Zit Seng's Superwall » Apple

From iPad to the New iPad

Zit Seng — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:00:28 +0000

The New iPad launched in Singapore on 16 March 2012. That’s a good six weeks ago, a little too late for me to write yet-another-review of the most exciting iPad yet. But there’s always an opportunity to share personal experiences, even though, then again, I’m sure there are many others like me who are jumping from the 1st generation iPad to the 3rd generation iPad.

So here I am, with the new 3rd generation iPad. Coming from the original iPad, the most significant change are physical in nature. It’s lighter and slimmer. The slimness, in my opinion, makes it slightly harder to hold than before.

The retina display is really nice too. I didn’t really think the original iPad’s display was bad, or that its resolution was lousy. But when you examine the new retina display up close, it’s really awesome.

Then, when you start using the new 3rd generation iPad, you find that it is so smooth, so sleek, so much more fun to use than the original iPad. That’s all thanks to the greatly improved CPU performance that already came with the 2nd generation iPad. I skipped the 2nd generation iPad, so I never really got to experience it very much, not counting fleeting moments when I borrowed someone else’s iPad to play around with.

You already knew all that. Or at least you should.

For me, the upgrade from 1st generation to 3rd generation is still mostly an evolutionary experience. It’s really nice. Very nice. But not earth-shatteringly-nice.

If you’re coming from the 2nd generation iPad, the 3rd generation isn’t really much of a big deal. Here’s why:

The CPU performance is the same. Sure, the 3rd generation’s GPU is much more powerful, but it’s needed to drive more pixels on the retina display, so the end experience remains the same.
Physical size and weight remains roughly the same.
The retina display is really nice, but it’s not like the increased resolution provides more functionality.
4G LTE speeds are irrelevant. Not just because it doesn’t work with the LTE frequency bands in Singapore, but also, seriously, just because it is LTE doesn’t mean you really get a better network experience than 3.5G can deliver. (I’m talking about bottlenecks in other parts of the network.)

So you see why the new iPad is nice, but not superbly great. If I had the 2nd generation iPad, I’d sit out the 3rd generation. The 2nd generation was a bigger jump, in my opinion, from the 1st generation, and I sat out the 2nd generation upgrade. The 3rd generation is a worthy upgrade if you’re coming from the 1st generation iPad.

As an Android user on a daily basis (my phone is an Android), I wished I could have Ice Cream Sandwich on that 3rd generation iPad hardware. Or, can some Android device manufacturer please, for goodness sake, learn to create great hardware like Apple does?

On another topic: What is it about the name for the “new” iPad?

It looks like Apple basically wants the iPad to be known as, well, the iPad. They don’t want version numbers in the name. Think about it. All other Apple products, apart from the iPhones, don’t have version numbers in their names. MacBooks, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, iMacs, Mac Minis, etc. The same applies even to their mobile products like the iPod Classic, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch.

I think they would have ran out of steam if they continued to play with version numbers. Everyone would expect a huge improvement in the iPad 3 over the iPad 2. If there isn’t, they would have to name it something like iPad 2S. Sort of like how there the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4S succeeded the iPhone 3G and iPhone 4 respectively. The tablet is just a tablet, each version is going to get a little better over the previous. It’s an iterative, evolutionary upgrade. People have come to expect too much from reading version numbers.

So next year, there won’t be a “Newer iPad”. It will be just another iPad.

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The New iPad 4G Will Not Work In Singapore

Zit Seng — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 01:53:59 +0000

What a bummer. The new 3rd generation iPad will work in Singapore, of course. You can turn it on, use it, connect to the 3G network. But one of the features touted in this new iPad is the 4G LTE capability, and unfortunately, the LTE frequency bands used by the new iPad are not supported in Singapore. So, there’ll be no 4G LTE connection in Singapore for this new iPad. It’s a little of a let down?

But, this might not be such a big issue. Who’s ready to jump unto LTE right now? You’ll have to pay more for an LTE subscription, and then still find that the real-world network speed you get over our telcos are still nowhere near what LTE is supposed to deliver. You might as well stick with 3.5G HSPA.

Oh, then don’t forget… you can’t actually get a 4G SIM card on its own. SingTel’s LTE subscription plans are with USB dongles. There is no SIM-only 4G plan. So, it’s still no-go even if you’re willing to pay for a 4G plan.

