I recently wrote a post on my old blog about my predictions for “the new iPad” that was released in March. Let’s look and see how accurate my predictions were:
New Retina display. Completely correct, down to the resolution. Pretty much a no-brainer.
Faster processor but not the A6. Also correct. Instead of an A6, Apple went with a new version of the A5 with a faster GPU.
1080p video / iPhone 4S camera. Essentially correct. Video is 1080p and the camera is almost identical to the iPhone 4S except that it has fewer megapixels.
More storage. Unfortunately, this one fell through. I was hoping for a 128 GB version but Apple stayed with 64 GB as the largest storage option. As a checkpoint, I am using 32 GB of that so far, without having loaded any music or video.
LTE/4G. Bingo. The Verizon LTE option is super fast. Apple also solved the problem with the battery draining quickly using LTE.
Siri. Nope.
Bluetooth 4.0. Yup.
iOS 5.1. Yup.
Apple TV with Siri. This one was always a stretch and it didn’t pan out. Hopefully this will still come true one day.
Microsoft Office for iPad. Not sure what happened here. I think this is still on its way but it was not ready for the launch and it is not available one month later.
Aperture. Not quite. Instead, Apple went with iPhoto for iOS, which I’m not particularly impressed with. I have it and have tried to use it a few times. Complicated, unintuitive UI.
Improved iMovie. Yup, had to given the new 1080p video.
Smart downloads. Nope. Universal binaries are really big. To compensate:
Increased OTW app installs on LTE. Correct and then some. Apple increased OTW installs to 50 MB over all wireless carrier networks.
Slightly thicker case. Yes, but only by a few millimeters and the old Smart Cover still works fine.
Battery life will decrease slightly. This is somewhat subjective but my experience is that it has decreased a bit. Not that you would notice in a day’s work.
Price increase. Nada. Same prices as always. This might be the most amazing trick Apple is able to pull off.
Name will be iPad HD or iPad 2 HD. Nope, but not iPad 3, either. It’s “the new iPad”…alrighty then.
iPad 2 continues to be available. Yup, and is still a big seller.
NFC (not going to happen). Correct. No sign of it.
Purchases for iTunes movie. I pegged this as “unlikely” but Apple did manage to swing it and allow redownloads of purchased iTunes movies. Awesome.
World of Warcraft. Yeah, keeping dreaming.
So there were 22 predictions and I was right on 14 of them and I’d say half right on 2 more. So let’s say 15 of 22. About 68% correct, which is not too bad in the world of Apple hardware predictions.