Apple’s pitch at the event was that the iPad mini is actually a different class of device than the competition, because of its wider screen and larger library of apps. The marketing line was “Every inch an iPad” and Johnny Ive made a positively Talmudic distinction when he said that the mini was a “concentration, not a reduction” of the full-sized iPad. Early reviewers generally liked the iPad mini although they all mentioned the lower resolution screen as a major drawback. Meanwhile, on the Apple partisan side of tech journalism, a narrative started to emerge that argued for the Mini being what the iPad always should have been. John Gruber went as far as to say that he was giving up his full-sized iPad Retina in favor of using the mini, because he preferred the form factor. When I went to the Apple Store, I fully expected to leave wanting to purchase an iPad mini. I was surprised after a solid 40 minutes of playing with it that this was not the case. Moreover, I am now convinced that while the mini will definitely sell well, it is not the ideal iPad.

To be sure, the iPad mini’s industrial design is lovely. Taking its cues from the recently updated iPod Touch and iPhone 5, the iPad mini is handsome in both black and white and its newly rounded edges feel great in the hand. More importantly, for the first time, you can really hold an iPad in one hand without fatigue. This, in my mind, is the mini’s greatest asset. But the screen is a real problem. You see it’s wonderful that the iPad mini runs all of the iPad apps while being lighter and smaller than its full-sized siblings, but the reality is that small tablets are for people who want to consume content. Content like books and websites and magazines and newspapers. And staring at a non-Retina screen is a subpar reading experience.

Okay, so we all know that it’s just a matter of time before Apple upgrades the mini to have a retina display. Will it then be the perfect iPad? I don’t think so. I actually think that Apple nailed the screen size on the original iPad. And while a 7.9 inch Retina iPad would be a wonderful small tablet, I still don’t think that it will be as useful as the full-sized iPad. Apple has sold over 100,000,000 full-sized iPads to date. The iPad is becoming a de-facto PC replacement and for that purpose, 7.9 inches is too small. Do I think that Apple made a mistake by releasing the iPad mini? Far from it. We can surmise, along with Gruber, that the iPad 2 is still around, because it continues to sell well. What this tells me is that despite my criticism, the average consumer doesn’t care so much about screen resolution or pixels per inch. Moreover, by dropping the entry level price by $70, Apple can make much more aggressive plays in the education market. 

I have no doubt that in addition to a Retina iPad mini, Apple is working on a new design for the full-sized iPad that we will see some time next year. It will be significantly lighter and more lovely than the current model whose industrial design is starting to feel a little stale. Is it possible to make a 9.7 inch Retina iPad that is light enough to hold in one hand and runs all day on a single charge? I don’t know. But I do know that that would be the ideal iPad.

Hardware

The iPhone 5 is unmistakably a descendent of the iPhone 4 and 4S, but it feels very different in the hand. The new aluminum back is pleasantly cool to the touch and its chamfered edges make it more comfortable to hold than its immediate predecessors. The Home button, which is an absolutely essential part of the iOS experience, now has a sturdier and more satisfying click to it. The phone is also a little taller and noticeably thinner and lighter than the iPhones 4 and 4S. The added height is there to accommodate an all new 4 inch screen. Over the years, as other smartphone manufacturers moved to larger and larger screen sizes, Apple religiously maintained the iPhone’s screen at its original 3.5 inches. The iPhone 5 is the first in the product’s five year history to change that and while the actual difference may seem small on paper, only 176 vertical pixels, it actually makes a big difference. 

The All New Screen

While the screen is taller, Apple decided to maintain the original 640 pixel width, for the sake of single-handed operation. In my own use, I’ve found that in order to operate the iPhone 5 singlehanded, I need to hold it very differently from how I used to hold the iPhone 4. Instead of simply wrapping my hand around the phone, I find that if I want to reach the whole surface of the screen with my thumb, I need to support the bottom of the phone with the inside of my pinky and use my index finger to angle it slightly. This reads a lot worse than it actually is, but I think it’s fair to say that the iPhone 5 is marginally more difficult to operate with a single hand than previous iPhones.

Having said that, the advantages of having a larger screen are immediately apparent. First of all, those extra 176 pixels mean an entire new row of icons. Apple recently revealed that the average iPhone owner regularly uses around 100 apps. On the old screens, you could fit 16 apps per page. On the new screen, you can now fit 20. What this means is that the average user can get by on the new iPhone with 1 fewer page of icons than they could on the older models. But beyond this simple convenience, the experience in many of the built-in apps is improved by the added screen real-estate. Gone are the days when watching a movie on the iPhone’s screen meant staring at a tiny rectangle of video surrounded by black bars. The aspect ratio of the new iPhone’s screen means that video plays edge-to-edge and while 4 inches is not exactly luxurious, I find myself watching a lot more video on my phone than I used to. 

