Review roundup: Apple's iPad 2 is best tablet yet, but cameras disappoint

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  • Reply 81 of 117
    akhomerunakhomerun Posts: 386member
    Lack of 4G is no big deal, no cell phone providers in the US offer 4G. Even the Wimax and LTE networks aren't offering full 4G speeds yet and won't for the next few years. (HSPA+ marketed as 4G is a joke and a shame)





    Bad cameras don't bother me either, especially since I'm still using a 1 megapixel camera on my phone.
  • Reply 82 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Andykemp View Post


    Poor Safari. Safari hacked in 10 seconds at annual PWN2OWN



    Keep in mind, it's not like it was actually HACKED in 10 seconds. The exploit probably took hours, days or weeks to find, then 10 seconds to execute. It's not like Joe Hacker can blindly break into Mac OS X in 10 seconds.



    The exploit has been pointed out, and will soon be patched. There will be others, but they will be patched-- and the game continues.



    IE8 and FireFox also went down, so it's not like Safari is a horrendously bad browser. It's actually pretty secure by comparison. I'm a former internet security guy, and I work with all major browsers on Windows/Mac/Unix daily. My browser of choice? Safari.



    These security contests concern me. It's great that these exploits are being pointed out so that they can be patched, but it's obvious that the hackers sat on the knowledge of these exploits until the contest instead of warning the software authors right away.



    AND, that article was written TWO YEARS ago!
  • Reply 83 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hamiltonrrwatch View Post


    It is if you have a mild form of Tunnel Vision



    At least for me, the iPhone 4's screen really makes a difference. So much so that I've convinced many of my contemporaries to switch their cell phones



    And you're right about the colors being "off" under fluorescent lighting. I wondered about that as we have switched everything in our home from incandescent and that explains the poorer quality of our indoor photographs.



    Generally, I'm amazed at the quality of my iPhone 4 pictures. With two kids I take a lot of pictures (10,000 a year!), and frankly I almost never use my DSLR or high-end HD camcorder anymore. There's something to be said about having a high-quality camera in your pocket all the time. Now if it only did 1080P so software image stabilization had more resolution to work with...



    My fluorescent pictures don't seem bad, but this has been a complaint of mine about cameras in general for years. Some cameras let you choose a lighting type (incandescent, fluorescent, daylight) and it really helps. This should be an option on the iPhone screen. Cameras could also take a guess at the lighting type -- we have facial recognition and even smile detection in some cameras now, being able to make a semi-intelligent guess at lighting type and adjusting the hue, saturation, white balance, etc. seems reasonable.
  • Reply 84 of 117
    Ok, no one needs to the camera on the back. You are not going to pull out your iPad to take a snapshot. Invest in a nice front camera so that it meets real Apple quality. This would be great for video conferencing. If you want to take pix, use your iphone or cell phone.
  • Reply 85 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ajmac25 View Post


    Ok, no one needs to the camera on the back. You are not going to pull out your iPad to take a snapshot. Invest in a nice front camera so that it meets real Apple quality. This would be great for video conferencing. If you want to take pix, use your iphone or cell phone.



    My guess is the Camera on the back will be used more often for people that use iMovie for the iPad.
  • Reply 86 of 117
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    the lack of Adobe Flash and 4G connectivity.



    Apple has never said they would support Flash so folks need to stop acting like they did.



    As for 4g, it isn't like the networks are fully in place, so why insist that Apple go though the cost and effort for something maybe 5% of users would have access to. Next year when the iPad 3 comes out there will be the networks and Aplles will likely include it
  • Reply 87 of 117
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cgc0202 View Post






    One-on-One



    Finally, if there is an Apple Store near you, I would advise strongly to enroll into the One-on-One tuturial that hey offer for $99 per year.



    Which has nada to do with the topic being discussed.



