Last Friday was a monumental day in my life. As an ardent anti-Apple advocate since my purchase of a second generation iPod touch way back in 2008, I have declared Apple products overpriced, showy, and too locked-down. I believed iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks were for the yuppies of the world, the hipsters, and those who just had to be seen as “cool.” But the new iPad 3 changed all of that for me.
For the first time I can remember, I truly feel Apple delivers a product vastly superior to anything its competitors can offer. Between the Retina display, supposedly long battery life, and gorgeous industrial design, I can’t resist. So I did it. I gave in. Are the Apple fanboys and fangirls happy? I went out to the Chicago Apple store on the Magnificent Mile at 5 AM Friday morning and plunked down $546.41 for a white 16 GB WiFi iPad. And I felt wonderful about it. Upon opening it, I immediately felt validated with my purchase and momentary lapse of sanity in purchasing an Apple product. When that 2048 x 1536 crystal clear Retina display powered on, I knew I was in love. The weightiness gives it a feeling of extreme quality, and iOS 5.1 zooms like a Japanese bullet train. The only downside I currently see is the lack of Retina-updated apps for the new iPad.
A full review will follow in which I really take the wunderkind tablet out to run it through its paces, but for now, I’m off on my honeymoon with my new best friend.
Something else you might discover about the new retina display on the iPad is, Apple makes use of it when you run apps intended for the iPhone on it, zoomed to 2x size. On the older iPads, they’d look real blocky when you zoomed them to use the whole screen. Now they look good.