For the discriminating consumer – the kind that doesn’t buy Apple products and then updates them on cue with each appearance of Steve Jobs – there is little difference between the iPad 1 and new-fangled iPad 2. The software, hardware and cosmetic changes don’t amount to a salable hill of beans. (Check out the “Key Links” at the end of this post.) Obviously the person wanting to jump into the Apple river for the first time will want to consider the iPad 2 for the faster 1Ghz dual core A5 processor processor and the thinner/lighter form factor, but with the iPad 3 promising to take the giant leap for technological mankind that the iPad 2 didn’t, the decision to buy or not buy the iPad 2 becomes more knottier. And as if that was not enough, the prices of the original iPad 1 have come down by about a $100, not to mention the used ones that are now selling on Craigslist for a song and a dance. (In the United States check the prices tumble from coast to coast here in New York and here in the San Francisco Bay Area.)
“For the iPad 2 don’t get your hopes up too high. That’s all I’m going to say. They’ve had a number of problems along the way, and the third-generation iPad is the one to make a song and a dance about.” (Mystery Apple Staffer – Cultofmac.com)
You Need This Advice – Dang It: And that includes all the nerdy tech writers writing under the influence of Apple’s dang voodoo. Never has the time to think clearly and be a smart customer been so pressing. Apple will press your buttons on cue because that is what they do. Springing into action everytime Steve Jobs beckons is neither healthy for the head nor the pocket book. The astute Apple customer is an inverterate leap-frogger – leaping one or two generations of the same product before purchasing or re-purchasing. The advent of the iPhone and the iPod touch was very instructive of what Apple does to early adopters and reflexive purchasers. Hint: the first version is always a crapshoot regardless of the novelty factor and first adopters always pay dearly for that novelty relative to the substance of second or third generation iterations.
The new flagship white iPad 2 debuts at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco co-starring Steve P. Jobs. Will the bling that resonates so much more with traditional Mac esthetics camouflage the fact that there is little new here? To the perceptive this will remain nothing but a blingy toy with everything but a powder puff mirror at the back. Road warriors need not apply; at least not right now (Photo: Apple Inc)
Advent of the iPad – (The power and the glory of “iTouch” writ large): The iPad 1, which conceptually pre-dated the iPhone, broke major ground in April of 2010 through a combination of technology and timing. The tech ecosystem was ready for this kind of product and Apple hit the bulls-eye with the original iPad by combining the magic of multi-touch with superior software/hardware and ….. drum-roll: ground-breaking battery life. Eight to ten hours of battery life was unheard of at the time. Combining this power with portability was the technological sound barrier computer makers had failed to break for eons. Nobody until Apple had had the smarts and wherewithal to break it with something as beguiling as the iPhone/iPod Touch writ large – the iPad 1.
So for this innovation Apple deserves all the accolades. However with the iPad 2, Apple’s marketing driven incrementalism began to show its glassy eye again.
From a smart consumer’s perspective, there is no reason why the iPad 2 should still have come with
- A crappy 2 mega pixel still image camera vs the 5 mega pixel for the iPhone 4,
- A paltry 64 gb of storage (This is dang ridiculous!)
- A paltry 256 mb or RAM (the same 256 mg of RAM that is choking the iPad 1 to death)
- Non-retina display
- Absence of a USB port
“The iPad is the breakthrough that will lead us to the cloud because of its shortcomings, specifically its lack of space for placing documents, music, photos, videos, books, etc.” (Ronen Mendezitsky, Weekly Poll)
That this 10 inch tablet should have the same memory as the eenie-weenie iPod touch boggles the mind kind of the same way it did the first time around with the advent of the Ipad 1. A paltry 64 gb for music, video, documents, photos and other things people may want to put on their iPad? If Apple is setting people up for its cloud and streaming services then they are potentially alienating a significant part of the market that doesn’t take kindly to being tethered around the Apple lamp post. All these slights and omissions represent negatives that the hitherto disorganized competition may exploit to their advantage.
Meanwhile Steve Jobs has just given some of us Luddites reasons to hold onto our Flintstone tablets, netbooks and laptops for another 12 months or so.
BNSG on the technological tip.
Key Links:
Five reasons not to buy an iPad (Will Grunwald, PC “World)
What Apple hopes you didn’t notice about the iPad 2 (Chris Taylor, Special to CNN)
iPad 2: And underwhelming top dog (Matt Hartley, Financial Post Tech Desk)
Analysts underwhelmed as Jobs unveils faster iPad (Roundup) (Andy Goldberg, M & C Tech News)
Apple iPad 2: What we wanted vs what we got (Stuff, Middle East)
Just how bad is the iPad 2 camera (Charlie Sorrel, Gadget Lab)
Five things the iPad didn’t get (Josh Lowensohn, CNET)
What you need to know about the iPad 2 (Computerworld)
Why the iPad 2 display didn’t get an upgrade (Peter Pachal, PC World)
iPad 3 is the one to make a song and dance about (Leander Kahney – cultofmac.com)
How to resist your iPad 2 craving (David Carnoy, CNET Reviews)
Filed under: Consumer Watch, Tech, Uncategorized, Apple, Apple cloud computing, Apple marketing, Apple's dang voodoo, Apple's dollar driven incrementalism, Craigslist, iPad 1, iPad 2, iPad 3, iTouch, Steve Jobs, streaming, used iPads
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