3:2, 4:3, 2:3, and 3:4 ratios. These templates include anywhere from 1 to 6 photo frames. If you want to round the corners of your frames, PicFrame allows you adjust the style (or radius) with a simple slider. You can also swap the positions of two photos by dragging one photo on top of the photo you want it to switch places with.

One of the other great features of PicFrame is that you can double tap any of your photos to further edit each one individually. You can rotate and flip as well as add one of 17 filters. This allows you to get even more creative with your collages be giving different images a different look.

Once you’re done creating your storyboard, you can share it to Twitter, Facebook Flickr, Instagram, or Tumblr with a max resolution of 3264px on the longest side.

The Good

• 60 frames
• Each frame has 5 aspect ratios
• Ability to make rounded corners
• Can edit color of frame or choose a pattern
• Easy and quick to use

The Bad

• The only shape for the frames is rectangular
• There can sometimes be some lag when performing actions like rotation and swapping images

The Conclusion

With the new iPad and Photo Stream, I find myself using the iPad to edit and share photos taken with my iPhone quite often. Making collages with PicFrame is particularly nice, because, since each photo in the collage is so small, the iPad’s big screen makes is much more enjoyable.

PicFrame may not include a bunch of fancy features, but it does an excellent job at quickly and easily creating stunning collages of your photos that can be shared with family and friends.

If you’ve created any awesome collages, please share them with us in the iMore Photography forum!

$0.99 – Download Now

By now you’ve read our highly detailed iMore new iPad review, and the reality-checking Mobile Nations new iPad round-table, so there’s only one part of our trifecta left — your take. That’s right, the most important thing at the end of the day is what you, the iMore community thinks of the new iPad. How does Apple’s latest tablet meet your expectations and serve your needs. To find out and to give you your say, we ran several polls and you started several forum threads.

Here are the results to date.

Which iPad did you get?

Black easily remained the most popular color for the iMore community, accounting for almost two-thirds of all purchases. Surprisingly to us, the 64GB model was the most popular capacity, with almost two-fifth of all readers opting for the largest capacity available. (Makes you wonder if 128GB NAND Flash was cheap enough to include, how many of those Apple could sell?) Wi-Fi only models made up fully one half of reader purchases, with Verizon being the most popular LTE model, equalling the sales of all AT&T and Canadian LTE models combined. (Non-US AT&T/Canadian LTE iPad sales were roughly 20% of the total, and interestingly, non-US Verizon LTE sales were about 8%). iMore readers are predominantly US based, and initial Apple sales are usually predominantly US based, so we can’t read a lot into the international HSPA+ figures.

• Black: 63%

• White: 37%

• 16GB: 25%

• 32GB: 35%

• 64GB: 39%

• Wi-Fi: 50%

• Verizon LTE: 20%
• AT&T/Canadian LTE: 20%
• International HSPA+: 10%

What do you think of your new iPad?

No huge surprise here — for an Apple community site like iMore, a whopping 84% of readers said the new iPad was everything they expected it to be or more, with 28% putting it close to perfection. (New gadgets are like new love, after all.) Only a tiny percentage found it to be truly terrible (and while no doubt some of that is legitimate, it’s impossible to disqualify pranksters from the results).

• Almost perfect: 28%
• Better than expected: 22%
• Exactly as expected: 34%
• Worse than expected: 11%
• Terrible: 4%

One the iMore Forums, 96% of members reported being happy with their new iPad, compared to 3% who reported they were not.

Community reactions: Day one

Here’s a random sampling of what our forum members had to say on launch day, after getting their hands on the new iPad for the first time.

It’s noticeably heavier but not enough to actually bother me at all. The screen is the best on anything I’ve owned or tried in a store. The camera on the back is in another league when compared with my iPad 2. iPhoto is amazing on this thing! I wish I could give one to the world like the old Coke commercials! Using with my old Smart Cover right now. Waiting on a white ClamCase to be made so that I can leave my heavy MacBook Pro at home. I love it!

• robes1

Pretty much what I was expecting it to be. I still can’t believe how crazy this display is. I can’t look at my PlayBook’s screen the same anymore, my eyes have now been spoiled.

• Blackberry Guy from CB

going from iPad original to this – I’ll say wow on the display even though you’ve read this 10,000 times previously. But there is no explaining how awesome it is – just go look at it. Not unless you’re ready to buy one though Speed MUCH better over the OG iPad. I was getting frustrated with my original but this thing screams in comparison, no doubt. I could probably dump my MBA and live with this as my “portable computing device” now. Already have an Apple BT keyboard so good to go as far as I’m concerned. I went ahead and spent way too much – 64GB with ATT cellular modem and will be good to go. My OG was 32 GB but my iTunes library has expanded up to around 40 GB so that won’t work anymore. But cloud storage will cover any extra needs that I have probably. I was showing my wife (an engineer) tonight all the different cloud connections I run now – sugarsync, dropbox, iCloud. Her comment was “why don’t you just get a 16GB then as a thin mobile client”? Smart girl!

What else can I say? Every mobile computing task that I currently do can be handled by this now (amazingly). Wait for the new Ivy Bridge iMac to hit this summer and I will be a full fledged Apple Fanboi and have purged my house of winblowz. This pleases me to no end – I’ve seen Win 8 and it’s really not any better. Hell, even MS will tell you it’s Metro slapped on top of Win7.

• volsfan0911

I have the iPad 1. It is pretty much unusable. It is too slow I was got frustrated when using it. I would always revert using my iPhone 4 or my iPhone 4S. I never got the iPad 2 because I didn’t think that it was fast enough. Now that I have the new iPad, it is freaking amazing. There’s almost 0 lag and everything works much faster than the iPad 1. I am VERY happy.

I also finally caved and got a white one. I’ve always wanted a white iPhone or iPad and now I have one. It is DA BOMB!!!

• Joe McG

I am extremely happy with my new iPad so far. Glad I decided to get one.

• Irish Rose

Community reactions: One week later

And here’s a random sampling of what they had to say after having had a chance to use their new iPads for 7 days.

Feels warm during heavy use, but this my first iPad so I don’t know if this is to be expected. Should have gone with a 64 GB model, but will make do with my 32 GB. -Think the battery drains faster than I expected on an iOS device, but that may be due to I having the brightness set to max.

• ArcadeLion

Not getting the warm thing here. LTE is awesome. Now take iPad many places. battery life seems the same as 2. Even with LTE. Retina is amazing. Voice dictation is wonderfully too. Camera is very much improved. Can actually take a nice pic now.

