Reply With QuoteIf it does in fact have a higher resolution screen then I will put in my preorder as soon as they are up.
The screen might still be too small to comfortably view most PDF files with out scrolling but I am a sucker for more pixels.
If it does in fact have a higher resolution screen then I will put in my preorder as soon as they are up.
The screen might still be too small to comfortably view most PDF files with out scrolling but I am a sucker for more pixels.
The resolution is a certainty. LTE, though, I'm less sure about: public information about any LTE chipsets that Apple would use puts availability at mid-year, and the iPad is expected before then. So perhaps the best way to read this is that Qualcomm is ahead of schedule.
When does Qualcomm report earnings? If it's soon, that would be a good option call.
I will have a lot of work convincing my wife to let me get this or my company to foot the bill. Damned if I won't try!
Ideally they wouldn't make a wifi version at all and wouldn't charge a premium for the cellular modem either. It should be subsidized by carriers, since it will obviously be making them money.
But then the carriers would have to charge some kind of subscription cellular plan for tablets, and no one wants that.Originally Posted by stusser
How much of a resolution increase do you guys expect to see. Maybe +50% at most? I personally can't imagine wanting LTE over wifi even though I know it would be great for those who like to carry iPads around when traveling.
Last edited by Blips; 01-13-2012 at 10:02 PM.
Don't care about LTE but I'm pretty much ordering as soon as it's available. I put off buying the last two because I had other big purchases to make around the same time but now I'm ready to get in on that sweet iPad boardgaming action.
I quite literally just bought one a few days ago despite knowing that a new iPad was most likely on its way in March :(
Not a big deal - if I had been thinking however, I would have picked it up on boxing day instead.
LTE? Eh. I don't see how LTE AND Retina wouldn't instakill the battery but then again the insides of the iPad is like 98% battery. Won't be buying that model anyway. Selling my Touchpad and iPad soon.
Supposedly lower power LTE chipsets, coupled with a larger internal battery.
I don't see why. It's not like the modem costs very much. Also by eliminating half their models, apple would cut their costs as well.
I wasn't even aware there was a 3g option for the iPad 2 until I asked which model I wanted so I'm not sure it works - are consumers essentially require to sign on with a cell provider and pay a monthly fee for internet?
It's month to month. You can cancel and re-up any time.
Right. No contract. It's pretty awesome.
One of my pet peeves - why month to month and not day to day? It just seems like such a ripoff...especially when you have already paid what appears to be full price for the additional radio and antenna.
Ditto for wifi sharing on phones, minus the upcharge logic.
Epic 4g/Tapatalk
Are you suggesting they only make one version, which includes wifi and LTE, or only make one version, which only has LTE? I'm almost certain you mean the former, the latter sounds crazy to me.
But if you mean the former, then there's no way in hell carriers would subsidize without a contract on a device someone (and I'm guessing even the majority of owners) will never or rarely pay for LTE with.
It would be nice if the only model differentiation was storage, if all models had wifi and the LTE option. It'd be nicer for manufacturing and simpler for customers. But the only way I can see that happening is if Apple can still afford to do all that with a base model at $500 and no subsidy. I don't think we're going to see the low end price raise, and if the whole point is to streamline the lineup, I don't think we're likely to see them compromise elsewhere, like keeping the existing screen on the $500 model and going up to "retina" screens on more expensive versions.
Unrelated: I bet we see the iPad 2 stay in production at sub $500 prices, adopting the iPhone pricing model of keeping last year's hardware around as the "budget" offering.
While that would be quite cutthroat in terms of what it would do to their competitors, I'd still be surprised if they did that. Mainly because they aren't having a particularly hard time selling them starting at $500.
The former, obviously. And again, the cellular modem doesn't cost very much.
Okay. I can buy the possibility that LTE could be on all of the new models, it's just contingent on how cheap Apple can do it. I think keeping the low-end model at $500 and not making sacrifices elsewhere to splinter the product line are both higher priorities than getting LTE as a standard option. So I'm still not expecting it to be standard, but won't be totally shocked if it is. Carrier-subsidized iPads though, that would shock me.
My prediction:
iPad 2 8gb - $299
iPad 3 16gb - $399
iPad 3 32gb - $499
iPad 3 64gb - $599
+$100 for LTE for each iPad 3 model
That sounds about right to me (except they could be sticking with the $130 price difference for the WAN models). The iPad 2 will be needed to hold the line against the Kindle Fire (I'd like to see $249 via some sort of partnership, but that's probably crazy talk).
When I think about the hardware costs for a resolution-doubled model, though, yields on such large, dense displays could easily hold the starting price of the iPad 3 at $499. If they do a smaller screen size model, that's where the $399 starting price could come into place a bit more easily.
I wouldn't want to argue against this given the amount of rumors from everything from manufacturers to image resolutions in Apple's own Firmware but I still won't believe it till I see it.
2048x1536? That's impressive to me being a resolution buff and no small feat for Apple and it's suppliers. I haven't been so excited about a gadget in years.
Seems reasonable, except for an 8GB ipad2. Make that 16, which is the smallest size currently offered.
I don't think we'll see an iPad 3 for less than $500. That might just mean that we scratch the 16GB off your list and the low end now comes with 32GB because memory prices have dropped enough for that to work, or it might mean keep the same 16/32/64 storage configurations and add $100 to each of your prices, but with the (assumed) improvements in processor and display, I suspect they still can't comfortably price a new model below $500. It's not like direct competitors are pricing similar offerings cheaper, and if they do keep the iPad 2 around as the sub $500 model, there's even less pressure to position the iPad 3 any cheaper.
