Yesterday, Apple monopolized the tech news circuit (and, lets face it, much of the news as a whole) with their special event to announce the new iPad. Sure, they announced some other stuff, too: an updated Apple TV with 1080p support, purchased movies from iTunes now stored in iCloud and available for re-download, and updates to a number of iPhone and iPad apps (which I’m very excited about and will discuss in the second half of this article).
The iPad itself received the expected upgrade to a Retina display with a 2048 x 1536 resolution: four times the pixels of the previous iPad. Unfortunately, it will be at least a week before I can even glimpse the new screen, but considering how impressive the iPhone 4’s Retina display was, the iPad will likely deliver the same astounding contrast. I’m not going to waste your time telling you about all the details you can get everywhere else, but I will comment on the increase of the RAM to 1GB. The iPad should be quite a bit snappier than the previous model. I’m also looking forward to the quality of gameplay on the new device. Infinity Blade: Dungeons has me more excited than any iPad game has the right. I love Diablo and its clones, and Infinity Blade II is my favorite game on the iPhone. Period. I really can’t wait for this game.
So far, the most exciting aspect of the announcement has been iPhoto and GarageBand. I imagine that if I were able to afford an iPad, I would feel differently. But, being able to use iPhoto and the updated GarageBand now has been a lot of fun. GarageBand’s Smart Strings feature and Jam Sessions will make them a huge hit for my family and friends. I hope to get a few songs recorded and up on the blog to show just how cool and easy it can be.
iPhoto is the app I’ve spent the most time with so far. Last night, I took some time to apply a few edits to a photo of my wife from our honeymoon that I thought were pretty cool. You can see them here:
The original photo
The edited photo, with a handful of filters applied to the image
These features are a welcome addition to those that love to use their iPhone or iPad as a tool for photography, but the feature I expect to see used most is Photo Journals. Fans of MobileMe were quite frustrated when iCloud was announced and didn’t include support for the MobileMe Gallery. Tim Cook was coy when asked if any of the missing features would be coming to iCloud, and I feel like yesterday was one of those reasons. iPhoto Journals allow you to customize layout and size of the photos being displayed. For an example, check out my public journals here.
When all is said and done, I was happy with Apple’s announcement yesterday, and hope that $700 falls into my lap soon so that I can go pick up an iPad to fully explore its new features, as well.