In addition to the size of the screen, the quality of the screen has also improved. Apple figured out a way to deepen the blacks, increase the color saturation, and reduce glare, all while shipping a thinner device. It’s a remarkable achievement and I often find myself staring at the the home screen, mesmerized by the clarity of the icons.

The Lightning Port

On the bottom of the iPhone 5, one of the things that is obviously different from all previous iPhones is the new Lightning Port. There has been much criticism of Apple’s decision to abandon their old 30-pin dock connector in favor of the new port. The criticism comes in two flavors. First, that Apple moved to a new proprietary connector instead of something like the ubiquitous, non-proprietary Micro-USB. Second, that Apple has inconvenienced anyone who spent money buying third-party accessories over the last decade which were all built around the dock connector.

The first criticism is easy to dismiss. Yes, Apple has gone to another proprietary connection which maintains their control over the accessory market. But I can think of two very good reasons why they didn’t adopt Micro-USB that have nothing to do with control. First, as anyone who has ever used a Micro-USB connector can attest, it is both fragile and fiddly to use. Second, it is very limited in the sort of data it can transmit. You can’t, for example, design a speaker dock that transmits sound over Micro-USB. 

The second criticism is not as easy to dismiss. If you have a lot of third-party accessories, like speaker docks or car chargers, there is no elegant way for them to work with the iPhone 5. Sure you can buy one of Apple’s pricey adapters, but you didn’t pay a premium for your iPhone/iPod accessory to have to come up with kludgy workarounds.

Personally, I think that Apple should have made this move years ago. I really dislike the 30-pin dock connector and the Lightning Port is robust, reversible(there’s no wrong way to plug it in), and easy to operate in total darkness. Technology transitions are often a pain, but sometimes they’re necessary.

Performance

Everything on the iPhone 5 feels fast. This is partly due to the custom-designed A6 processor and partly due to LTE, the faster-than-Wifi wireless data protocol, which has finally landed on planet iPhone. It’s hard to put into words how profound the performance improvement on the iPhone 5 is over its predecessors. In practice, it means that I use my phone a lot more. When you have something that’s this responsive and reliable in your pocket, it just integrates into your life and you focus on what you’re using it for instead of the act of using it. This is technology at its best and the iPhone 5 more than any device I can think of, slips into the background as I use it. The one area that I wish Apple would pay more attention to is temperature. The iPhone 5, like the New iPad, gets hotter than previous models, particularly when relying on its LTE connection for extended periods of time.

Making Calls

So how good is the iPhone 5 at making and receiving calls? This is a difficult question for any one reviewer to answer, because the iPhone 5 ships to a dizzying number of countries and is available on quite a few different carriers. I upgraded from an iPhone 4 on AT&T to the iPhone 5 on Verizon and I can tell you that in West LA, the difference in call quality has been night-and-day. Whereas before, I could only make calls in a very specific area of my apartment, I can now use my phone all over the apartment and my signal strength is solid. Moreover, the quality of the sound on both ends is better than I’ve ever experienced on a cell phone. The speakerphone has also improved in both strength and clarity. One drawback that US customers of Verizon and Sprint should be aware of is that due to limitations in these carriers’ LTE networks, you can’t talk on the phone and use the data connection at the same time, unless you are connected to a Wifi network. This is not true of AT&T’s network.

FaceTime

It’s been a long two and a half years since the introduction of FaceTime on the iPhone 4 and the video conferencing technology is finally realizing some of its potential. With the iPhone 5, FaceTime conferences can be conducted over 3G and LTE. This is a big deal and lest you worry that using FaceTime regularly will eat through your data plan, fear not. Apple has managed to dynamically adjust the data usage of FaceTime so that a full hour will only cost you around 85 MB of data. In addition, the new front-facing camera on the iPhone 5 is HD, so all of your pockmarks and facial hair will come across with stunning clarity.