    Not to mention that your information is almost to the point of being flat out wrong. You might want to brush up on the correct details before you post about it again.
  • Reply 88 of 117
    cgc0202cgc0202 Posts: 624member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DJinTX View Post


    Maybe I missed something or misunderstood what you meant, but how did your friend have an iPhone 4 and not use the retina display on it?



    I am not sure if it is the correct term, but what I associate as retina display is the option to enlarge spefic portion of a line or a word (as opposed to global zoom of the page) akin to enlargement achieved with a glass lens.



    I heard about the feature, but I never used the feature myself, when I tried the iPhones whenever I go tot he Apple Store. I have never considered the screen size of iPhone to be convenient for reading the standard format of the New York Times, for example. The iPad on the other hand is ideal for newspaper reading.



    I opted not to buy the first generation (I never do) but now considering seriously whether to buy the iPad2. For now, most of the work I do involve accessing several external disk drives (with terabyte data) plus using applications that may not run well on the, some may not even work, using the iPad, even the iPad2. I will ask them when I get a chance to visit the store.





    She just uses the "default settings", she is in another state (I am now in Boston) so I have not seen here recently use her iPhones (she already had three upgrades) since my last visit.



    I usually request her to try something that I created, particularly because of her poor eyesight. I am interested to know, if the images I am creating with standard or slightly larger fonts included would be readable in the iPhone. Since the text are actually part of the image, they are proportinately resized. I am trying to find a compromise font size to include in the image that would be readable in both the iPad and the smalller IPhone (or iPad touch).



    CGC
  • Reply 89 of 117
    cgc0202cgc0202 Posts: 624member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post


    Which has nada to do with the topic being discussed.



    Not to mention that your information is almost to the point of being flat out wrong. You might want to brush up on the correct details before you post about it again.



    Are you suggesting that the One-to One support is not relevant to someone considering to buy the new iPad2???? That would be news to me because that is one of the topics covered. In fact, from my inquiry from the staff, almost anything could be covered, provided it is related to Apple.



    I was addressing a specific inquiry from a poster who is trying to decide whether to buy the iPad or not. If he is going to buy the new iPad2, it is worth it to buy the "One-to-One support service. Rather than rely on responses here, there might be things that could be learned much more from the Apple Store.



    And, for someone who may not have as much experience with new devices, if he is going to buy an iPad, or any key Apple product, directly from the store or Apple online, it is good to get the one-on-one, to learn more about the product (and for that matter anything about Apple products). Some were even gracious enough to answer stuff beyond the scope of Apple products, and that helped me a lot.



    As to the one-on-one, I just bought a computer late last year, including a One-on-one, and talked to the representatives at the local store. I would not mind being corrected, if the information I got is incorrect -- if you think I erred on the One-on-one features.



    I don't find anything I stated that contradicted the official Apple



    One-to-One



    If you know anything more recent, from your source, please do share and not simply imply incorrectness. And be more specific, not be simply smug about your knowledge of the service:
    • The price is no longer $99???

    • They do not offer it to buyers of iPad????

    • They do not offer "one-to-one" anymore????

    • They limit the number of sesssions????

    • They reverted back to all new buyers of Apple products beyond the Apple Store and online Apple Store???

    They do more small group sessions now, from what I read, as opposed to one-on-one, but from the local representatives themselves, they told me that they still do two-hour appointments, planned well ahead of the date.



    And, by the way, was this the first time that posters here have ever gone out of topic?



    CGC
  • Reply 90 of 117
    Still photo quality not high enough? I beg to differ, 'cause my D90, a D5000 or Leica M9 make great quality stills.



    FaceTime is a video conference tool, not a still camera. Even my iPhone 4 is not a still camera. ....Moronic reviewers should think before inserting foot.
  • Reply 91 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Logisticaldron View Post


    You won?t last long as a Troll Tech new hire unless you a little effort into your forum trolling. Why don?t you show us a screenshot of this spinning beach ball on iOS. Just one screen capture that you say exists.



    The fact is that Android needs a lot more RAM to do basic functions because it?s less optimized code.