• Garz

I have great vision, but I don’t, nor do any of my coworkers see a difference really. It may be because of the content we were watching…. the ‘Trailers’ application by Apple. My device gets a bit warm and the battery seems okay. Does seem to take longer to charge. With my iPad 2, I could turn off the device to charge and come back to 80% from being around 20%-30%. With the new iPad, it seems like it’ll go up to about 10% more than when I first turned it off. I may actually go down to the 16gb version. Not sure yet.

• Duvi

-The display is just off the charts amazing. So much better for all of the reading I do, both books and magazines. I don’t zoom nearly as much as I did with my 2. Glad I went from 32 to 64. Mags can take up lots of space and I like them all on my device. Speaking of mags, download speed much faster than with my 2. Battery does take longer to charge but I am finding battery life same as my 2. Using data in the same manner as I did with my 2 and not finding that LTE is blowing thru my plan. Gets a little warm but not a big deal

• lonbeehold

More on the new iPad

So that’s it, the end of your iPad triple-play. If the community report card wasn’t enough for you, jump in and leave us your take, or check out the following resources:

• The new iPad (2012) review
• The new iPad (2012) round-table
• The new iPad community forums

Image credit: iDoodle by Jason Harrison

Now that the new iPad is out the door, Foxconn has started hiring to build the next iPhone. According to fresh reports, Foxconn is short 20,000 pairs of hands to handle Apple’s production demands for the iPhone 5 (or whatever it’s going to be called). This year alone, Foxconn has held more than 20 job fairs in order to churn out the  supposed 57 million iPhone 5 units demanded by Apple.

We’ve heard lots of rumours about the iPhone 5, including that it will have LTE, keep the small-ish screen size, and have a new micro-dock connector, but everything is up for conjecture for now, including crazy pseudo-textured touchscreens. At the rate Apple’s going, it’s expected that the next iPhone will do well, but one can hope that the next generation will at least have a slightly different form factor; we’ve been looking at the same iPhone casing for nearly two years now, so at least a little bit of cosmetic changes are due, if only for variety, right?

As far as the Foxconn employment surge goes, word has it that those signing on will enjoy the recent pay increase. Though I doubt those long hours documented by Nightline are going to change, I don’t think the conditions for these new employees are going to be as bad as some people make them out to be.

Source: China News via 3G

Now that you’ve had some time to get used to your new iPad, how long is the battery life lasting you? Our review shows that we’ve got about 9 hours of usage on the LTE model, and that’s consistent with Apple’s listed lifespan, as well as the results found in AnandTech’s testing.  Still, we’ve heard a few scattered reports of dramatic drops in battery life in our forums, and thought we should hear from the rest of you to see what your experience has been like.

Of course, there are a few issues with the new iPad charging, namely that it takes 9 hours to fill up from scratch, but if you’ve still got some juice left when going to bed, charging overnight should do the trick. Keep in mind that you’ll charge a lot faster using the 10W charger that came with the new iPad rather than plugging it in to your computer. Using the new iPad while it’s charging isn’t going to speed things up, either.

So, show of hands – is anyone consistently killing their battery in a single day? How long have you been able to go with the new iPad without charging? Most importantly, are you satisfied with the battery life? Apple managed to do a great thing by doubling the pixel density and adding 4G LTE without changing the battery life from the iPad 2, but odds are you’ll be using the new iPad a little more than your old tablet.

The Verizon version of the new iPad can run 25.3 hours straight with the LTE personal hotspot feature enabled. according to recent testing. AnandTech put the Verizon model through its paces, and as you might expect, these results are with the blindingly sharp Retina display turned off, which would otherwise put a huge dent into the battery performance.

iMore has enjoyed similar results on our new iPad running on the Rogers network, and said in our complete iPad (2012) review:

Tethering using the built-in Personal Hotspot feature (not currently supported by AT&T) was fantastic. It rivaled a home or office Wi-Fi connection. While it functions the same as the iPhone Personal Hotspot, I'd much rather use up my iPad data and battery while tethering, and leave my iPhone charged for phone calls and messaging. Also, because the iPad has an LTE radio and a much bigger battery, you can tether faster than an iPhone and for longer than any other smartphone.

So not only can you go longer, your phone remains fully charged and fully functional when you’re done. This sets the new iPad up as an ideal mobile hotspot to handle your casual day-to-day computing, so long as you can resist playing around with it while on your Mac or Windows laptop.

Of course, the data cap issue still looms large, but if you have a monster grandfathered unlimited plan or your needs are modest, you may be able to get away with regularly using your new LTE iPad as a secondary internet connection.

If you’re happily tethering away on your LTE or HSPA+ iPad connection, jump into the forum and tell us how you’re experience has been.

Source: AnandTech

Draw Something has enjoyed a lot of buzz over the last couple of weeks, but what’s the big deal? It’s basically just a mobile version of Pictionary, after all.

Draw Something has been a whirlwind success over the last month, culminating in the purchase of its developer, OMGPOP, by Zynga earlier this week. Draw Something’s popularity is really pretty astonishing, considering how simple the game is. If you haven’t had a chance to try it out, here’s the premise: you draw something, and your friend tries to guess what it is.

Whoever is drawing gets to chose between easy, medium, and hard subjects. Once they’ve picked one, they get to drawing, using a set of different-sized pens and a small selection of colors. Once completed, you send off the image to your partner, and they get to watch your entire creative process – including the times you wipe the whole board and start again from scratch. They have a few different letters and tile slots to work with, which adds a Scrabble-esque word game element to it. Once the receiving end submits their answer, you can watch the result; much like how they got to see the replay of your shoddy drawing technique, you get to watch them struggle with their letter set and try to guess what it is you’re drawing. Both sides earn a corresponding number of coins to spend on unlockables, like new paint colours, or bombs which provide a new set of options to draw, or destroy some letter tiles to make your guessing process easier. Those coins can also be bought with real cash through in-app purchases.

Like a lot of the games I’ve been playing on the iPhone lately, I’ve found the display is too small for fine detail. It definitely made me wish I was playing with the Samsung Galaxy Note again, since that stylus and big screen sure would come in handy. Still, it’s funny seeing what kind of mangled, haphazard pieces of art you’re able to cook up, if only to watch your friends struggle with the piece of crap you’ve given them. (N.B. It is entirely likely that I am just a terrible finger-painter.) As it stands, the gameplay is generally good enough, though I’ve found some rounds have been hard to match up; either I don’t get the notification after a friend has done their drawing, or I do, but no button shows up to see what they’ve got. For the time being, I’m willing to chalk this up to OMGPOP’s servers buckling under the traffic, and with any luck, Zynga’s acquisition will bolster their back-end. Considering you’re watching a replay of the drawing process, I would like to get some bonus points for correct guesses early, which could be counterbalanced by penalties for wrong guesses.