So I'm making the boring, conservative prediction: exactly the same price breakdown as it is now. iPad 3 in 16GB/32GB/64GB models for $499/$599/$699, with iPad 3 + LTE (or 4G, or whatever they call it) an extra $130 on each model.
And they'll keep around one version of the iPad 2; Wi-Fi only, 16GB, available for $399. No more 3G models on the iPad 2 because they don't want to have to keep making separate versions for separate carriers.
Last edited by Wholly Schmidt; 01-15-2012 at 11:22 AM.
They can't sell them fast enough as it is, so there's no reason to drop the price of the 16GB current generation. It'll be at least $500.
I basically agree with Menzo's list, just adding $100 to each level.
Okay, forgive me for turning this into general-purpose iPad 3 speculation, but my roommate and I just had this conversation: Will the iPad 3 have Siri?
Of course it will, it's certainly powerful enough (arguably the current model is) and Siri is the way forward for Apple. Expect it on future Apple TVs and eventually in Mac OS X, so of course it will be on iPads.
or
Of course it won't. Apple can't guarantee your iPad will have access to a data network and they don't want to damage the image of Siri as your magical assistant with the much more mundane technical reality of holding down the button and having Siri announce "I'm sorry, you need to be connected to a network to use me".
I lean toward the latter, but only a little. It seems like a pretty interesting question to me. And as a bonus for stusser, how about this "Wouldn't it be crazy..." scenario? What if, as stusser suggests, all iPad 3s have cellular networking (maybe they all have 3G at no extra cost but LTE now costs extra?), and all iPad 3s have an always on, free, data connection for Siri use only? Sorta like the early Kindles with free 3G. It means Apple's eating the cost of the cellular hardware as well as whatever they have to pay the carriers, so it seems unlikely, but I can almost believe it's no more unlikely than a compromised Siri.
And I guess the same conversation applies on some level to iPod Touches.
I expect it will have Siri, but it won't work without a data connection. They're not going to follow amazon with free 3G, because apple doesn't actually rely on sales from their app/media stores for revenue, they're a hardware company.
I'm not sure how you mean that in relation to what I just said. And in relation to what you just said, skip to my second to last paragraph, because the rest of this is me restating my assumptions about how Apple is positioning Siri.
We all understand what Siri technically is and basically how it works. It's using voice recognition to hear what you're saying, then it's using a pretty impressive interpreter that parses and figures out meaning and intent, and then a bunch of hooks into system functions and a (potentially) growing number of external services to act on your commands and provide answers for your questions. And we know that it's offloading a lot of that to servers, not just the obvious requests you make for information, but the interpretation and parsing is happening off in Cloudsville. It needs an internet connection.
So we all know what's going into Siri technically, but Apple doesn't sell tech specs or bullet points. This sounds corny, but Apple is selling you a solution, they're selling you this complete thing called Siri, personal assistant. It doesn't have caveats, it doesn't have requirements, it doesn't have prerequisites. That they even stuck with the name Siri is evidence of this. Apple brought Siri to your phone, Apple didn't bring text-to-speech to your phone. It's there, on your phone, always, with no configuration or demands on you.
I know, I know, it does have caveats. Servers can be overwhelmed, you could be in airplane mode, you could be driving down an interstate with no coverage, but these are acceptable tradeoffs. Apple will work to improve server problems, and there's nothing they can do if through action on your part or unfortunate geographical circumstances you remove your iPhone from the assumed operating environment of "has access to the internet". But that's a big difference from the iPads out there in the world. iPhones can be assumed to have access to the internet, iPads cannot.
Apple thinks Siri's going to be big, and they're not ready to reduce it to a bullet point on the iPad feature list:
So what I'm betting is that it's going to be "Now with Siri, the exact same Siri you know and love from your iPhone", not "Now with Siri*". It's all or nothing. It's not going to be a half-assed implementation, and by extension I don't think it's going to be a full-but-only-occasionally-available implementation. In a couple years, something like Siri might be a commoditized and fairly standard service that everyone offers and it's not going to be as big a deal. But right now, Siri is unique and magical and Apple's not going to compromise that.
I don't think Apple will put Siri on a device that it can't assume will have access to the internet, and as they're sold today, that means iPads. So I'm betting either no Siri on the iPad 3, or my pie-in-the-sky fantasy that Siri is included and has a behind-the-scenes data connection that Apple foots the bill for. It won't have anything to do with apps or media from the store, because nothing on your iPad will have access to that data other than what Siri needs to work. You won't get update notifications through Siri's data plan, you won't have access to the iTunes music or app stores. Nothing in the marketing will brag about this free data connection Siri's using for all the same reasons above: Siri isn't a cleverly implemented combination of technical features, it's just Siri.
Maybe that's way more speculation than this deserves at this point, and maybe there's some other completely different scenario I haven't come up with yet. I like thinking about it though.
I'm not talking about the cost of the modem, I'm talking about the cost of the bandwidth. There's no way the carriers want to add millions of 4G, large/hi res screen devices to their networks without making sure their costs are covered. That may mean sticking to the a la carte data plans 3G iPads currently have, but I bet not, or if so, at a higher price point.
Posting Permissions