    Hunk of plastic? Really? At least put a little effort into your trolling before you?re banned again.



    PS: Apple releases one model every year for their iDevices and that?s somehow to force you upgrade more frequently. So by your logic any vendor that updates ≥ one year is somehow some evil Lets see how tablets and phones, HTC, Moto, Asus, etc. put out in 2011 alone.



    What do you mean Banned again. I've never been banned. People get banned for taking the opposite position on things here? Everyone gets labeled a troll here that doesn't worship Apple I guess. If you you've never seen the spinning beachball just do a google search for it if you insist it doesn't exist. We always called it the spinning beach ball but you might call it a spinning wheel. Most versions of iOS have some kind of spinning circle that shows you the OS is taking time to do something. Here is a youtube video for you of an iPhone since you find it so hard to use Google. You must have not used Apple products very long if you don't know what the spinning beach ball is. Its a long time joke that most people know of.



    I guess Android does need more RAM since I can actually multi task on it. Thats just the phone. Their tablet market still needs work.



    And I stand my opinion that Apple releases small upgrades in an effort to have sells every year. If they upgraded the iPad 2 with components that would last you thru 2 years you wouldn't buy the newest one next year. I played the iPhone game for almost 4 years and bought 3 phones. No one forces you to buy or upgrade but the desire to have the more powerful device is the selling point. And of course Apples marketing has a lot to do with it. One of the more aggressive and misleading ones I've seen.



    I'm not here to just slobber all over Android products and bad mouth Apple. I've never been an overzealous fanboy on either front. But until you have some time to use both platforms then don't start throwing mud at people that have different opinions than you. I've owned everything from an Apple 2+ (oldschool), Macmini Snow Leopard Server to a custom built mulitboot machine running Windows, OSx (virtual box) and Linux distros. In other words I've touched on all areas and developed my likes and dislikes from experience. Not just from owning one brand of computer hardware because its cool. In all honesty a lot of Apple fans seem to own it just for that one reason. They don't use any hardware that is special. Its all just components like any other box built device. What they do have is some great designs on the way things look. Looks aren't everything.
  • Reply 92 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post


    Can you read? What does that have to do with iPad?



    The Safari which was hacked was not iOS Safari, but Safari running on a Macbook, and IE 8 and even Firefox was hacked in that hacking contest.



    Can you read? I was leaving an equally stupid comment to the person bringing up the Xoom, Honeycomb, and Moto. This article has nothing to do with that either. Get my drift now? People can leave stupid comments about other platforms. You included. I've seen some of your posts. But when you leave an equally stupid comment about something to do with Apple you are labeled a Troll or Fandroid. I'm a fan of technology and not really a rabid fan of any specific platform I have issues with Apple and it lack of upgrades from one device to the next. By the way that was the wrong article its from 2009 if you had been a little more observant. Just Google it.
  • Reply 93 of 117
    alfiejralfiejr Posts: 1,524member
    that all the iPad 2 reviews ignore the issue of consumer support/service is a perfect example of the stupid spec fixation of the blogsphere.



    Apple's global retail store network uniquely provides free* walk-in warranty/repair service and open-ended customer support for iPad owners and, of course, owners of any Apple product. no other company has anything like it at all (notwithstanding MS' few prototype copycat stores and Sony's showroom Style stores).



    is this a huge benefit for iPad owners? of course it is. lots of people need help sometimes. some people will need warranty service too.



    Where you gonna take your Xoom? your Galaxy? who you gonna talk to for help? the telco stores are useless. some dude in Pakistan?



    but the blogsphere techie reviewers all ignore this crucial service/support factor. they are geeks mostly and love DIY. and/or have plenty of geek pals who can figure it out for them.



    besides, it would force them to acknowledge Apple's clear superiority in this regard, and that is the last thing they want to do.



