With four times the number of pixels as its predecessor, the new iPad will hit the market tomorrow with a huge bang. Crisp graphics and even clearer text are the main pull of this upgrade.
Unfortunately, there is a downfall, and that comes in the form of increased application sizes. The Verge reported that app sizes have increased by around 2.5-3 times on average, to nearly 6 times for iMovie. And remember, these are only the download sizes, and don’t reflect the installed application sizes.
There’s also the issue of iPad magazines. Currently, one page is around 250kB, while the same page on a Retina display will hover around 2MB. At that rate, a 150 page magazine will hover around 300MB, and that’s the average.
For consumers that grabbed the 32 or 64GB models, this shouldn’t be too much of an issue. But for the 16GB iPad users, this could become a real issue. Also, all you iPad 1 and 2 users, be warned: your apps will also be updated to Retina-ready status, and you’ll see a jump in storage space consumed as well.
For clarification: I’m not poo-pooing the new iPad at all. I’m just giving users a heads up to a difference they’ll need to be aware of going forward.
