by The release of the fourth-generation iPad so soon after the third-generation iPad may have come as a surprise to even diehard Apple watchers, but the device itself won’t. By now, we all know what an iPad looks like, and the fourth-generation iPad looks nearly identical to a third-generation iPad—which itself looked more or less like the second-generation iPad.
That’s not to say that the fourth-generation iPad isn’t an impressive beast; it’s just that those changes are almost entirely on the device’s interior. This is unquestionably Apple’s most powerful iPad to date, and it handles pretty much anything you can throw at it with aplomb. If the new iPad mini is a MacBook Air, as my colleague Dan Frakes alleges, then the fourth-generation iPad is the big iron of a MacBook Pro.
Meet the new new iPad, same as the new iPad
Put a fourth-generation iPad down next to a third-generation iPad, and good luck telling them apart. In fact, the only difference between the two is what kind of cable you plug into them. The fourth-generation iPad joins the iPhone 5, iPad mini, iPod touch, and iPod nano in sporting Apple’s new Lightning connector. It’s a lot smaller than the veritably ancient (by technology standards, anyway) 30-pin dock-connector it replaces; there are other advantages too, which I’ll touch upon later.
IDG Consumer & SMBFourth-generation iPad (left) and the third-generation iPad (right).
Otherwise, though, the fourth-generation iPad has the same controls you’ve found on every iPad since the original: Home button, Sleep/Wake button, volume controls, a side switch that can mute the volume or lock the display’s orientation, and a headphone jack. It also supports the same Smart Cover that’s worked with the iPad 2 or later.
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