Apple iPad (2012)

Hey. I'm Donald Bell for cnet.com. I'm here at Apple's iPad launch event for the new iPad. We're thinking this is gonna be called the iPad 3, iPad HD. It's just the new iPad. In fact, the iPad 2 is sticking around at a lower price point but if you want the new iPad, you're gonna be paying the same $499 base price for a 16 gigabyte model, up $100 for 32 and another $100 for a 64 gigabyte model. So those prices are the same. Also, the same pricing for the carrier enabled models. So for $130 extra, we can get a 4G enabled iPad with either AT&T or Verizon as your carrier. So the big deal here is the new screen. This is a screen that has 4 times the pixels as the last generation of the iPad or the original generation 2. So you're getting an amazing image quality on here, arguably better pixel density, picture quality than you'd be getting on a 1080p television in your home. If you've ever looked up close at the iPad and you'd seen what almost looks like a grid or a chain link fence of pixels, that is gone now. You're looking at this and it just looks like photo realistic. It looks like... the games, books, text looks a lot crisper and clearer, you're not getting that same kind of gritty image quality that you were getting on the iPad 2. So that was a prediction that came true. Another prediction that came true is a better camera quality. There's now a 5 megapixel camera on the back of this that's capable of 10 ADP video with built in image stabilization. You're getting the same VGA camera on the front for face time chat. So that hasn't changed. The actual position of the camera doesn't seem to have changed much at all either. That was the question that we were thinking about going into this, whether people would have to buy new cases. Doesn't seem like you will although it is slightly thicker. To a point, you really wouldn't notice it but if you're gonna break out the calipers and really measure it, you'd notice a slight... slightly thicker iPad. They've also introduces a few iLife apps including iPhoto. So now if you wanted to do your photo editing on the iPad, you can do that, which is a better proposition now that the camera on the back is actually capable of shooting some great pictures. So I'm Donald Bell for cnet.com and that was a first look at the new iPad.