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Is the iPad 2 Good Enough to Keep You from Buying the iPad 3?

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The iPad 3 faces stiff competition when it’s announced next week at Apple’s media event in San Francisco. Apple shouldn’t worry about losing iPad users to competitors. Instead, the company needs to focus on convincing current iPad owners to ditch their current iPads and upgrade to the latest and greatest. Doing so may be more difficult than it sounds since the iPad 2 is good enough for a good chunk of Apple’s customers.

The iPad 2 is a great device, but many who own the device use it as a fourth screen. While I thoroughly enjoy my iPad 2, I can go for several days without touching the thing. My smartphones are always within reach, I spend way too many hours per day tapping away and my laptops keyboard and I watch a show or two on my HDTV with my wife before going to sleep most nights. My poor iPad 2 is often ignored until my MacBook runs out of juice.

Read: iPad 2 Review

I will likely upgrade to the iPad 3 since I’m a geek and enjoy having the latest and greatest gear, but what about the average iPad user? Spending $500 or more on a new iPad 3 when their iPad 2 warranties haven’t even expired is a tough pill to swallow.

Unless Apple announces a few mind-blowing features, the iPad 3 will likely suffer the same fate as the iPhone 4S. Yes, the iPhone 4S is the best iPhone out there and setting sales records, but countless iPhone 4 owners refused to upgrade to the new phone since it was so similar to what they already had in their pockets. Apple not only needs to convince the iPad-less masses that they need an iPad, they need to convince iPad owners that the iPad 2 is no longer good enough.

So how will Apple do that? A retina display, 4G, faster processor and Siri aren’t going to be enough to convince a lot of people to upgrade to the iPad 3. Sure, the geeks will be thrilled to see those features, but what Apple needs to do is throw something so irresistible into the mix that iPad 2 owners will feel left out.

What could that irresistible something be? That’s anyone’s guess at this point, but the above concept video has a few features that would surely entice many iPad owners to upgrade to the iPad 3.There are rumors that Microsoft and Apple are gearing up to launch Office for iPad, which would certainly cause a stir. Perhaps the Office apps would require a higher-resolution display, preventing older iPads from running the business-critical apps.  Maybe there will be a smaller iPad model offered up, giving iPad owners an excuse to double up.

Here’s a video of iPad 3 concept features that was not produced by Apple employees. Apple needs to aim for this kind of wow effect.Will we see holographic iPad 3? No, but Apple has a history of surprising us.

I think a lot of iPad owners see the iPad 2 as good enough and are going to pass on the iPad 3 if all Apple has to offer is a spec bump. What do you think? Is your Apple iPad 2 good enough for you to look the other way when the iPad 3 is announced?

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. ol1bit

    02/28/2012 at 7:45 pm

    I hope it’s good enough to drop the price of Android tablets!

  2. feifei22

    02/28/2012 at 9:28 pm

     https://lnk.co/ILKGR

  3. Emīls Ozols

    02/29/2012 at 4:28 am

    I love my iPad 2 and I use it for everything, reading news, doing homework (downloading a zip file from my e-mail, unziping it with an app, then opening it in another app to turn it into a pdf, then finally opening the pdf in the last app to write on top of it with annotations (the hole process only takes about half a minute)), watching podcasts, movies, reading magazines, and the occasional game here and there. 
           The only reason why I use my old Pentium 4 PC is because it has a larger screen and is capable of torrent downloads of TV shows (and getting an Apple TV with airplay would eliminate half of the needs for my PC, while the other half could be eliminated if the iTunes in my country would support and allow to purchase TV shows (living in Europe, and only a couple of months ago, got the green light to purchase Music and rent Movies)) To answer the question – I would like the next-greatest iPad, but will be trying to save cash to upgrade my banged up, iPhone 3G with dead pixels for the next-greatest iPhone. And after that – an HDTV with the Apple TV box or even just the Apple iTV (or whatever it will be called). 
    So, basically, No, I will not be upgrading

  4. RetAl

    02/29/2012 at 4:33 am

    What’s wrong with the original iPad? I don’t need a camera so what are the advantages to upgrading?

  5. Josh

    02/29/2012 at 6:45 am

    I’m sticking with my iPad 2.  Use it daily, but mostly for entertainment purposes.  Nothing presented so far would convince me that upgrading is worth it.  Maybe when the iPad 4 comes out (assuming that this next release is actually called iPad3 and not iPad 2S ;))

  6. Traceycrss

    03/01/2012 at 8:53 pm

    I’ve only had my iPad 2 since Christmas. I’m not upgrading til next year. I have the iPhone 4 screen and yes it’s better than the iPad but so what. My iPad battery
    Asts twice as long. If apple brings out retina display will the battery life suffer? Why buy something when you don’t need it? I use my iPad more than my laptop or iPhone. I watch videos, play games surf the Internet, read emails and catch up on Facebook. I trust it. What problems is the iPad 3 going to have?

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