This mis-feature was overlooked by most people during the initial excitement over the new iPad’s announcement. But well, now everyone’s talking about it.

At launch, the new iPad’s LTE works with AT&T’s network. This is the same model that is being sold internationally. There is also an exclusive version of the new iPad designed for Verizon’s network.

Can we expect to see an internationalized version of the iPad with LTE that supports frequencies used in the rest of the world?

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Apple Red Friday Sale

Zit Seng — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 06:53:54 +0000

Apple yesterday launched its one-day Red Friday sale in Asian markets such as Singapore. It’s the Asian equivalent of the U.S. Black Friday sale. In the U.S., Black Friday marks the starts of the Christmas holiday shopping season. Red Friday sort of marks the season before the Lunar New Year. The shopping reasons here are different though. We don’t give or exchange gifts on Lunar New Year. The closest to giving that we do are “red packets”.

But it doesn’t matter. It’s just a reason to shop, and shoppers just love having sales and discounts. It’s not quite the right time to buy any Apple hardware, though, because we’re all expecting refreshes coming up not too far away. There’s the iPad 3 and the rumoured slimmer MacBook Pro (or some reorganization of the MacBook Air/Pro product lines). So, actually, Red Friday wasn’t all that exciting. There were good discounts, however, if you happened to be already needing to buy something right away. MacBook Airs, for example, were going for S$120 less.

Something did catch my attention though. The Parrot AR.Drone. It’s now back to the original S$449 price, but it was going for about S$368 (almost 20% discount).

What is the AR.Drone? It’s a remote-controlled quadricopter. Yeah, you’ve seen those toy RC helicopters, and those are plenty cheap. This Parrot AR.Drone is rather expensive eh?

Well, it’s quite a different toy. This is remote-controlled over Wifi from a free iPhone or Android application. The gadget has four propellers, hence being called a quadricopter. It has two video cameras, one forward facing and the other downward facing, and live video can be streamed to the iPhone or Android application. It also has a bunch of sensors to help it automatically stabilize itself, hover over a fixed position, automatically maintain vertical separation from ground obstacles, etc.

The drone runs Linux, and Parrot provides a SDK so that you can build interesting applications with the AR.Drone. I had this pet project idea before: Build a robot guard that can patrol an area while providing video surveillance. This AR.Drone can almost be that platform to build such a solution. The “problem” with the AR.Drone, however, is its battery life. The AR.Drone’s specifications list its flight time as about 15 minutes on a single charge, although some independent reviewers have reported longer times, albeit only slightly.

Now, if someone could build some sort of inductive charging circuitry to recharge the AR.Drone’s battery… that would be awesome.

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iPad on the Left, iPad on the Right

Zit Seng — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:59:03 +0000

I was at a meeting today. Person on my left had an iPad. Person on my right also had an iPad. I wasn’t actually looking out to count the number of iPads. But the numbers are swelling. Going out to lunch, I also see iPads around. Everywhere iPad. I think Singaporeans are really sold on to the iPad idea. Just like the iPhone. Apple is really super successful selling the brand here.

I can’t wait for an Android tablet, namely the Samsung one, to hit the market to see how well Android will fare.

We need some balance. The Samsung Galaxy Tab, the name of Samsung’s upcoming Android-based tablet, is set to hit the markets in the US in mid October (at least rumoured to be). It’s getting a bit too much to see iPads everywhere.

It’ll be fun to see if the Galaxy Tab’s 7″ screen or iPad’s 9.7″ screen will prove more usable. Small is more portable, but big is nicer to see. Tough choice for the hardware designers. 7″ and 9.7″ could be a world of difference, making or breaking the usability of the product.

The Galaxy Tab looks nice, almost as nice as the iPad, I must say, but not quite the same yet. Feature-wise, the Galaxy Tab is a winner (unless you count the smaller screen as a disadvantage). But you know how it often is… specifications sometimes looses out to design.

There’s also the issue of the app-experience on Android to consider. After all, the tablet isn’t going to be just a fashion statement… it is going to get used. So there needs to be sufficient quantity of useful, quality, apps.

