New ‘iPad’ hits stores today!

Apple releases, in recent years, tend to grab the attention of the tech world and get every one pretty excited. So unless you have lived under a rock you have most likely heard about today’s iPad launch.

Yep, at this very moment as you read this article, thousands of Apple enthusiasts across 10 different countries are eagerly standing in line waiting for the latest Apple sensation. Pre orders were so successful in fact, Apple were forced to push back the delivery date as they struggled with the high demand.

In the build up to this release date we have heard the names iPad 3 and iPad HD, however, it seems that Apple’s latest product will simply be called iPad. This shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise, although to some it has. The iPod has always been the iPod, the MacBook has always been the MacBook, and the iMac has always been the iMac. The products new name reflects the company’s simplistic philosophy.

The iPad features, a 5-mega-pixel camera with 1080p video recording, 1GB of ram and A5X CPU with quad-core graphics. Without doubt, the thing that seems to be getting every one exited is the new 3.1 million-pixel screen.

Apple has called this new screen the ‘retina’ screen. This is because there are so many pixels per inch that the human eye, at viewing distance, can’t pick them out individually.

When testing the iPad Walt Mossberg from allthingsd.com said “when I placed my iPad 2 next to the new model, with the same text on the screen. Letters and words that had seemed sharp on the older model five minutes earlier suddenly looked fuzzier”.

So what about Siri? After the excitement around the voice-activated personal assistant on the iPhone 4S, would it be correct to assume that the natural evolution of the iPad would include Siri? No, it wouldn’t. Siri doesn’t feature on the iPad, however, there is a dictation option when typing. It seems though that this voice-annotating device isn’t all that great.

Charles Arthur from The Guardian described it as the following, “Short sentences it’s good with – so “yeah that’s great I’ll see you later” came out perfectly three times in a row. But “I don’t think you’ve ever seen one of those ever before” came out as “I don’t did you see monomers and before”. Conclusion: don’t throw away the touch keypad. (Well, you can’t.)”.

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, Siri on the iPhone is great to use as a hands free device when, excuse the pun, your hands are tied. But the iPad is different, you are given a 9.7 inch screen for a reason, it is something to hold, touch and explore.

It has been said time and time again that the new iPad is more of an evolution than a revolution, which seems to be a fair assessment. It is important to remember though that this new instalment will help the iPad keep its place at the top of the tablet leader board. As mentioned before, Apple have a knack for getting people excited over a new launch and it seems they have done it again, for very good reasons.

Do you fancy popping down to your nearest Apple store and joining the crowds? We’re excited, but we think we might wait a few weeks!