There are a few features that would be nice to have, like an archive of your previous drawings – after all, you do end up spending a lot of time on some of these, so it’s a shame to have them swept under the carpet after your turn is over. Game Center support is an obvious addition they have yet to include, along with running multiple games concurrently with the same person, like you can in Hero Academy. Some kind of chat utility would be really great, that way one could properly express their confusion to their partner when confronted with a particularly bad piece of work. Right now all you can do is draw messages in the art area then clear the page. There’s a whole range of artistic tools that could be expanded, including different styles of brushes, and varying levels of opacity. The game uses Facebook Connect to create your account, but it seems like the real money maker will be when Draw Something becomes a proper web game on Facebook. As is, the interoperability with Android devices is great, and if they can keep that up for desktop, Draw Something could quickly gain widespread popularity among soccer moms who don’t know Facebook is for anything other than games.

At its core, I feel like Draw Something is ultimately a game where people laugh at one another for being unable to put together simple shapes or form words. While not everybody will enjoy in that level of schadenfreude, jerks like me revel in it. I worry a little bit that the fad will dry up though; you might remember when Facebook first introduced apps, one of the most popular ones was Graffiti, which let you create and share digital drawings with friends. That didn’t last too long, and I think even with a game spin to it, Draw Something may fizzle out too. With Zynga now behind Draw Something, I expect the updates to be coming fast and furious, but in the long run, buying out whichever game is momentarily more popular than whatever they’re creating doesn’t seem like a sustainable strategy. Between the free ad-supported version and the highly-affordable $1.99 version, plus unobtrusive prompts for microtransactions, the barrier for entry is low, and if you’ve got a bunch of friends already playing, then you’ve got some impetus to give Draw Something a try.

The Good

• Accessible gameplay
• Popularity means plentiful partners
• Entertaining replays

The Bad

• Potential for embarassingly bad art
• Limited variety of unlockables
• Those with bigger screens are at an advantage

Conclusion

It massive popularity will probably be the biggest reason to try it out, and even with minimal artistic skills, your travesties of finger-painting can still be pretty entertaining. Though the microtransaction options are limited, they’re unobtrusive, and with a free ad-supported version, there’s little reason not to play.

$1.99 – Download Draw Something

Are you playing Draw Something? Add you username to our forum thread to find other iMore members to play with!

Search giant Baidu owns roughly 87% of of the huge Chinese market, and according to rumors, Apple could be planning to add support for their service to a future version of iOS. Sina Tech is reporting that, according to their “knowledgable sources”, Baidu integration could come as early as next month. Tech in Asia translates and encapsulates:

Apparently, Baidu's cloud and mobile chief Li Mingyuan hinted at this during the launch of Baidu's cloud storage service last week, saying that the company already had a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Apple in China.

iOS currently has Google as the default search engine, with options to switch to Yahoo! and Bing in the Safari Settings. There’s been no official word from either Baidu or Apple on the matter, but OS X Mountain Lion contains expanded Chinese web services so iOS adding one more search engine, especially one as big as Baidu, in a market as important to Apple as China, doesn’t seem far-fetched.

Indeed, China currently tops the charts when it comes to iOS device activations, recently blowing past the US. Even though Apple still trails Samsung, Apple has increasingly stressed the growth of their retail presence and product adoption in China. Apple CEO Tim Cook has placed China ahead of Brazil and Russia on Apple’s priority list, saying demand in China has been staggering and off the charts. Apple has even reportedly been working to help better support gray-market iPhones on China’s largest carrier, China Mobile.

If accurate, it would also likely need to be part of an iOS 5.1.x or even iOS 5.2 update.

Whether or not this has anything to do with Apple’s increasingly tense relationship with Google is uncertain, but putting Baidu on iOS, even if Google retains default status, could further erode what percentage of the search space Google has managed to secure in China.

Source: Sina Tech via Tech in Asia, The Next Web

Apple is trying to take a little of the sting out of it’s proposal for a nano-SIM standard by offering the rest of the industry a royalty-free license for the technology. Apple was among the first to ditch the popular mini-SIM found in the iPhone 3GS for the much smaller micro-SIM found in the iPad and iPhone 4/iPhone 4S, but with component space increasingly at a premium, the nano-SIM aims to make the total package even smaller still by essentially removing everything but the chip. While carriers seem to be on board, Motorola, RIM, Nokia and other vendors have pushed back, partly because they didn’t want to be constrained by Apple’s inclusion of a SIM card tray in the standard offering.

Now FOSS Patents‘ Florian Mueller brings word on Apple’s latest attempts to win them over.

A perfectly reliable source that I can’t disclose has shown me a letter dated March 19, 2012 that a senior Apple lawyer sent to [the European Telecommunications Standards Institute]. The letter addresses the primary concern of critics of the proposal. The FT said that “the Apple-led proposal has caused some concern among its rivals that the US group might eventually own the patents”. But Apple’s letter has removed this roadblock, if it ever was any, through an unequivocal commitment to grant royalty-free licenses to any Apple patents essential to nano-SIM, provided that Apple’s proposal is adopted as a standard and that all other patent holders accept the same terms in accordance with the principle of reciprocity.

Mueller thinks that a) this shows how serious Apple is and how hard they’ll be pushing the nano-SIM standard, and b) it will make it harder for other vendors to push back, especially the soon-to-be-Google-owned Motorola due to Google’s vocal support for open standards.

iMore previously heard that Apple is also looking into reducing the size of the traditional 30-pin dock connector in iPhones, iPads, and iPods, to save on space inside. As power-hungry parts like Retina displays, LTE radios, and quad-core chipsets become more common, battery capacity needs to grow to support them, and every micro-militer that can be saved inside a device becomes incredibly important. This is especially true for Apple since they’ve shown no interest in simply making the iPhone larger the way other manufacturers have done with, for example, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus to the Nokia Lumia 900.

Carriers reportedly previously shot down an Apple initiative to completely replace the SIM card with a built-in, programmable alternative, since they didn’t want to be eliminated from the customer relationship. If all the players agree, this could be the next best alternative.

Source: FOSS Patents

The Billet Dock is a Kickstarter project that aims to make the ultimate iPad and iPhone dock. The billet dock can hold different generations of devices, no matter the difference in thickness, and can even hold them even if they’re in cases.