FaceTime is a great technology and I use it regularly to keep in touch with friends, but there are a couple of ways in which it could be better. First, I would really like to see Apple make good on its promise to release this as an open-standard. FaceTime should be a non-proprietary standard that can be used by anyone with a device that has a front-facing camera, not only those fortunate enough to own Apple products. Second, as the carriers move from pushing minutes to pushing data, I’d like to see an option for sound-only FaceTime. At the iPhone 5 launch event, Apple announced that they were going to start supporting Wideband Audio which is an interesting technology that vastly improves the sound quality of cellphone calls. The problem is that it requires carrier support and infrastructure. The same improvement could be achieved by simply offering a sound-only version of FaceTime and I’m not sure why this hasn’t been implemented. Perhaps we will see it in iOS 7.

Camera

By insisting on making the iPhone ever thinner, Apple has painted themselves into a bit of a corner. This design decision limits the optics that they can use in the camera and the only way out is to compensate with clever processing. I would really love to say that the iPhone 5 is finally good enough to replace your point-and-shoot, but I can’t.

While certainly impressive for a camera phone, the iPhone 5’s images are simply not as good as what you could get from a disposable 35mm camera. Moreover, because the iPhone 5 has lost some heft, the effects of camera shake are exaggerated over what you would have from the iPhone 4 and 4S. And while the new processing does indeed offer better low light performance, it also makes some pretty egregious errors in ordinary indoor lighting conditions(blown highlights seem to be a recurring theme). Having said that, the performance of the iPhone 5’s camera is incredibly fast and the new Panorama mode, where you sweep the phone in an arc to seamlessly create a large 26 megapixel image, works like a charm. It should also be mentioned that there are many excellent and inexpensive camera apps available on the App Store that may mitigate some of the shortcomings of the native Camera app by offering more manual control.

On the video front, I must say that I was mightily impressed. Not only did the iPhone 5 do an excellent job of stabilizing my shaky handheld footage (it uses the Gyroscope to achieve this feat), but I was very pleased with the video it produced. I would go as far as to say that the iPhone 5 finally kills the market for stand-alone fixed lens handheld video recorders.

Maps

Of all the controversial aspects of the iPhone 5, none garnered more attention than the redesigned Maps app. Now it’s important to note that Apple has always been the author of the Maps app on iOS. They wrote and designed the user interface from the beginning and licensed the data from Google. Over time, Apple’s relationship with Google has deteriorated and this year, they decided to stop using Google’s mapping data. The new Maps was supposed to be the exciting new feature in iOS 6 and Apple completely rewrote the app from the ground up, but public transit directions and Street View, both of which are exclusive Google properties, were no longer something that Apple could offer. And to make matters worse, they failed to collate their new data sources properly and embarrassing inaccuracies started showing up all over the place. Tim Cook took the unusual step of making a public apology and recommending that iOS 6 customers use alternative mapping services available through the App Store while Apple worked to improve Maps.

As with call quality, it’s impossible for one reviewer to do justice to the reliability of the Maps app. But I must report that I’ve been delighted by Apple’s new Maps app. I think that the interface is incredibly well thought-out. This is especially true when it comes to Apple’s implementation of turn-by-turn directions where a combination of the larger screen and good graphic design makes it much safer to use while driving solo. I have had no problems navigating around LA and I can even report that on a recent trip to rural Finland, iOS 6 Maps delivered accurate turn-by-turn directions and got me to my destination without any problems.

But my favorite way to use the new Maps app is through Siri. You can now say "Siri, take me to the ArcLight Cinema." or "Siri, where's the nearest liquor Store?" and it works!

Battery Life

As usual, your milage will vary when it comes to battery life. I’ve found that on a typical day of usage, I get around 17 hours of battery life, while on a heavy day it's closer to 12 hours. This is in and of itself a remarkable achievement given that the iPhone 5 includes the notoriously power-hungry LTE. But what I found truly remarkable was that the iPhone 5 managed to charge from dead to full in a mere 1.5 hours.

Ethics

Given everything that we now know about how Apple products are manufactured, is it wrong to buy an iPhone 5? While properly addressing this question goes beyond the scope of this review, I can no longer ignore it. Sure, Mike Daisey was caught lying to This American Life and many technology journalists who are friendly to Apple took great pleasure in his public implosion. But Mike Daisey aside, there’s a real problem here. And I’m not sure that bringing in the Fair Labor Association is sufficient.

