Secret of iPad 2: It can't be too light or too thin

DAVID POGUE
International Herald Tribune
03-11-2011
Secret of iPad 2: It can't be too light or too thin
Byline: DAVID POGUE
Section: State Of The Art
Type: News

On paper, Apple didn't do much, making it thinner, lighter and twice as fast. But just that much improvement transforms the experience. And, at the same price as the old version, the device is a winner.

"An utter disappointment and abysmal failure" (Orange County Design Blog). "Consumers seem genuinely baffled by why they might need it" (Businessweek). "Nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks" (Bloomberg). "Insanely great it is not" (MarketWatch). "My god, am I underwhelmed" (Gizmodo).
Good heavens! What a critical drubbing! Whatever it is, it must be a real turkey. What could it be?

Only the fastest-selling gadget in the history of electronics: the Apple iPad.

All right, let's not pile onto the technology critics. The thing is, they were right, at least from a rational standpoint. The iPad was superfluous. It filled no obvious need. If you already had a touch-screen phone and a laptop, why on earth would you need an iPad? It did seem like just a big iPod Touch.

But as it has turned out, the iPad's appeal is more emotional than rational. Once you get it in your hands, you get caught up in the fascination of manipulating on-screen objects by touching them. Apple sold 15 million iPads in nine months after release of the device last April, created a mammoth new product category and started an industry of copycats. Apparently, it does not pay to bet against Steve Jobs's gut instinct.

On Friday the iPad 2 goes on sale in the United States, for the same price as the old one (from $500 for the Wi-Fi-only model with 16 gigabytes of storage, to $830 with 64 gigabytes and both Wi-Fi and cellular Internet connections). The iPad2 will be available March 25 in Australia, Japan and New Zealand, as well as in Europe.

And if you thought there was an intellectual-emotional disconnect before, wait till you see this thing.

On paper, Apple did not do much. It just made the iPad one-third thinner, 15 percent lighter and twice as fast. There are no new features except two cameras and a gyroscope. I mean, yawn, right?

And then you start playing with it.

My friends, I'm telling you: just that much improvement in thinness, weight and speed transforms the experience. We are not talking about a laptop or a TV, where you do not notice its thickness while in use. This is a tablet. You are almost always holding it. Thin and light are unbelievably important for comfort and the overall delight. So are rounded edges, which the first iPad did not have.

The iPad 2 is now 0.34 inches, or 8.64 millimeters, thick. Next to it, the brand-new Motorola Xoom -- the best Android competitor so far -- looks obese. Yet somehow, the new iPad still gets 10 hours of battery life on a charge.

Some of the iPad's new features play industry catch-up. There is a camera on the back (no flash) that can record high-definition video. If you have never used a tablet as a camera, you are in for a treat; the entire screen is your viewfinder. It is like using an 8- by-10 enlargement to compose the scene. Bafflingly, though, the stills are only 0.7 megapixels.

There is also a low-resolution front camera that is useful for video calls, like clear, sharp Wi-Fi calls to iPhone 4, Touch, iPad 2 and Mac owners using Apple's FaceTime software.

You can now connect the iPad to a high-definition television, thanks to a single HDMI adapter ($40) that carries both audio and high-definition video. What you see on the TV mirrors whatever is on the iPad, which makes it a great setup for teaching, slide shows, presentations, YouTube and movies. It works automatically and effortlessly.

The more expensive iPad 2 models can also go online using either AT&T's or Verizon's cellular networks in the United States, but figuring out the right pricing plan requires a graduate degree in forensic accounting.

On the bright side, both AT&T and Verizon let you sign up for cell service right from the iPad, only when you need it -- no two- year contract. You can turn service on only when you will be traveling, for example.

Now, about Apple's new iPad screen cover. Ordinarily, devoting time to a technology review of a screen cover would indicate that the columnist was a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. But Apple's new cover is a perfect symbol of its fondness for high-technology magic tricks.

You attach this single sheet by drawing it across the iPad's face as though you were making a bed. With a satisfying clicking sound, hidden magnets anchor the thing solidly.

"But Dad," my 6-year-old son pointed out, "you're supposed to keep magnets away from electronics!"

"I know," I replied sagely. "But this is Apple." And then I showed him how opening the cover turned the iPad on automatically and closing it again put the thing back to sleep.

This cover ($40 for polyurethane in five colors, or $70 for leather in five other colors) is not for protecting the screen, whose hardened glass does not need much help. It is for fashion, for cleaning (Apple says that the cover's microfibers mop away dust) and for propping up the iPad. Clever hinges in the cover's rigid panels prop up the iPad at two angles, so you can watch movies or freely use the on-screen keyboard with both hands.

There is a gyroscope in the iPad, too, just as in the iPhone 4. You notice it only when you play games that have been written to exploit it. For example, you can look behind you in the Nova 2 shoot- 'em-up environment by moving the iPad around you, or walk around the tower of wood blocks in Jenga.

Now, the coming months will bring a blizzard of tablets that are meant to compete with the iPad. And they will offer some juicy features that the iPad still lacks. On a tablet that runs on the Google Android operating system, you can speak to enter text into any box that accepts typing. You also get an outstanding turn-by- turn navigation app -- and GPS maps are a different experience on a 10-inch screen. It is like being guided to your destination by an Imax movie.

Furthermore, new Android tablets will be able to play Flash videos and animations on the Web, something that both Apple and Adobe, the maker of Flash, assure us will never come to the iPad (or iPhone). Flash on a tablet or phone can be balky and battery- hungry, but it is often better than nothing. Thousands of news and entertainment Web sites still rely on Flash, and the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch simply cannot display them.

But you know what? The iPad will still dominate the market, because it dominates in all the most important criteria: thinness, weight, integration, beauty and apps.

Oh, yes, the apps: there are 65,000 apps already available for the iPad, not including the 290,000 iPhone apps that run at lower resolution on the iPad's screen. By contrast, Google's programming kit for tablets just came out, so there are very few apps written for larger Android screens.

The kicker, though, may be the price. Apple is at the top of its game these days and at the top of the industry. The rap, of course, is that you often pay extra for Apple elegance.

The shocker here, though, is that the iPad 2 actually costs less than its comparably equipped Android rivals, like the Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. That twist must have something to do with Apple's huge buying clout -- when you order five million of some component at a time, you can usually persuade the vendor to cut you a deal.

But that price detail may turn a lot of heads. It means that for the first time, your heart can succumb to the iPad mystique without your having to ignore the practical input from your brain.

Copyright International Herald Tribune Mar 11, 2011