I picked up an iPad 2 over the holidays this past winter and I feel like it’s been one of the best tech purchases that I’ve made in a while. It’s not the gaming machine that I just picked up and it’s nothing I can do some killer video editing on, but for most things—including producing this post—it does just fine and with a minimal amount of effort, I can do things that I might have relied on a computer to do in the past.
So, unless the iPad 3/iPad HD is going to have some mythical quad-core processor along with the Retina-level quality display, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to find myself dumping my iPad 2 for the new model anytime soon. I haven’t used the model that I have to its full potential yet, and developers haven’t hit the limit of what the device can do either.
The main concern I have with using an Apple device from a previous generation is that developers seem to flock to the newest features that the new model has and they stop paying attention to what the old model had to offer. The Retina display upgrade with this model will accelerate the legacy status of the older models.
While this effect wasn’t as pronounced with the iPhone 4 transition due to Apple’s commitment to providing a low cost iPhone in the 3GS, many developers couldn’t develop apps for only the Retina display at first. Developers would eventually find the argument to make the iPhone 4 their primary target for app development as they could take advantage of an extreme improvement in graphics capability over the iPhone 3GS and prior models. This argument was also the basis for some graphical limitations between the iPad and iPad 2.
Similar reasoning and decisions will be made in the next quarter as far as future app development for the iPad ecosystem, but for today, it’s just time to sit back and enjoy the Apple show in San Francisco. 1 Oh, and there’s that television thing that might be happening today, as well.