The Billet Dock utilizes a cam pad that spins giving a continuous range of support settings allowing the dock to suit different thickness cases and different model iPads. To switch from one to the other all that is involved is rotating the cam support, it takes just seconds to do while the friction level is controlled by internal springs stopping the pad from moving when you don’t want it to!

Machined from aerospace quality aluminum, the same way, they say, that Apple makes iPad and MacBook bodies, it will be offered in a wide range of colors and finishes to match whatever decor you might have or simply stand out and make just exactly the statement you wish to make. There’s even a Duplex Billet Dock model to hold an iPad and an iPhone at the the same time.

The Billet Case is being offered for funding by TrackMac Engineering, a race engineering company that wants an iPad and iPhone dock as good looking and great working as precision race car.

We have taken time away from our major projects to do something for our day to day lives using the same design philosophy and expertise that we put into all of our designs whether they are for the race track or your coffee table, we take pride in what we do and would not put our name on something that is not Applesque quality.

There are 13 days left to go on the Kickstarter project. TrackMac is going to keep testing and tweaking the Billet Dock to ensure it fits most major cases and the needs of their backers on Kickstarter. So if the Billet Case is something you want on your desk, make sure you head on over and choose a pledge level.

Source: Billet Case on Kickstarter

For today only the iMore iPhone case store has the Case-Mate Tank Case for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 on sale of only $33.95 — that’s 43% off! Go get them before they’re gone!

• Shop Case-Mate Tank Case for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 now!

It takes a beating. The Tank iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4 case brings an extreme approach to defending the device with a rugged case that completely protects the iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4 from screen to back.

Modeled after motorcycle helmet engineering, Tank is designed with a hard, impact resistant exterior and a shock absorbing interior. A shatter resistant, polycarbonate hard shell combines with the thick, silicone cushioned interior.

The retractable screen shields from impacts, cracking and condensation, fully protecting the iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4 screen. The Tank exterior is made of a premium, soft grip texture that slides easily in and out of your pockets. The Tank tests number one in impact resistance against the leading brand, and meets or exceeds US military standards.

 

It’s not thinner, it’s not lighter, it’s not perceptibly faster; indeed the new iPad sacrifices all of those things in the pursuit of one ferocious goal — to be better.

The new iPad is just that. Not iPad 3. Not iPad HD. Certainly not iPad 2S. It’s the 3rd generation tablet from Apple, released March 16, 2012, and the simplicity and focus of the name tells you almost everything you need to know about the product.

The iPad. Better than any iPad — any tablet — that’s come before. That’s not to say there aren’t compromises or criticisms, because there are plenty of both. But everything about the new iPad confirms once again how Apple envisions the future of personal computing, and how they’ll continuously, relentlessly drive themselves, the industry, and the world around them towards that future by sheer force of will, audacity of engineering, and discipline of design.

Whether that future, and this iPad, is for everyone remains the question. The greater your focus, the more you exclude from your field of vision. Did Apple manage to strike the right balance?

The new iPad

The good Eye popping Retina display and super fast LTE make words and pictures pixel perfect, and web pages and videos lightning fast.		The bad If you don’t care for Retina or LTE, it’s not a compelling upgrade over the iPad 2.
The conclusion Judged in a vacuum, the new iPad is incredible technology wrapped in gorgeous design at an unbeatable price. Taken in context, the new iPad will appeal most to "firsts". First time tablet buyers, first generation iPad owners looking to upgrade, and first adopters who simply want the future in their hands today. If any of those describe you, get the new iPad.

Previously on iMore

The new iPad builds on the foundation of what came before. For a full, more contextual view of the evolution of Apple’s tablet platform, see our previous reviews.

• iPad 2 (2011) review)
• iPad (2010) review

Technology

Design-wise, the new iPad is almost identical to the iPad 2, only very slightly thicker and heavier. 0.03 inches (0.6 mm) thicker, to be exact, and 0.11 pounds (51 g) heavier.

• Complete new iPad specs

That’s not a bad thing. The iPad 2 was the absolute best tablet of 2011. Wisely, instead of trying to re-invent the wheel or impose change simply for change’s sake, Apple chose to address those things about the iPad it wanted to make better.

A Retina display denser at its size than anything seen in a consumer product before. LTE radios that outperform many home internet connections. A camera with not only a proper lens but a good one. And an Apple A5X chipset to bring it all together and bind it.

Retina display

When the original iPad launched, I called it the iPhone gone IMAX and that’s exactly what it felt like. The iPhone’s then 480×320 screen just seemed small and cramped by comparison. Then Apple introduced the iPhone 4 and the 960×640 Retina display (technically HiDPI) and everything changed. Suddenly small was sharp and cramped was clear, and while the iPad and even the iPad 2 was still bigger, the display wasn’t better. It was quantity but not quality. Seeing and reading and watching on the iPhone 4 was harder but suddenly more relaxing and enjoyable.

Now the iPad has a Retina display as well, 2042×1536 at 264ppi, and once again it’s bigger and better. It’s sharp without being small, clear without being cramped.

Some people have used the metaphor of putting on glasses — of the Retina screen being so good it’s like they can focus for the first time. That’s not entirely it though. I have a feeling the Retina display goes deeper than that. It’s so good your brain is no longer distracted, no longer filling in details or ignoring jagged edges. You can just relax and enjoy, read and watch.

Apps have to take advantage of it, of course. Any graphics still rendered at the old 1024×768 size won’t look any sharper or clearer. They’ll make the new iPad look just like the old ones.

When you get a fully Retina experience, however, it’s transformative. Not as much as an old Standard Definition (SD) TV compared to a 1080p High Definition (HD) display, because for most people that involved the simultaneous jump from CRT tubes to LCD or Plasma flat panels. It’s more like going from standard 480p to high definition 1080p web video. Like going from pulp newsprint to glossy magazine print. Everything is smoother yet more textured, cleaner yet more detailed.

There’s going to come a point in the not-to-distant future when almost all displays are HiDPI, the way almost all TV shows are now available in HD and almost all magazines now use high quality printing. The new iPad simply marks the beginning.

Even iPhone-specific apps — which the iPad can run but Apple boxes or shows at 2x to shame developers into making proper, native iPad interfaces — now make use of Retina iPhone graphics when available. It’s still not great. It’s still double chunky. But it’s no longer fuzzy.

Since the new iPad’s Retina display is physically too dense to be shown off on anything other than a similarly HiDPI display, I put a macro lens on my iPhone 4S and took some close up photos to highlight just what that many pixels look like packed that closely together. Holding the new iPad at a distance, you don’t see the pixels at all, of course. You just see the content. And that’s precisely the point.

