Opinions - IPad 2 or 3?

Alan Shutko · Aug 9, 2012

Mallus said:
So these are PDFs that weren't made with the Retina display pixel density in mind? That's what I wanted confirmation of -- I didn't want to buy an iPad 3 only to find the majority of the documents I intended to read on it would look better on the prior version.

PDFs come in two varieties: the ones which are simply scanned pages, usually somewhere around 100-200 DPI, and the ones with normal fonts for the text.

Neither one cares about the resolution of the screen, and both of them are higher resolution than the iPad 1/2 screen. Both of them will look better on retina, and the ones with fonts as text (pretty much anything except the original TSR PDFs) will look great on Retina.

Trust me, anything that was ever intended to be printed will look great on retina.

Mallus · Aug 9, 2012

JRRNeiklot said:
Android ftw.

There's one in every crowd...

.

But I'll bite... even though the odds are strongly in favor of me sticking with Apple.

What are the advantages of an Android tablet? Why buy one over an iPad (and which one -- Android is a fairly dilute brand).

My experience w/Android devices is limited to a little mucking around with friends' phones. They seem quite nice, but I prefer the UI on my iPhone.

Alan Shutko said:
Trust me, anything that was ever intended to be printed will look great on retina.

Thanks for the info!

JRRNeiklot · Aug 10, 2012

I have little experience with the Ipad, but personally, I don't like the Itunes interface being forced upon me. With Android, I've been able to easily run all kinds of emulators and even interface a wiimote to play games. I've even seen Quake 3 play on an Android. I'm sure that's possible with the Ipad as well, but probably not without jumping through hoops.

IronWolf · Aug 10, 2012

JRRNeiklot said:
I have little experience with the Ipad, but personally, I don't like the Itunes interface being forced upon me.

While iTunes is not great, I almost never have to use it. I used it to setup the iPad initially (not even sure you have to do that with the new generation iPads as I think they were trying to remove that step) and have probably only connected it back to that PC a handful of times in over a year or so.

The iPad can do over-the-air updates now and Dropbox lets me get any file I care about to the iPad without the need to connect. I do tend to connect for a local backup before an OS update, but really it is just connect, let iTunes open and automatically do its sync.

Mallus · Aug 11, 2012

JRRNeiklot said:
I have little experience with the Ipad, but personally, I don't like the Itunes interface being forced upon me.

I hear you. iTunes should win an award for longest running, consistently terrible application. But you don't need it anymore. Cloud storage solutions like Dropbox make file transfer a snap, and iOS updates are now handled over-the-air.

I wouldn't put music on my iPad, so I doubt I'd use iTunes at all.

With Android, I've been able to easily run all kinds of emulators and even interface a wiimote to play games. I've even seen Quake 3 play on an Android. I'm sure that's possible with the Ipad as well, but probably not without jumping through hoops.

While that does sound kinda cool, it's not the kind thing I'm into anymore. I just want to pick up a device and use it, as is.

Why I haven't even jailbroken my iPhone (and yeah, it's easy to do).

Janx · Aug 11, 2012

Mallus's description fits my usage pattern.

Music goes on the iPhone, where I might get to listen to it in the car.

movies go on the iPad, where I might get to watch it on the plane.

I don't dock to iTunes, ever since iOS5, and rarely before that.

FPS games like Quake generally suck on touch screen devices or devices lacking 2 thumb sticks (looking at you PSP1).

While I'm sure Android is the right choice for some folks, iOS works for me. Android was too cumbersome in my opinion (and I write software for a living, so I know a thing or two about user interfaces). Am I missing out on some features on iOS? Sure, but there's a thread about that somewhere else.

get the iPad3 and you'll be happy and able to use all your iOS content.

Just be sure to use the same iTunes account for the App store/music store.

Use seperate email accounts for iCloud and Game Center. One iCloud account per device. one Game Center account per user.

That'll optimize your disk space on the cloud, and access to your purchases for your family.

It also wouldn't hurt to share the iPads. I let my wife use my iPad. She reads her knitting patterns on it and plays the games.

Plane Sailing · Aug 14, 2012

Alan Shutko said:
Trust me, anything that was ever intended to be printed will look great on retina.

I'm sorry but that just isn't right. It was a major point of contention when it was released because many (most?) newsstand magazines looked rubbish on retina screen - an artefact of publishing related to font licensing. These weren't PDF files so might not be germane to the original question - but it does highlight that there is (or certainly was) published stuff that was worse on retina.

Cheers

Alan Shutko · Aug 15, 2012

Plane Sailing said:
I'm sorry but that just isn't right. It was a major point of contention when it was released because many (most?) newsstand magazines looked rubbish on retina screen - an artefact of publishing related to font licensing. These weren't PDF files so might not be germane to the original question - but it does highlight that there is (or certainly was) published stuff that was worse on retina.

You make a good point. iPad versions of various magazines shipped iPad-sized JPEGs to the app, and those looked terrible. If you had a PDF that intended to be printed, it would have been ok.

Incidentally, Adobe is changing their digital editions product to use pdf behind the scenes for exactly this reason.

Umbran · Aug 15, 2012

JRRNeiklot said:
Android ftw.

Mallus said:
There's one in every crowd... .

But I'll bite... even though the odds are strongly in favor of me sticking with Apple.

What are the advantages of an Android tablet? Why buy one over an iPad (and which one -- Android is a fairly dilute brand).

Rumor has it that the Microsoft's "Surface" tablet (running Win8) is going to debut in October with an entry price of a whole whopping $200.

Mallus · Aug 15, 2012

Umbran said:
Rumor has it that the Microsoft's "Surface" tablet (running Win8) is going to debut in October with an entry price of a whole whopping $200.

What do you think the odds are of the MS tablet gaining purchase --pun unintentional!-- in the marketplace?