The iPad 3 has been mentioned on surprisingly few blogs I read regularly or subscribe to. When the iPad 2 came out, there was more buzz among educators. Perhaps it is simply the fact that whether educators could afford to upgrade to iPad 2 (or use university funds to get one), or could not afford to upgrade to the then new, now old iPad 2, none of us can afford to get an iPad 3.
But presumably if we felt that the improvements were pedagogically essential, or crucial to our scholarship, or both, then we might feel differently.
The inclusion of a better camera is a plus – but for the purpose of taking photos so that I can blog while traveling with students, better quality photos doesn’t matter so much, since photos in a blog post are rarely of very high resolution, and uploading high definition images or video would be expensive.
The retina display – i.e. a display whose pixels are so small the human eye supposedly doesn’t discern any pixelation – sounds wonderful, but at best a luxury. It may make viewing a video on the relatively small iPad screen that little bit more pleasant, but it won’t enhance my enjoyment of Words With Friends in any obvious way.
None of the features of the iPad 3 that I have seen mentioned on the Apple web site or elsewhere seem essential, much less pedagogically or professionally essential.
Am I missing something? The iPad 3 is better, but is it better in the way that a larger flat screen TV is – nice if one can afford it, but something one can easily live without?
I’m still waiting for full-fledged word processing software for the iPad that will allow one to create footnotes, at the very least. Has such a thing appeared, and I’ve missed it? Or has everyone just agreed that the use of footnotes will be phased out to accommodate the technology academics now work with?
And of course, with the solar flare activity headed our way, none of our iPads may work anyway, come tomorrow.