• Complete iPad Retina display tests and macro photos

LTE and HSPA+ radios

Apple has greatly increased the cellular data speed of the new iPad. 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) is available on AT&T and Verizon in the US, and Rogers, Telus, and Bell in Canada. It enjoys a theoretical maximum speed of 72Mbps. There’s no international LTE support for Australia, Asia, or Europe yet, perhaps due to the differences in LTE segments around the world. However, the new iPad also has dual HSPA+ for any GSM carrier that supports it (including AT&T in the US), which can reach a theoretical maximum of 42Mbps.

Theoretical means what you get in a lab when alone, sitting on top of the tower. In the real world we’re often lucky to see half the theoretical speeds, and often considerably less.

In my tests, I’ve gotten anywhere from 12Mbps to 58Mbps down, and 10Mbps to 15Mbps up. HSPA+ has been 2 to 3 times faster than the iPad 2′s HSPA 7.2 radio as well, at least on downloads. I’ve gotten between 10Mbps and 15Mbps down, though uploads have been disappointing, rarely if ever exceeding 1 Mbps.

Streaming 1080p video over LTE is fast and smooth, starting immediately and playing through without stuttering or buffering. On HSPA+, it took longer and typically had to stop to buffer mid-stream.

You can turn off LTE in Settings, and the handoff is extremely smooth and quick — the LTE indicator goes off and the 3G (or 4G on AT&T… sigh) comes on. Switching back from HSPA+ to LTE is problematic. You have to either wait a few minutes, stay in Airplane mode for a while, or power cycle the iPad to regain an LTE connection. This isn’t unique to the iPad, however, and something LTE Android users have been dealing with for over a year. Hopefully future chipsets will enable faster LTE re-engagement.

Tethering using the built-in Personal Hotspot feature (not currently supported by AT&T) was fantastic. It rivaled a home or office Wi-Fi connection. While it functions the same as the iPhone Personal Hotspot, I’d much rather use up my iPad data and battery while tethering, and leave my iPhone charged for phone calls and messaging. Also, because the iPad has an LTE radio and a much bigger battery, you can tether faster than an iPhone and for longer than any other smartphone.

In our tests, with the iPad tethered to Rogers LTE and the screen off, battery drained at roughly 4-5% an hour, significantly less the much smaller capacity iPhone 4S tethered on Rogers 4G, which was closer to 15%.

LTE and HSPA+ performance in general is entirely dependent on where you are and when, and how many people you’re sharing the cell tower and backhaul internet connection with, however, so results can and will vary considerably.

Also, faster and less frustrating internet connections mean faster and less noticeable data consumption. If movies keep timing out and apps seem like they take forever to download, you’re more likely to switch to Wi-Fi. Forgetting you’re on LTE or HSPA+ can lead you to reaching your data cap without realizing it. So plan your data and monitor your usage accordingly.

• Complete new iPad LTE and HSPA+ radio tests

Bluetooth 4.0

Apple previously added Bluetooth 4.0 to MacBooks and the iPhone 4S, and now it’s come to the iPad as well. It’s inclusion doesn’t mean much right now, since there are very few accessories that support it, but its potential is intriguing.

Bluetooth 4.0 includes “low power” and “smart ready” attributes that open the door for peripherals running on a simple coin-cell battery, like you might find in a watch. It can connect to smart accessories, including everything from a pressure sensitive stylus to a heart rate monitor, by providing a channel for all sorts of different data types. It also has better range.

We’ll have to wait for Bluetooth 4.0 accessories to start hitting the market in larger numbers, however, to see what real impact it makes.

5 megapixel, 1080p camera

Apple has been paying a lot of attention to cameras lately. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the difference between the abysmal iPad 2 rear camera and the new iSight-branded camera on the new iPad. This iSight camera boasts 5 megapixels, equivalent to the iPhone 4 camera, but with many of the iPhone 4S improvements, including a f/2.4 lens and 1080p video-recording capabilities.

In our photography editor, Leanna Lofte’s tests, the new optics on the iPad’s iSight camera picked up a lot more detail, and produced much better bokeh (out of focus area), with a shallower depth of field. Images had much more “pop” as well.

Video was likewise improved, with full 1080p support and built-in image stabilization. Again this is similar to, if not quite as good as the iPhone 4S camera.

While most people probably won’t use the iPad camera most of the time, if you’re using your iPad when something important happens — a child or loved one does something adorable, or you simply stumble across something you need to remember — you can now take a picture or shoot a video and get good results. It’s opportunistic, but since it could well be the “best camera” you have with you at a given moment, it’s important that it’s finally usable.

As to the front-facing FaceTime camera, it remains condemned to VGA resolution which now fails to take advantage of the high definition Retina display. Macs have begun shipping with FaceTime HD cameras. The new iPad should have as well.

• Complete new iPad camera tests

Apple A5X processor

The original iPad debuted Apple’s first-ever homespun Apple A4 system-on-a-chip (SoC). The iPad 2 followed up with the Apple A5, a dual-core, ARM Cortex A9. Instead of an Apple A6 chipset, however, the third generation iPad launched with a souped up version of the Apple A5 dubbed the Apple A5X. While still a dual-core CPU (Central Processing Unit), the Apple A5X has a quad-core GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), powered as usual by Imagination’s PowerVR technology, and a full 1GB of RAM.

In practice that may sound like it should lead to a faster new iPad. However, a lot of that power is directed into supporting the new Retina display. 4 times as many pixels means 4 times as many pixels to buffer and push around, after all. So, instead of being faster, it’s working harder to maintain the same speed.

That’s impressive, though it’s not as perceptibly impressive. Games will benefit from the quad-core GPU, and app and web page caching will benefit from the extra RAM. Overall, however, web pages render about as fast as they did on the iPad 2, apps launch about as fast as they did on the iPad 2, and overall the responsiveness is about as good as it was on the iPad 2. Everything is just much, much better looking.

No doubt matching the iPad 2′s performance while adding in the Retina display was a necessity for Apple. Selling a slower iPad would be much harder than selling a very slightly thicker, very slightly heavier new iPad. And matching the iPad 2′s performance while adding a Retina display is a remarkable achievement.

However, there are some people, like our own senior editor, Georgia, who would have preferred the same screen as the iPad 2 if it meant web pages and apps would load and perform 4 times faster. It’s similar to people who would rather watch fast loading, fast playing low-res video than wait for slower loading, often buffering HD video on the web.