    *there is no free lunch of course. the actual costs of Apple's retail store network are part of the overhead included in the prices of all Apple products, including the iPad. you pay for it.
  • Reply 94 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nkhm View Post


    A maximum of 8 tracks and limited software instruments will not need a gig of ram. You obviously haven't understood that this a watered down version specifically for iPad, not the full RAM hungry version.



    This isn't the first run. There was nothing wrong with the first run.



    Just because some technology that people would like (camera, flash) etc is not included does not make for an error. Price point, battery life, performance and product sixe/weight are all factors. If iPad 1 had two cameras, you can bet that battery life would have been less, the unit heavier and thicker and the price point a hundred dollars or so more.



    Technology and new features are introduced by apple when it makes technical and commercial sense to do so.



    1 GB of RAM defeats the object of good, streamlined code for iOS. The device runs beautifully, is stable and is never slow in performance.



    I'm fully aware its a watered down version and 1GB of RAm isn't defeating any purpose. It doesn't have anything to do with streamlining coding. Where is the world did you hear that BS. I know for a fact the iPad and iPhones slow down at times. I've owned 3 iPhone incarnations and they all have moments of lag and slow operating. Every single computer and operating system I've had my hands on has had moments where they bog down. iOS and Apple OS are not different. If you say it is you are lying or delusional.



    I have to get back to work. I don't have time to explain everything I'm talking about to people that don't want to hear anything negative about their platform. Nothing is wrong with Apple. They do everything perfectly. Get real!
  • Reply 95 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ranger_one View Post


    Keep in mind, it's not like it was actually HACKED in 10 seconds. The exploit probably took hours, days or weeks to find, then 10 seconds to execute. It's not like Joe Hacker can blindly break into Mac OS X in 10 seconds.



    The exploit has been pointed out, and will soon be patched. There will be others, but they will be patched-- and the game continues.



    IE8 and FireFox also went down, so it's not like Safari is a horrendously bad browser. It's actually pretty secure by comparison. I'm a former internet security guy, and I work with all major browsers on Windows/Mac/Unix daily. My browser of choice? Safari.



    These security contests concern me. It's great that these exploits are being pointed out so that they can be patched, but it's obvious that the hackers sat on the knowledge of these exploits until the contest instead of warning the software authors right away.



    AND, that article was written TWO YEARS ago!



    My bad. For some reason I read a few articles and that was in the news feed. It was actually 5 seconds and yes they had months to find that zero day. I was a little disappointed that the Chrome hackers didn't even show up.



    On another note. I explained why I left this comment was only because some Appletard was throwing mud at some other platform. It had nothing to do with this article either. So It thought I would leave another useless comment completely off subject like him/her. I've said it before that I've had hands on with every major OS except for some flavors of Linux. Bought thousands upon thousands of dollars of gadgets and computers. I'm not rabid fanboy of any one platform. Its fanboys in general that ruffle my feathers. It just seems like some mental condition that needs psychiatric help.



    Take care!
  • Reply 96 of 117
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Andykemp View Post


    My bad. For some reason I read a few articles and that was in the news feed. It was actually 5 seconds and yes they had months to find that zero day. I was a little disappointed that the Chrome hackers didn't even show up.



    On another note. I explained why I left this comment was only because some Appletard was throwing mud at some other platform. It had nothing to do with this article either. So It thought I would leave another useless comment completely off subject like him/her. I've said it before that I've had hands on with every major OS except for some flavors of Linux. Bought thousands upon thousands of dollars of gadgets and computers. I'm not rabid fanboy of any one platform. Its fanboys in general that ruffle my feathers. It just seems like some mental condition that needs psychiatric help.



    Take care!



    Hmmm. Except you went out of your way to register to comment here, and so far you comments have been nothing but cranky little digs at your perceived failings of iOS and iOS devices.



    So if you want to talk about mental conditions, you might consider the need to cross the street to argue with someone you suspect of overstating the virtues of something they like.
  • Reply 97 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox View Post


    Hmmm. Except you went out of your way to register to comment here, and so far you comments have been nothing but cranky little digs at your perceived failings of iOS and iOS devices.