I’m still a bit uncertain about the practicality of a tablet. Too small to do productive work (I think), but too big to be so portable to bring it with you always (unless you always carry a bag… and most men don’t do that). But I’m beginning to recognize it’s entertainment value while attending a boring slow meeting.

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iPhone 4 Recall ‘Inevitable’

Zit Seng — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:52:03 +0000

So say crisis communication experts, Professor Matthew Seeger and Chris Lehane, quoted by mainstream Consumer Reports. The widespread complaints about the iPhone 4 antenna problems were confirmed in a lab experiment by Consumer Report, leading to their recommendation against the iPhone 4.

The lab experiment, which involved connecting several iPhone 4 to simulated cell towers in a radio frequency isolation chamber, showed that signal levels fell as much as 20dB when the lower left corner of the phone was covered.

We’ve read and heard so many reports about various tests and experiments to “confirm” the antenna problem. But this is by far the most scientific test (at least it looks like) to date. Furthermore, for a mainstream media to boldly not recommend the iPhone 4, that’s something pretty startling. (I mean, after all, Consumer Report risks incurring the divine wrath of Apple Inc…)

Consumer Report found that taping the antenna gap in the lower left corner with “thick, non-conductive material” helped alleviate the problem. A duct tape would work, although it would certainly make the iPhone 4 pretty ugly. Or, you could put the phone in a protective casing, which Apple recommends. Or just hold the phone differently, as Steve Jobs recommends.

Practically every product that Apple has launched has faced some sort of “big problem” that fuels bigger problems like class action suits. This seems like one of the biggest challenge yet. It seems like a pretty fatal mistake if the signal problems are truly due to a design issue. I can’t wait to see how Apple responds to this, and of course, whether there would be an iPhone 4 recall.

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Apples and iPads

Zit Seng — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:43:11 +0000

I finally got to lay my hands on an Apple iPad. It looks nice, and it feels light. I couldn’t feel the bare metal though, because the owner refused to take off the protective cover. But I’m sure there would be no surprises, seeing how much the iPad has already been described in tremendous details all over the media. I still remain unmoved, however. What in the world would I use an iPad for? It’s not going to replace a MacBook Pro, and it’s not something compact enough to bring around outside of work when I don’t have a bag to stuff it in.

I did see how the iPad was very useful for farming though. Yes, those Farm Wars kind of farming. Farming on a phone is too difficult given how tiny the screen is. Farming on a notebook or desktop isn’t as fun because it is not touch-enabled.

I don’t suppose people buy iPad to do farming or farming-like applications. (Or perhaps they do?)

But regardless what I think, the iPads are selling very well. The iPhone 4 is doing even better. I’m afraid one day, “phone” == “iPhone”. It’s not a phone if it isn’t an iPhone. Then it gets very problematic, not least because Steve Jobs decides what a phone is and what a phone can do. Or not do. Like it won’t run flash. Like multitasking revolves around 7 crippled services.

I can’t help but think that the i-things are not actually keeping pace technologically.

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iPad Predates The iPhone

Zit Seng — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:26:58 +0000

It used to be our private joke about how, perhaps, the iPad predates the iPhone. They look similar, the iPad being an oversized version of the iPhone. In fact, they look even more similar if you compare with the rumoured next generation (4G) of the iPhone. It’s as if the original iPhone design was really that big (i.e. 9.56in x 7.47in), then someone higher up in Apple said: “Hey, how do you expect someone to use a phone so big…” And so, the original iPhone was shelved, and Apple engineers had to make a mini iPhone, eventually the first generation iPhone we know today.

Then, what do you know? It turns out to be true. The iPad project did predate the iPhone, according to Steve Jobs.

Our joke went on that, a few years later, the original super-clunky iPhone design was taken out of storage and revived. Minus the phone part. The camera too. The future iPad generations will probably put back the phone and camera.

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Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend

Zit Seng — Fri, 28 May 2010 07:58:02 +0000

Well, it turned out not. Rumours surfaced earlier this week about Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer speaking at Apple’s WWDC 2010 keynote. It turns out not. The enemy’s enemy denied. The rumour had earlier said that Microsoft’s CEO would have 7 minutes at the keynote to talk about a new version of Visual Studio 2010 producing iPad, iPhone and Mac apps.