Conversely, Designers, photographers, readers, videophiles, and many others are no doubt ecstatic over the better looking, same performance compromise.

• New iPad vs iPad 2: App launching and web rendering speed test

Some have also criticized the Apple A5X for making the new iPad warmer to the touch. In over a week of hard use, and many tests, I found that the new iPad does get warmer than previous generations. I noticed that mostly because previous generation iPads were always freakishly cold no matter how hard I pushed them. Even going all out, on LTE, playing hard core games, AirPlay mirroring them, and tethering, my iPad never got warmer than iPhones have always gotten when tethering, charging, or using GPS navigation. Nor did the new iPad get anywhere near as hot as MacBooks get playing Flash video.

• New iPad heat test (satire)

Battery

In the new iPad, Apple has included a much higher capacity, 42.5 watt-hour (11,666 mAh) lithium-polymer battery. It’s rated for the same 10-hours of Wi-Fi battery life as the iPad 2, and an impressive 9-hours of 4G LTE battery life. Since Wi-Fi battery life remains the same, and LTE battery life is 90% of Wi-Fi battery life, it stands to reason most of that extra capacity is going towards powering that big, bright Retina display.

Like with the Apple A5X processor and performance, there are some who might have preferred the old, standard density display with this new power capacity, and enjoyed the ability to go 17 hours on a single charge. But again, Apple was intent on pushing the state-of-the-art of digital display technology, and this was just one more area required to play a supporting role.

Charging the almost double-capacity battery of the new iPad also takes almost twice as long. Roughly 9 hours. That makes it more of a plan-ahead and leave-it-overnight activity than previous iPads.

Experience

The late Steve Jobs established the score card by which any new iPad must be judged. He did it in January of 2010 when he introduced the product category — it’s ability to outperform both a smartphone and a laptop in the key areas of browsing (web), email, photos, video, music, games (apps), and eBooks (reading).

Browsing (web)

Because it brings so many different elements together in such a dynamic way, the web more than anything else has the potential to exemplify just what an experiential difference the new iPad can make.

Browsing the web on an iPad has always been a fantastic experience, primarily due to multitouch. There an intimacy and tactility to swiping, pinching, and tapping your way through a website that keyboard, mouse, and more distant displays could never match. The new iPad makes all of that even better. Text automatically looks fantastic and if the site is using TypeKit or a similar font system, it can look positively illuminated.

If a website supports HiDPI images, the level of clarity and detail you can see, especially in photography, is unbelievable. If a website is serving 1080p content, video looks likewise spectacular.

Some of those “ifs” are fairly big, however. While you can take text almost for granted already, there’s no standard for implementing images or video yet. Designers are pretty much on their own when it comes to figuring out how to support Retina display and HiDPI screens on the web. Whether or not you can get HD video is also dependent on the content creation and delivery systems providing it. Low res images and video will still look like low res images and video on the new iPad, and painfully so.

The optional LTE and HSPA+ cellular data speeds also make a qualitative difference. Everything from pages to videos load fast, sometimes even faster than home internet connections. It means you use your data up faster as well, of course, but if you work or spend a lot of time away from Wi-Fi, and you need performance, it’s there for you.

Conversely, while the Apple A5X chipset performs better on SunSpider JavaScript tests, it’s not incredibly better. In general, web pages seem to render at about the same speed as they did on the iPad 2. Apple is using the more powerful processor to support the denser Retina display, not to significantly improve Safari performance.

Since Adobe has officially abandoned mobile Flash development, there’s no point even mentioning Flash on the iPad anymore. (You can still use workarounds if a site you need hasn’t made an app or updated for HTML5 yet.) There’s still no access to media or documents from Safari, however. So, for example, you still can’t upload a picture to Facebook or a video to YouTube unless you leave Safari and use the Facebook or YouTube app (or an app that supports their services).

Despite that, despite sites not getting rendered perceptibly faster, if you’re on LTE or HSPA+ the web loads much faster, and with the Retina display, it can look amazingly good.

With the new iPad, Apple absolutely has the best web browsing experience on the planet right now.

Email

The email reading experience benefits from the high quality Retina display text, and attachments download faster on LTE and HSPA+ than they do on older generation iPads. It’s an appreciable improvement, if not as spectacular as web browsing or some of the other categories.

For triaging email on the go, an iPhone or smartphone remains a more mobile solution. For pounding out large quantities of long messages, a laptop still wins out. For browsing and shooting off quick replies from the living room, coffee shop, or conference table, the iPad is still a great option, but not significantly better than it was before.

Photos

Photography looks spectacular on the new iPad. Not only does the pixel density of the Retina display make them look less like newspaper photos and more like high end magazine photos, but the colors are brighter and better than previous generation iPads as well. It’s still an In-plane Switching (IPS), Light-Emitting Diode (LED) backlit panel, it’s just a better panel. And the 5 megapixel camera means you can snap pictures if you ever need to and not be totally embarrassed by the results.

Apple also used the introduction of the new iPad to release iPhoto for iOS [$4.99 - Download now], and complete the mobile version of their iLife suite. iPhoto runs on both iPhone and iPad but the larger iPad screen feels much better suited to photo manipulation. The interface itself has been divisive, with as many photo- and design-concious users liking it as not. It’s definitely less elegant and discoverable than typical Apple apps, and it’s a very different take on image editing than Adobe’s recently released Photoshop Touch [$9.99 - Download link].

For professionals who want to carry portfolios around with them or touch-up images on the go and for first time users who simply want an easy way to fix up and share their family or vacation photos, the fantastic new Retina photo rendering and powerful new photo editing, combined with the existing screen size and portability of the iPad, make the already best in class experience even better.

• Complete iPhoto app review

Video

Both the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 could load 1080p video, but they couldn’t play it in its native resolution. (They were constrained to roughly 540p and 576p at 16:9 respectively). The new iPad can natively display 1080p content with room to spare (1150p at 16:9 to be precise). Analogies could be drawn to going from a 720p to 1080p television, but it’s not the same. You typically don’t sit with a TV in your lap, and from 10-feet away, most televisions aren’t really physically big enough to make the difference in resolution apparent.

With the new iPad is, the difference is readily apparent.

If you’e a videophile, looking at 1080p video on the new iPad is a revelation. It’s crystal clear and, like with photography, the picture is vivid and vibrant.

Thanks to LTE, you can watch it almost instantly, and without any annoying pauses to re-buffer. That lack of frustration, which would often cause people to abandon 3G and run back to Wi-Fi, may lead you to watch so much video you blow through your data cap without even realizing it. (How incredible is it that that’s now a problem?)

