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Some thoughts on the new iPad 3

Basile CARLE

Senior Consultant, Mobile Devices & Platforms Expert DigiWorld by IDATE

The new iPad unveiled by Apple yesterday was much as expected. Rumors during the run-up proved fairly accurate when it came to the main features of this third version of Apple’s tablet (especially retina display and 4G) and we believe that this update is a fairly solid response to what competitors have been able to produce so far. No groundbreaking features but rather improvements aimed at strengthening Apple’s position in the market. 

Below are some thoughts on what we learned yesterday. These analyses build on our ongoing research on the mobile device market – as found in last year’s report on LTE devices (which is part of our LTE Watch service). If you are interested in this topic, an in-depth analysis of mobile device manufacturers’ strategy and future mobile device innovations, can be found in our upcoming report on Next Generation Mobile Devices which is due out in Q2 2012.

• Support for LTE is not necessarily the main advantage of the iPad as is a feature aimed chiefly at users in the US. The new iPad, powered by Qualcomm multimode LTE baseband, supports both 700 MHz and 2100 MHz LTE bands which in itself limits its interest worldwide. Those two bands are and won’t be the much used by operators when deploying their LTE networks. From a European perspective for instance, the device will need to support the 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2.6GHz bands to be usable. But this is not a major issue, given the limited deployments so far in those frequency bands. What this LTE support tells us is how important Long-term evolution has become in the US as a differentiating argument in the mobile device market. It’s also impressive to see how much the US wireless market has evolved over last 4 years. Remember when the first iPhone was launched back in 2007, with no support for 3G because of those new-gen networks were still embryonic in America? Now, the US is at the forefront in deploying the latest radio access network technology, and Apple could not ignore it when targeting its domestic market. It is still unclear how far US operators have been pushing Apple to go that way, but one thing is sure: the announcement that the latest iPad supports LTE was clearly US-driven.

• Given the low rate of deployment for LTE networks outside the US (and Japan and South Korea which are the two other big LTE markets), and the increasing number of bands to be supported, supporting DC HSPA+ and HSPA+ was Apple’s only option to limit the number of different versions of the iPad and have 4G-branded iPads sold internationally. There has been a lot of debate over whether or not it was fair to use the term 4G for DC HSPA+ and HSPA+ technologies. They are indeed evolutions of 3G standards; their performance is an improvement over what we are used to and, for everyday uses, can be considered to deliver “LTE like” performance. We should also remember that even LTE is not considered by the 3GPP as a 4G technology: only LTE-Advanced and WiMAX IEE 802.16m are considered as such. In any even, from a market and network deployment perspective, supporting DC HSPA+ and HSPA+ was the best solution for the non-US market. Operators all over the world announce are upgrading their networks to this standard to able to support downlink rates of up to 42 Mbps (in dual carrier mode). The new iPad will support this maximum theoretical bitrate, while DC HSPA+ will eventually be able to sustain 84 Mbps. Plus these deployments will be in existing 3G bands, so Apple will not need to provide support for other bands.

• Apple is by no means the first device manufacturer to announce support for LTE. Samsung, HTC, LG and especially Motorola were first to launch such devices in the American, South Korean and Japanese markets. As we expected and noted in our report on LTE Devices and in our LTE Watch service insight last year, Apple has taken a more cautious approach in its release timetable, waiting for baseband solutions to be mature enough to lessen the number of wireless versions of the iPad, and enable Apple to provide a solid enough 4G experience in terms of battery life. Here, Qualcomm was the most relevant solution for Apple – providing the broadest support for RAN. As mentioned earlier, providing support for DC HSPA+ alongside LTE and CDMA2000 EV/DO was a strategic move on Apple’s part – both in terms of industrial process (reducing manufacturing and BOM costs) and marketing (being able to call it 4G worldwide).

• In terms of battery life, Apple could not afford any noticeable reduction in performance when using 4G. Of course new LTE basebands from Qualcomm (probably the MDM 9600) somehow reduced their footprint, but also forced Apple to perform some major reengineering to handle increased drain on the battery. This basically boils down to making more room for bigger batteries, without altering the form too much. The relative increase in the new device’s thickness (9.4mm as compared to 8.8mm for the iPad 2) is an indication of how challenging it was for Apple to provide support for LTE and deliver increased graphical performance required for the retina display. When we look at the specs, the new iPad battery is a 42.5 watt-hour unit, as compared to a 25 watt hour battery previously… so nearly twice the capacity as before. Impressive. It still remains to be seen how the new iPad compares to other LTE tablets. There appears to be a growing consensus around the web that the new iPhone will naturally support LTE as well. I’m not so sure, as the design constraints this involved for a smartphone are a whole other ball game. It will be much harder to make extra space for increased capacity battery. In any case, the technical challenges are big enough for me to think that, should it support LTE, the new iPhone will be rolled out in October rather than in June.

• Speaking of form factors and screen size, the latest iPad offers nothing new on this front – which confirm our previous analysis on the subject. Indeed, a different size of screen was very unlikely because of the hardware fragmentation it would have prompted, which is a major issue for third-party developers. Apple yesterday announced that 200,000 iPad specific applications were available on the App Store. This is of course part of the success of this device, and one big difference with Android tablets today in terms of ecosystem maturity. For an app developer, having to think of different screen sizes only burdens the development process in terms of both time and money. In terms of user experience, ensuring that all applications will behave the same way across all devices of the same category is strategic, and Apple clearly had this in mind when making the choice of not bringing further fragmentation in terms of screen size.

• The Retina display is probably the most obvious improvement. The previous iPad had just a standard resolution for a 9.7-inch display, but the pixel density of the new iPad really makes a difference … both with the previous model and with what the competition is offering. It is not sure how many of Apple’s display partners (LG? Samsung? Hitachi? Sharp? Panasonic?) are involved here, and if competitors will have access to this technology (it took some time for Apple’s competitors to release a smartphone with higher ppi than the iPhone 4S). What is certain is that Apple may well prevent its rivals from getting their hands on the technology by occupying the production channel. Given Apple’s unmatched capacity to order such components in very high volumes, its competitors will likely find it difficult to find enough components for their own devices.

• In all of this, there has been no mention of Amazon and its Kindle Fire… even though it is reported to be Apple’s most successful competitor in the tablet market. Apple still isn’t targeting this segment of the market overtly, even with a lower-priced iPad in its line-up. This may be a sign that, for Apple, Amazon is more a competitor for Android tablets than for the iPad which is aimed at the mid-range to high-end market.