Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell your Valentine, and your mom: Do not buy an iPad 2 right now.
The "iPad 3" is coming soon (maybe on March 7), the entire Internet says, and it's almost certainly going to be similar to the major change we saw between the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4. With a speculated 2048-by-1536 screen resolution, the iPad 3 (which may not be called that) is going to change how iPad apps look and work in a big way.
Initially, it'll just mean sharper graphics. As app developers start to write apps optimized for the new screen, games will come into focus even more clearly, user interfaces will develop new details and text will become easier to read.
But that combination of sharper graphics and a presumed faster processor will soon start leading developers to create exclusive new features just for the iPad 3. The iPad 1 and 2 won't be totally left out - after all, there are tens of millions of them around. But we've reached the inflection point where there will be a difference in app features and availability, and as the months pass, the iPad 3 offerings will be noticeably superior.
Beyond the apps, a sharper iPad 3 screen will just be easier on the eyes. It'll be less tiring to read on and friendlier to use, just like the iPhone 4's smooth text feels easier to read than the jaggedy fonts on the 3GS.
Your iPad Isn't Just for Christmas
This all matters more than with a smartphone because like laptops, iPads aren't sold on contract, so you won't be driven to get a new one every two years. If you buy an iPad, you want to look forward and ask what will still run the best apps up to four years from now. Compatibility between the iPad 1 and 2, even though the iPad 2 had a much faster processor, was so good that the question wasn't so pressing. But the iPad 3's rumored high-res screen, enabled by a much faster CPU and GPU, will set the pace for the next two to three years.The iPad 3 won't be the only high-res, high-def tablet coming out in 2012, although it may be the highest-res of them all. Asus and other Android tablet manufacturers appear to be settling on 1920-by-1200 as their HD standard. From a user perspective, the difference between that resolution and the iPad's won't matter - it's just bragging rights, and you can bet Apple will brag.
It may not make sense to go to a much higher resolution than that on a 10-inch panel, because we're now getting to "retina" levels, where most human eyes can't pick out the individual pixels. So your iPad 3 investment will be safe, at least for a little while.
So What Happens To The iPad 2?
With the tablet world moving to high-res displays, what will become of the iPad 2? With companies like Acer, Asus, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble all releasing tablets in the $200-$300 range, I can see the iPad 2 becoming Apple's "low-cost" offering for $349. The original iPad took a $100 price cut when the iPad 2 came out, but I suspect a bigger cut may be in order for the iPad 2 given increasing competition and the sharper difference between the two products.So even if you don't care about the new features in the iPad 3, you'll probably be able to save a significant chunk of change by waiting to buy your iPad 2.
This isn't rocket science, of course; it's just what Apple is doing with its phones, offering up the iPhone 4S at $199, the iPhone 4 at $99 and the iPhone 3GS for free. With a new, $499 iPad "3" and a $349 iPad 2, Apple would be able to stunt the growth of the Android tablet market and assure its dominance through 2012, especially if Google continues to fumble the whole issue of Android tablet apps.
Just don't buy one now.
You can, however, check out PCMag's full review of the iPad 2 and the slideshow below. Also see What I Don't Want in the iPad 3.