On the content creation side, Apple has update iMovie [$4.99 - Download now] to coincide with the new iPad release. The update mainly added Retina display support and more consumer-friendly features like a movie trailer maker, but along with the recently released Avid Studio for iPad [$4.99 - Download now], it shows video editing is establishing itself strongly on the platform. Like with video viewing, the Retina display allows you to see much more detail when making edits, especially for HD movies, and LTE means the speed is there to post it to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and other popular sharing sites. It’s no replacement for a Mac running Final Cut Pro X or a Windows box running Adobe Premiere, but for some things it’s experientially better than a Mac running iMovie or a Windows box running low end editing software.

• Complete iMovie app review
• iMovie vs. Avid for iPad shootout

Music

Apple invented the iPod, developed iTunes, and drove the digital music revolution, but while they’ve spent a lot of time and effort improving the iPad’s display and camera, they haven’t done much to improve its audio capabilities… pretty much ever. In terms of 3.5mm stereo jack and mono speaker, the iPad has remained frozen in time since it’s introduction. While there were rumors the speaker might have at least gotten a volume boost this time around, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Arguably what the original iPad had was enough. Put a great pair of headphones on and you’re in for some amazing audio. For anyone who needs or simply wants to use the built-in speaker, however, no such luck. You’re left to crane your neck and cup your hand, or buy a 3rd party speaker like the excellent Jawbone JAMBOX [$179- Buy now].

BlackBerry has always had good speakers and while gimmicky, HTC has gone in with Beats by Dre for their audio. Hopefully Apple will give audio some of the same attention they’ve given optics in the near future.

• Complete iPad speaker volume test

Because of it’s size, the iPad is better for browsing and discovering new music, whether that be exploring your collection in the Music app or expanding it in the iTunes Store app. It’s also great for browsing podcast catchers like Instacast HD [$4.99 - Download now], or one of several streaming audio options like Slacker [Free - Download now] or Rdio [Free - Download now]. Because of it’s size, however, the iPad still isn’t as portable as an iPhone or iPod (or other smartphone or MP3 player). Sure album art looks great, but since music isn’t primarily a visual activity, portability trumps presentation. Even three generations in, the iPad isn’t as good as the smartphone for audio consumption.

Creation is another story. Apple’s already phenomenal GarageBand for iOS [$4.99 - Download now] was also updated for the new iPad and while the Retina graphics are nice, the new Jam mode is fantastic. It lets you collaborate wirelessly with a group of friends and really take your music to a new social level. With apps like the astonishing djay for iPad [$19.99 - Download now], mixing is as good as making, and the iPad easily trumps the cramped screen of the iPhone and gives consumer desktop music software a run for its money.

• Complete Garageband review

Games (apps)

Thanks to hardcore titles like Real Racing HD 2 [$6.99 - Download now], Infinity Blade II [$6.99 - Download now], and Modern Combat 3 [$6.99 - Download now], and casual titles like Angry Birds HD [$2.99 - Download now], Draw Something [$0.99 - Download now], and Cut the Rope [$1.99 - Download now], the iPad 2 was already a portable gaming powerhouse. While it couldn’t match dedicated gaming consoles for pure polygon count or precision of control (multitouch just isn’t a gamepad), it easily could in terms of sheer quantity, variety, and plain old fun. The new iPad improves on that in two obvious areas. The Retina display just looks fantastic, and games that take advantage of it now look better than 1080p. The quad-core graphics in the new Apple A5 chip also help push the polygon count and should lead to a generation of even better gaming. Angry Birds Space [$2.99 - Download now] is already out. Infinity Blade: Dungeons will be out soon-ish as well.

Smartphones remain more convenient when waiting in line or otherwise out and about, and PCs will always have keyboards and upgradable graphics cards for incredibly complex über-gaming. In between the two, the iPad is now better than ever for when you’re on the couch, watching something else on TV, or at a coffee shop or on a bus or train and just want to game. The bigger screen makes gameplay easier, and the longer battery life means not draining your phone or laptop. So while it might not be better, the new iPad is better than before.

• Games for the new iPad that will rock your thumbs… and retinas

When it comes to other apps, what Steve Jobs said during an Apple conference call remains true — the 9.7-inch screen allows for a different class of software, not just smartphone apps stretched out or PC apps crammed down. Apple wants high quality, highly optimized apps on the iPad, and by any measure they’ve achieved that goal. Their latest figures put iPad-specific apps in the App Store at over 170,000. (Total app count, almost all of which can run on the iPad in boxed or 2x mode, is over 550,000.)

Retina display and faster LTE and HSPA+ networking both work to improve that experience on the new iPad. It’s an iterative improvement to be sure, and for many apps it won’t make a difference. Arguably, Apple’s introducing of iOS 5 and iCloud — both available on previous generation iPad’s as well — are far more meaningful for the platform. In that regard, the new iPad hardware probably won’t lead to a new generation of better iPad apps, but the new iPad hardware will be able to exploit the new generation of iPad apps better than any that came before.

Like with the iLife apps listed above, Apple has already updated their iWork office apps to work with the new iPad: Pages for word-processing and layout [$9.99 - Download now], Numbers for spreadsheets [$9.99 - Download now], and Keynote for presentations [$9.99 - Download now].

• Complete Pages review
• Complete Numbers review
• Complete Keynote review

eBooks (reading)

Reading is what benefits the most from the Retina display. While 1080p video is nice and HiDPI photos look great, motion and contiguous regions of color are far more forgiving to low resolution than is plain, black and white text. That’s why seeing beautiful type and reading articles and books on the new iPad is such a huge improvement. I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating — it’s like going from old, smudgy newsprint to glorious, glossy magazine pages.

Apple updated iBooks [Free - Download now] immediately, and Amazon has updated Kindle for iPad [Free - Download now] as well. As usual, Kindle has the much bigger library, but iBooks looks much, much better. And it’s not just the text — pictures in everything from illustrated kids books to text books to full on comics books, if they’ve been updated for Retain, look absolutely sumptuous. The detail, the clarity, and the color are astounding.

RSS apps like The Early Edition 2 [$4.99 - Download now] read later apps like Instapaper [$4.99 - Download now] and social aggregation apps like Flipboard [Free - Download now] all look unbelievably good (at least the text does, most web sources aren’t yet serving Retina-ready images for them to make use of).

