Apple has just opened up the iTunes store for South East Asia area (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam). Guess what songs I immediately got? Manic Monday and Friday I’m In Love for my iOS 6 alarms :P
Surface Surfaces
The table is now a tablet. Microsoft has announced it’s own branded tablet (ahead of the anticipated Google’s own branded tablet). And guess what? It looks like and iPad down to the screen cover. If it wasn’t for the Windows logo and the keyboard, I could swear it’s an iPad. And then the microsite looks so minimalist, so Apple-ish. Looks like Apple has another company to sue.
iOS 6 beta
So iOS 6 was announced at WWDC and I grabbed the beta soon as it became available. It generally looks just like iOS 5 in keeping with Apple’s incremental improvement approach. There were changes here and there but the biggest ones I noticed were:
- Maps – out goes Google and in comes TomTom, their new maps data provider. New features are turn-by-turn navigation and 3D view. Level of detail is less than Google Maps at this time though.
- Passbook – one place for all your electronic/digital passes, tickets, discount cards, coupons, etc.
- Siri – gets new functionality such as launching apps.
- Call Handling – Do not disturb mode (with exceptions to selected number or repeated calls, how cool is that?), send SMS to reject call (Nokias had this since like forever), callback reminder.
- Parental Control – better restrictions on apps and content, Guided Access mode (stay within one app). Just be sure your toddler doesn’t slam your iDevice on the floor in frustration.
- Privacy – better privacy control
- Mail – Mailbox management (VIP and flagging), add attachments from the new message screen, new pull down to refresh animation.
- Clock – Alarm sound can be a song. You can wake up to the sound of Manic Monday and Friday I’m In Love :P
- Safari – offline reading, syncing
- Share Button – graphical, colorful, and prettier. Way better than the previous text list.
- Built-In Apps – built-in apps such as iTunes and Music have sleeker, easier-to-use interfaces. Unfortunately, Find My Friends isn’t one of them. Not that anybody uses it.
- New Wallpapers – 3 new wallpapers including the official iOS 6 ripples background.
- Facebook Integration – Similar to the Twitter integration introduced in iOS 5. Couldn’t care less about this :P
Why The New iPad Matters
A lot of people were disappointed with the new iPad. And I can understand why. Personally, I wouldn’t get one because of how I use the iPad. Or rather how I don’t use the iPad, Jeanne uses it more. But I’m not disappointed. Not at all. In fact, I find Apple tablet strategy brilliant.
Most of the disappointment focuses on the new iPad being an Apple product (can’t say anything about that) or on the hardware specifications. What does the Retina display matter? But it does, as you will see later. Why only a quad-core GPU update? But really why go quad-core CPU when the main bottleneck is the graphics? And so it goes.
But Apple’s tablet strategy is not just about hardware, it is a synergy of both hardware, the new iPad, and software.
To full appreciate this, go back to earlier this year when Apple announced iBooks 2 for iPad. With it, the iPad became a serious and fully Apple-supported platform for educational use. Then on to the new iPad launch where the new iPad was, of course, the star of the show. It overshadowed the release of new versions of iWork, iPhoto, iMovie, and Garage Band. But all these recently launched applications are as important because with them the current iPad becomes more useful.
But running all these applications (except maybe Garage Band) on the new iPad, with its Retina display, will be awesome. Books, documents, photos, and movies look sharper and you get an improved perspective, literally. Probably even get a productivity boost. To some of us, these things matter.
Sure, Apple would love current iPad 2 users to upgrade. But current iPad 2 users are not their primary target. Immediately lowering the price of the current iPad 2 stimulated sales and mitigated the new product effect where customers delay purchases because of the announcement of a newer, better version. But it also made it harder to upgrade (i.e. the potential selling price of used iPads became lower and thus making the cost of upgrading higher).
Clearly, the new iPad is targeted more at those who haven’t bought iPads yet, those sitting on the fence just waiting for a little nudge, and those who have the original iPad. And because of the retained price points, instead of buying secondhand iPads they will buy the new iPad directly from Apple.
For Apple, the new iPad matters because it furthers their tablet strategy and puts momentum towards the continuity of iPad sales.
Resolutionary: The New iPad
After much speculation, Apple has announced the new iPad (yes, that’s how it’s called). Highlights are:
- Retina display – 2048×1536, double the previous iPad
- A5X quad core graphics processor
- 5-megapixel camera with f/2.4 aperture lens, AF, BSI sensor, IR filter
- 1080p video capture
- LTE – up to 73 Mbps, up to 42 Mbps with DC-HSDPA and up to 21.1 Mbps with HSPA+
No word on the RAM and processor speed but they’re likely bumped up in order to accommodate the graphics and business use positioning.