The conditions under which Apple products are manufactured are terrible. And while there seem to have been some improvements over the past year, as consumers of these products, we are accountable on some level for what goes on at the Foxconn factories. Is it wrong to buy an iPhone 5? Yes it is. In the same way that it’s wrong to buy any product produced under harsh working conditions. And the terrible truth about the global economy that we live in is that many of the products that we consume are produced in even worse conditions than what can be found in Shenzhen. We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that this is a morally acceptable situation. So what can we do? Boycott Apple? I don’t think we’re there yet. Apple seems to be responding to public pressure. Our responsibility as ethical consumers then is to keep up the pressure and scrutiny until a real journalist can con her way into a Foxconn factory and find a morally acceptable work environment.

Wrap Up

The iPhone 5 is a remarkable piece of technology and a worthy successor to the iPhone line. While it may seem like other companies are “catching up” to Apple in the smartphone market, this is not actually the case. It is true that there are many compelling smartphones on the market and Samsung in particular seems to be doing very well for themselves.

But there’s something fundamentally different about the iPhone ecosystem that no one has been able to match since the original iPhone came on to the scene in 2007. Namely, unlike every other phone on the market(with the notable exception of the Nexus line of reference phones that very few people actualy buy), when you buy an iPhone, you are buying a device that is guaranteed to receive major functionality improvements in the form of operating system updates. This is still not the case with other smartphones. In the Android universe, for example, what you buy is what you get. The same is true in the Windows Phone world. There’s no one working behind the scenes to improve the way your phone works and the only guaranteed way to get the latest version of the various mobile operating systems is to buy a new device, or hack your old phone and pray.

This advantage that Apple enjoys means that not only will you get more out of an iPhone over its lifetime, but that when it comes time to upgrade, the device will retain much more value than its Android, or Windows Phone counterparts. My 2.5 year old iPhone 4 fetched half of what I paid for it in 2010. Granted, that’s only half of the subsidized price, but try getting any amount of money for a 2010 Android phone today.

The iPhone 5 is the best smartphone that money can buy and it is an astonishingly lovely object to behold. Unlike the New iPad, Apple didn’t need to make any compromises to achieve their vision for this product. It is light, thin, runs all day, and is so fast it just becomes whatever you need it to be. When I look back at my review of the iPhone 4, every single issue that I had with that device has been addressed over the past two years. The iPhone 5 is reportedly the last product that Steve Jobs ever worked on. What a swan song.

Physical Characteristics

The first thing you notice when you hold a new iPad in your hand is that it is slightly heavier and thicker than its predecessor, the iPad 2. The iPad has always suffered from feeling a little too heavy. When I reviewed the original model in 2010, I speculated that this impression had to do with the fact that most of the objects in our life that are iPad-sized (paper, legal pads, magazines, etc.) aren't quite so heavy. Indeed, Steve Jobs placed a lot of emphasis on how much thinner and lighter the iPad 2 was than the original iPad when he introduced the 2nd generation in 2011. And while the iPad 3 is only marginally heavier than the iPad 2, the change is noticeable. The thinking behind this atypical compromise seems to have been that a much higher capacity battery was needed to maintain the iPad's legendary battery life, while accommodating an all new and vastly improved display technology.

The new iPad (top), is slightly thicker and heavier than the iPad 2(bottom).

Retina Display

The most touted feature of the new iPad is its 2048 by 1536 pixel Retina Display. Having read all of the early reviews, I must admit that my expectations were so high that I was a little disappointed when I first laid eyes on the screen. I held it side-by-side with my original iPad and I wasn't as impressed as I imagined I would be. Nevertheless, after a day of use, there was simply no going back. In fact, with the exception of the iPhone 4/4S, this is the best quality screen that I have ever seen. The new iPad renders text so crisply that unless you're holding it right up to your nose and squinting very hard, you can't see any pixels. This makes reading on the new iPad an absolute pleasure. Not only does text look ink-like, but the screen is also slightly less reflective for daytime reading. In addition, it's possible to dim the display further than was possible on previous models making for more comfortable nighttime reading.This is also the first iPad to have a true HD screen. The best the first two generations could manage was scaled-down 720P video. The new iPad’s screen has so many pixels, that not only can it display full 1080P content, but to do so, it actually has to scale the content up to the Retina Display’s native resolution.

A crop of the crisp, new Retina Display (bottom) makes the old iPad display(top) look like it's out of focus.

