iPad: Just when you think it couldn’t get any better...

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One of the perks of being a software company is gaining access to the latest and greatest technology. Much to my delight, I had the new third-generation iPad in my hands by 9:30am on Friday, March 16th (release day).

I know what you’re thinking, “Not another iPad review!”, but just bear with me here. Perhaps a fresh perspective could offer you some helpful insight to whether you absolutely have to have (or not) Apple’s latest product.

The new Retina Display is easily the most obvious and most valuable upgrade to the iPad. With a resolution of 2048x 1536, and 3.1 million pixels (four times the number on the iPad 2) it’s the least expensive Lasik eye surgery on the market. But really - in a side by side comparison with the iPad 2 the significant improvement in clarity will have you exclaiming “I can’t believe my eyes!” (quite literally). Yes the iPhone 4 has a Retina display, but the new iPad has a lot of pixels! In fact, the screen on the new iPad has one million times more pixels than your 1080 HDTV. This is all made possible by the new A5X processor. It achieves the highest resolution of any tablet on the market and it looks fantastic.The camera has also significantly improved on the new iPad. The front facing camera has not changed, but the rear facing camera has climbed from less than 1-megapixel on the iPad 2, to 5-megapixels on the new iPad. Not to mention the new device is capable of  1080p HD videos.

Second to the Retina display, the wireless speed and 4G compatibility of the new iPad is being very well received. It's noticeably faster than 3G...sometimes it's so fast I double-check to see if I'm on wifi.

Since the original release of the iPad in 2010, it's been the top selling tablet. There are more than 200,000 apps to choose from that were built specifically for the iPad so we'll wait and see how quickly they add support for the new Retina display.

Although the improvements on the new iPad are great, it definitely has several shortcomings. Siri absolutely has some critics, but at this point its lack of presence on the iPad was very surprising to me (considering it was released several months ago on the iPhone 4s). Yes it has Dictation but that's not Siri. Also, the increased thickness and weight of the new iPad is definitely noticeable if you owned the iPad 2. The size difference makes some of the form-fitting cases incompatible. In fact, I cracked my previous case trying to fit the new iPad. The iPad 2 display had a nice even color but the color saturation on the new iPad gives the screen a bit of a green tinge. Overall, the new model is a nice improvement, but if you haven't been a daily user of an iPad 2, you probably won't tell the difference.

Apple sold an astonishing 3 Million iPads in the first three days after release. That is more than triple the initial sales achieved by the iPad 1 and 2, and Apple has projected to sell 66 Million new iPads this year alone. Steve Jobs’ prediction of the post-PC era seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy as tablets replace PC’s for many uses.

If you're thinking of upgrading from a previous iPad, try the iPad 2 first and see if you notice the difference. Certainly there are tangible improvements, but cost-considered it may not be worth it. The top of the line model sells for over $800 but if you're on a budget, you can snag an iPad 2 from the Apple Store refurbished section for $349. And if you want a nice little tablet for Angry Birds, the Kindle Fire is a steal at $199 (and fits in your pocket!).

The bottom line for Subsplash: We are Apple fans. We are Google fans. And we are Microsoft fans. People love their tablets and we're excited to build apps on as many of them as possible.