Microsoft is risking becoming irrelevant. They aren’t the giant that they used to be anymore, and I wouldn’t have been surprised had Microsoft decided to pick sides. Already, Microsoft seems to be leaning toward Apple when they supported the latter’s anti-Flash campaign. Apple’s becoming the new Microsoft. Incidentally, Apple’s market capitalization passed Microsoft’s by US$2B for the first time earlier this week.

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Android World Domination

Zit Seng — Tue, 11 May 2010 05:04:10 +0000

I came across two interesting bits of news. First of which is about Android, possibly, having outsold the iPhone. This data, from NPD, may not be absolutely accurate and reflective of the real market, but it does suggest a trend of rapidly rising Android popularity. Until the end of 2009, I myself haven’t been particularly impressed with Android. There weren’t any killer hardware then, and the promise of an open Android platform was, in my opinion, not sufficiently open as I thought it should have been.

But 2010 started off with many good things going for Android, one of which is Google’s own branded phone, the Nexus One. I’m still not terribly pleased about the state of proprietary drivers and various other software packages, but I think there is a direction that phones are quick becoming like commodity PCs. This is, of course, the model that Google wants: the hardware doesn’t matter, you still get access to Google services.

The second news is a rumour about possibly free MobileMe service. This is likely the result of the growing competition between Apple and Google. I always thought MobileMe ought to have been free. Apple wants to sell hardware. Their services had always been the means to get people to buy their hardware. Why, then, charge for the services. I’m not sure if MobileMe is really that great, so even if it had been free, it may not be enough to win Mac/iPhone/iPad users over from Google services. But “free” will surely be a good start.

Now, the interesting question is, which platform will prevail in the next 5 years? I’m wondering if Android/Google will be the Microsoft of the mobile platform, and the iPhone OS will be something like what the Mac OS X is in the PC world right now?

Oh, and Microsoft is in danger of becoming irrelevant. The only thing “precious” about Microsoft right now is Office. There is no better Office. As much as pockets of users around the world want to commit to OpenOffice, I still think Microsoft Office is better. Maybe Microsoft would be forced to open-source Office and sell services around it.

I like the idea of web/online services. But I’m worried about the domination of Google. What would really be cool is, if we could configure another service provider and our Android device will work just as it had, without needing Google at all. We need to be able to replace Google, just like being able to configure a different IMAP server for email. So if Google turns evil, we could simply subscribe to a different service provider.

But of course, Google wants world domination. If they can squabble with another country government, and direct resources of the NSA… I’d wonder what they could do next.

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New MacBook Pro with 10 hours of Battery Life!

Zit Seng — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:57:19 +0000

10 hours of battery life is practically good for the entire work day! Apple has just announced updates to the entire family of MacBook Pro notebooks, and the latest 13″ models claim to run for 10 hours on battery. The next best thing is the price. At the Apple Singapore store, the price has dropped across the board, by between S$100 to S$500. We’re luckier than US customers, because in the US store, at least one model has become US$100 more expensive.

The Singapore prices haven’t been “right” for some time considering the SGD-USD exchange rates. It has gotten to a point that the Apple notebooks were commanding too high a premium compared with other PC notebooks. So it’s about time that they dropped the prices somewhat. I think S$1788 (was S$1988) for the entry level 13″ modem is a sweet deal, and S$1648 with education discount is really nice.

The catch, unfortunately, is that while all the 15″ and 17″ MacBook Pros now sport new Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, the 13″ models use the same Intel Core 2 Duo as before. The 13″ models do get a modest speed bump in the processor speed as well as new Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics.

Yet, despite no other obvious hardware changes that I can see, including no changes in physical size, the battery life has gone up from 7 hours to 10 hours. That’s like a 42% improvement. Surely the Nvidia GeForce 320M doesn’t make up the 42″ improvement. I wonder what battery changes they’ve done. Did the other components get smaller so Apple could now pack a bigger battery, or did they squeeze out more capacity in the battery space?

It’s a bit sad that the 13″ models don’t get new processors. New processors would be nice. But the price and 10 hours battery are simply amazing. You could last a work day without the power brick, without having to compromise with an underpowered ULV processor.

The now-not-so-new iPad is still the main feature on Apple’s website. It shows where the marketing priority is right now. I suppose as a new product type, the iPad deserves some extra attention.

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