Apple's "The new iPad" announcement

Quick thoughts from today's rather disappointing "new iPad" announcement from Apple.

The Good:

• Retina display
• Quad-core CPU
• Better cameras
• 4G LTE
• Can be used as mobile hotspot

The Missing:

• Everything else....
• no iPad mini
• no HDMI out (or even Apple's not-close-to-a-standard "Thunderbolt" display-out)
• no SD card slot (or expandable storage of any kind)
• no 128 GB
• no price drop (yes, I know the iPad 2 is still available, and it is cheaper, but that's not the same thing)
• no Siri (voice dictation is not the same thing)
• no Flash (yeah, I know Adobe stopped development, I still think it's a bonehead move)

The Bad:

• Thicker
• Heavier
• idiotic short-term-thinking name....  "The New iPad" will not be "new" forever or even very long.  And what's next year's model going to be "The all-new New iPad"?  It's just stupid.

The "who cares":

• AppleTV
• iLife / iWork updates - FOR THE iPAD (while iLife and iWork for Macs are still stuck back in 2009).

The "dur":

• "We're just getting started" - duh, we already know 10.8 is coming, and I would hope Apple wouldn't let a calendar year go by without any updates to the iPhone / iPod / Mac line ups.

As usual, Apple makes an obvious evolutionary speed bump style upgrade sound like "we're changing everything again again" earth-shattering mega-upgrade.  It's not.  It's just a few of the obvious changes they should have made already.  Nothing at all noteworthy.

Personally, my suggestion to anyone even remotely considering getting an iPad.  Get an iPod Touch and a name-brand Android capacitive touch tablet.  You'll spend about the same amount of money, get 2 devices, and have more features on your tablet (like everything that's missing above).

I personally have an Acer Iconia A100 Android Tablet and an Apple iPod Touch 4 and I love them.  No contract, and still only cost me $450 to have both.  The extra $49 I spent on an OnLive video game controller for my Acer.  Much better deal in my opinion.  And (since they mentioned something about the iPad having a higher resolution than the 360 and the PS3) I can plug my Acer into my HDTV and play console game through OnLive with my controller.