    So if you want to talk about mental conditions, you might consider the need to cross the street to argue with someone you suspect of overstating the virtues of something they like.



    A person can't seem to have a constructive conversation here. Its all little cranky digs at one thing or another. Usually Android, Microsoft and Linux. I'm a cross platform kind of guy and the digs at other platforms seem pointless. Why do the majority of Apple users act like such elitists of some platform that is leaps and bounds above all else? Its annoying as hell. I've never taken on that attitude because I owned a certain device.
  • Reply 98 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by d-range View Post


    The way iOS implements multitasking there are few reasons to have more than one full application resident in RAM at the same time, and it makes it completely and utterly useless to keep around background tasks in whole. Which is why multitasked applications in iOS register for background services and only keep those running, instead of keeping their whole UI and everything related to it in RAM. Also, the NAND memory in an iPad is many many more times faster than a PC hard drive, and has almost zero random access latency. Which makes paging to NAND fast enough to prefer it over keeping stuff in RAM as long as possible. Everything in iOS that deals with application and process management is built around this principle, where applications are either active, inactive in the background (RAM) or frozen to NAND by the OS, and every application is written in a way that going from background/RAM to frozen/NAND can happen automatically on request of the OS, so it can always free up all the RAM and make it available to the active application.



    Any comparison to desktop OS's is useless because they don't use a modal user interface where 1 application is always taking up the whole system, they don't have crazy fast NAND for swapping, and, in general, the applications running on them are often very wasteful with memory, simply because RAM is so abundant on PC's. Just to put things into perspective: an Xbox 360 or a PS3 also have only 512 MB RAM, but they still manage to pull out some pretty impressive stuff out of them.



    Also, iOS does not have the beach ball, and when you see the spinner icon, 9 out of 10 times it means an application is trying to access the network or is doing some kind of computation, not that it has run out of memory. If that happens and no other applications can be unloaded from RAM, you'll get a low-memory popup first and if the application will go on eating more RAM, it will simply terminate eventually.







    I agree that it would be dead-easy and cheap to put 1 GB in. Then again, 2 GB would be just as easy and only a little bit more expensive, because RAM is dirt cheap. Point is that it is simply not necessary, since no iOS programs use more than 512 MB RAM. Even on PC's a single application using over 512 MB RAM are rare, and they are typically not the kind of programs you would use on a tablet anyway.



    Great reply! Thank you.
  • Reply 99 of 117
    thepixeldocthepixeldoc Posts: 2,257member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox View Post


    Hmmm. Except you went out of your way to register to comment here, and so far you comments have been nothing but cranky little digs at your perceived failings of iOS and iOS devices.



    So if you want to talk about mental conditions, you might consider the need to cross the street to argue with someone you suspect of overstating the virtues of something they like.



    Uhm... addabox... you've been juked! By the writing style, agressiveness, and "I have this, and I have that"... well this is looking like the reincarnation of "DaHarder".



    If it's not DH...and you're reading this Andy, you might want to hook up with the real "troll" in these parts. You can find him on Engadget.



    Have fun, party hardy... and don't forget protection!
  • Reply 100 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Andykemp View Post


    A person can't seem to have a constructive conversation here. Its all little cranky digs at one thing or another. Usually Android, Microsoft and Linux. I'm a cross platform kind of guy and the digs at other platforms seem pointless. Why do the majority of Apple users act like such elitists of some platform that is leaps and bounds above all else? Its annoying as hell. I've never taken on that attitude because I owned a certain device.



    See, nobody here believes you've owned an iOS device, because of the Spinning Beachball of Death? comment. You're just reading that off of some cheat-sheet of Apple-bashing boilerplate your employers gave you. Kind of like if I wanted to insult Microsoft by saying: "Yeah, that XBox is a piece of junk! I get the Blue Screen of Death? all the time! LOL!!"
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