While Wednesday’s announcement of the new iPad wasn’t anything revolutionary, it still showed Apple isn’t slowing down following the death of co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs.
The new iPad — that’s the name — features minor upgrades to its predecessor, much like the iPhone 4S did to the iPhone 4.
The biggest upgrade is the screen. Just like the iPhone 4 and 4S, the new iPad has a “Retina display” screen, with 3.1 million pixels and four times higher resolution than the iPad 2.
It also includes a quad-core A5X processor, which allows for more detailed graphics in games and smoother transitions in apps, a 5-megapixel camera and 4G LTE (as opposed to 3G for the iPad 2) support for super fast downloads and quick Web browsing.
Minor upgrades, yes. But that won’t stop people from buying iPads and sending Apple’s stock prices sky-high.
As was the case for the iPhone 4S
announcement, some will undoubtably be disappointed Apple hasn’t redefined the market for tablets. But let’s be realistic — that can’t happen every year. Every iteration of i-devices doesn’t need to change the way we think about gadgets.
In addition to hardware upgrades, Apple announced the iOS 5.1 software update, which brings Japanese language support for Siri and minor tweaks and bug fixes.
Apple’s photo browser and editor iPhoto was announced for the iPad, and it takes advantage of the iPad’s features. The software gets a major redesign from its Mac counterpart, adding multi-touch editing for white balance, exposure, saturation and more. There’s also support for geotagging, notes and captions.
An interesting omission was Siri — the personal assistant found on the iPhone 4S. Instead, the new iPad got “voice dictation,” which wasn’t explained much during the conference.
Redefining gadgets every year has never been Apple’s style. Look at its line of Mac computers: Apple created a new market for ultra-thin laptops in 2008 with the release of the MacBook Air, a completely new take on laptops. But the years since then have seen mostly minor spec upgrades to the entire Mac lineup.
The iPhone was announced in 2007. Other than the addition of 3G, there weren’t any major upgrades in the years after that, and no one seemed to mind.
I didn’t hear anything about revolutions until the iPhone 4 was announced, with a complete redesign — new screen, new everything. People ate it up then and were let down when the iPhone 4S was announced.
What’s wrong with minor upgrades? With the new iPad, Apple managed to create a device faster and more gorgeous than the iPad 2. That’s something worth buying.
Consumers seem greedy when they expect a complete overhaul every year. These devices are meticulously designed to a near-perfect shape and size. It’s hard to imagine what an overhauled iPad would even look like.
Jobs was obsessed with perfection, and the iPad is a close-to-perfect device. His untimely death may have shaken those who knew him, but these press conferences shouldn’t be interpreted like Apple is scared of releasing something too extravagant.
What does Apple have to fear? The company’s stock sits around $530 a share, and it earned a $13.06 billion profit in the first fiscal quarter of 2012. The iPhone 4S sold 4 million units during its first weekend. The new iPad will fly off the shelves, just like the last two versions.
Fans have no reason to fear. Apple will still be announcing minor upgrades with sporadic redesigns five years from now. Nearly everything about the iPad works flawlessly — why would Apple need to change it?
Taylor Balkom is a 20-year-old mass
communication sophomore from Baton Rouge.
 
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Contact Taylor Balkom at [email protected]