The only exception is, of course, most magazines. Not only haven’t they updated for Retina display, it’s going to be problematic for them to do so. Rather than actually make iPad apps or iPad content to begin with, they relied on a dodgy Adobe InDesign exporter to spit out large, graphic versions of every page of their magazine (even when those pages were primarily text). That not only made their downloads wastefully large, but it stuck them in low resolution. If they simply up the resolution of their InDesign exports for Retina display, their magazines will become prohibitively large.

Print magazines aren’t going to get more popular, and digital magazines aren’t going to get less popular. It’s well beyond embarrassing.

Magazines aside, the new iPad reclaims it’s position as the best way to read on an electronic device. It’s almost as sharp as an iPhone again (and far sharper than many other smartphones), and far more intimate than reading on a computer. I often find myself saving articles on my iPhone or MacBook to read on the iPad, even to read immediately and not later, because the experience is really that much better.

iOS 5.1

The first iPads shipped with iOS 3.2, which introduced the iPad-sized interface to iOS, and iPad 2 shipped with iOS 4.2 which re-unified the platform and brought features like multitasking to the iPad for the first time. The third-generation iPad shipped with iOS 5.1, which is nowhere near as ambitious as previous versions, but doesn’t really need to be. The iPad got iOS 5 day and date with the iPhone last October. It was a huge release that included Notification Center, iMessage, Twitter integration, Reminders, and perhaps most importantly of all — iCloud. So the interface has been introduced, the platform re-unified, the heavy updating is all done. (At least until iOS 6 ships presumably later this year.)

While the new iPad didn’t get Apple’s virtual personal assistant, Siri, it did get voice-to-text Dictation. Tap the microphone button on the keyboard, talk, let Apple’s servers do their work, and the words appear (almost all the time.)

That’s not just a convenience either, but it’s a big deal when it comes to accessibility, which is an area Apple continues to lead in and something that should become more important to everyone.

FaceTime wasn’t updated to allow for LTE or 3G video calling, or video conference, which would have been exceptional on the Retina display. Also, there are still no Clock, Weather, Stocks, or Voice Memo apps on the iPad.

There is a newly redesigned Camera app, and you can now delete photos from Photo Stream. There are some new water-themed wallpapers for the iPad, and the Music app gains the same podcast controls the iPhone and iPad app have had for years.

Although not iOS 5.1 specific, alongside the software release, Apple updated their servers to allow for 50MB over-the-air iTunes and App Store downloads, and the US received the ability to re-download previously purchased movies via Movies in the Cloud.

And… that’s about it.

• iOS 5.1 update walkthrough
• iOS 5 software walkthrough

Pricing and availability

The new iPad starts at the same $499 price point as the previous generation iPad 2, and the new 4G LTE model costs the same additional $130 as the previous generation 3G model. Storage capacities remain the same as well, as do black and white color options.

• 16GB: $499 / $629
• 32GB: $599 / $729
• 64GB: $699 / $829

The new iPad launched on March 16 in the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and 8 other regions, and on March 25 in Italy, Spain, Ireland, Mexico, and 21 other regions. More are expected to follow shortly.

Compatibility

The new iPad is fully compatible with almost all apps and games currently available in the App Store.

Accessory compatibility is tricker. Since the new iPad is slightly thicker and heavier, skin cases and other cases that were tightly moulded to the iPad 2 design probably won’t fit properly on the new iPad. Looser, pouch-style cases should be fine.

Screen protectors and Apple Smart Covers should also be compatible, but some early 2011 third-party magnetic covers may not work properly due to differences in polarity.

Cables, Bluetooth peripherals, and other accessories should work properly but double-check with the manufacturer or retailer if you have any questions or concerns.

Conclusion

The new iPad is something of a paradox. In many ways to many people it seems like a modest, iterative update to last year’s iPad 2. But that’s only because the iPad 2 was such an achievement. Go back in time just a few short years and the 2012 iPad would be science fiction. A display that dense, networking that fast? It would be Star Trek.

It’s fitting that such a futuristic product represents so well Apple’s vision for the future. A car, to use Steve Jobs’ metaphor, quickly slipping ahead of a pack of trucks. Automatic transmission that doesn’t allow as much control as the old manual clutch, but makes driving so much easier for so many more people. And now faster and better looking than ever. That’s a vision that began with the Apple II, continued with the Mac, and has now finally taken form with the iPad.

There are a lot of compromises in furtherance of that vision, but they’re the right ones and the right balance. There are no complex windowing or file systems to get lost in, just full screen apps and a single button that will always take you Home. There are keyboard and gesture shortcuts, and fast app switchers and notification pull downs for advanced users to enjoy, but they’re easily ignored by those for whom traditional computers have always been intimidating and off-putting.

For anyone who doesn’t want a computer but just wants their web sites and email, photos and videos and music, games and eBooks, the iPad becomes all those things, and now with more detail, splendor, and speed than ever before.

It’s not perfect. You can criticize missing features here and there, and the lack of control Apple allows power users who want to manage every aspect of their computing environment. But for power users tired of having to do that management, who want to stop working and just work, those criticisms are elegantly eclipsed.

Judged in a vacuum, the new iPad is incredible technology wrapped in gorgeous design at an unbeatable price. Taken in context, the new iPad will appeal most to "firsts". First time tablet buyers, first generation iPad owners looking to upgrade, and first adopters who simply want the future in their hands today. If any of those describe you, get the new iPad.

If you have an iPad 2, unless you specifically need a Retina display or LTE/HSPA+ connectivity, there’s no reason to upgrade. What you have is still outstanding. (Proven by Apple continuing to sell the 16GB version of the iPad 2 at a discounted $399 / $529 price point.)

If you don’t have the iPad 2, consider the new iPad. It’s simply the most accessible, most mainstream computing appliance in history made better than ever. If you want something smaller and cheaper, take a look at the BlackBerry PlayBook or Amazon Kindle Fire. If you want something more easily tweaked and with a more desktop-like feature set, look at an Android tablet like the Asus Transformer Prime or wait for Microsoft’s Windows 8 tablets to start rolling out later this year.

Then seriously consider the new iPad again before getting any of those. Go to an Apple Store or Apple reseller like Best Buy or Walmart and try it out, touch it, use it. Unless you specifically don’t like Apple or have a compelling use-case that an iPad simply can’t fill, the new iPad has the most apps, media content, and accessory support available.

It’s not thinner, it’s not lighter, it’s not perceptibly faster; indeed the new iPad sacrifices all of those things in the pursuit of one ferocious goal — to be better.

And it is.

• The new iPad (2012) Mobile Nations round-table
• 2012 iPad buyers guide
• 2012 iPad new users guide
• New iPad help and discussion forum