Blazingly Fast Wireless Connectivity

The second most touted feature of the new iPad is the speed of its cellular data connection. Apple still offers WiFi-only iPads, but if you choose to pay $130 extra for the option of wireless data, the new iPad can access the new, super-fast LTE networks in the United States.There are two models of cellular-enabled iPads available that can take advantage of these LTE speeds: The Verizon iPad and the AT&T iPad. There is no good reason at this time to buy the AT&T iPad. Not only is Verizon's LTE coverage vastly superior, but they also have enabled the personal hotspot feature which allows you to share your iPad's LTE data connection with other Wifi-enabled devices at no extra cost (AT&T doesn't allow this feature at any price).

But as fast as LTE speeds are(in my tests, up to 3X faster than my speedy Wifi connection at home), they pose a serious dilemma. The most natural thing to want to do with a fast internet connection is stream video. Indeed, the streaming services available for the iPad have made it into the most sought after portable entertainment system on the planet. But the carriers have not increased the monthly allowances on their data plans. This means that you could potentially eat through your data plan faster using the new LTE service than you would have on the slower 3G service. To make matters worse, different video streaming services deal with data in different ways, so there's no sure way to know in advance how much data you'll be burning through with a given app. To get a better understanding of how my favorite streaming apps use cellular data, I set up a series of tests. As a baseline, I tested four applications on my home Wifi network which clocked in at 16 MBits/second down at the time of the test.

What you can see from the above results is that were the applications to treat the new LTE networks the way they treat Wifi, I would eat through a standard 3GB data plan in an absurdly short period of time. My next step was to test the same applications on AT&T's 3G network. To do this, I used my iPhone 4 in two separate locations. First, I tested it at home where I have terrible reception. For these tests, the iPhone was only able to manage a download speed of 1.2 MBits/second.

What is immediately apparent from this test, is that all of the applications are capable of dynamically changing the amount of data that they pull, based on the strength of the data connection that they detect. On a practical note, I wouldn't recommend streaming video on a 1.2 MBit 3G connection. The image was so pixelated in many cases, that it was simply not worth the hassle. For the next test, I took my iPhone 4 to a place where it had full reception and was pulling down 4.9 MBits/second.

As you can see, all of the applications sensed the higher data speeds and took advantage by pulling down more. The viewing experience was excellent, although you still wouldn't make it far on a standard data plan. So how did the applications react to my new Verizon iPad? When I set up the Verizon LTE tests, I was pulling 20 MBits/second. In the interests of full disclosure, the HBOGO app does not allow streaming of full episodes on LTE. To get around this limitation, I set up the aforementioned personal hotspot feature and tethered my original iPad to it to obtain the HBOGO result.

This test validated my fears about LTE. The image was beautiful and the video streamed flawlessly. But at these rates, it is simply not cost-effective to use the LTE connection to stream video. Now it is possible to disable the LTE on the new iPad. When you do so, the iPad will revert to the carrier's 3G network. In my case, that was Verizon's 3G network which managed to pull down 1.8 MBits/second. At that speed, these were my results:

Curiously, the applications were less conservative in their use of data on the slower Verizon 3G connection than they were on the faster AT&T 3G connection. The explanation could simply be that the applications sensed that in the latter case, the device was an iPhone and adjusted accordingly. Alternatively, it could be due to the fact that while the Verizon network is slower, it still provides more consistent data speeds. Either way, these were the results. I should mention that the video was perfectly acceptable, when using the 3G Verizon data connection, though not as nice as the video that I got over LTE.

There is no denying the speed advantages of LTE over previous generation wireless data technologies. But if you can't actually use those speeds, because the carriers make it cost-prohibitive, then the advantages remain theoretical. And while it does make surfing, email, and eBook downloads faster, the one thing you really want to use it for- streaming video-is just not possible at this time without spending an arm and a leg on overages.

Heat Issues

One of the most surprising things to me about the first iPad was that no matter what I did with it, the device never generated any heat. This was a welcome break from most modern consumer electronics, including laptops, which tend to heat up upon exertion. I'm afraid that the new iPad no longer defies the ordinary laws of consumer electronics. It must be said that for most tasks, the new iPad remained cool to the touch. However, when playing graphically intensive games, the iPad got very hot indeed. Many have dismissed this as a non-issue, but I beg to differ. As a result of the fact that the iPad is too heavy to hold in one hand, I often find myself leaning it against my belly, or on my legs. And having something that hot against your body for a few hours (playing, for example, the immersive Infinity Blade II) is simply not comfortable.

Epic Games' immersive Infinity Blade II. After an hour or so of this game, the iPad becomes very hot.

I would have dismissed my experience as non-representative, but Apple's official response to concerns about this issue reported in the media was that the new iPad operates "well within our thermal specifications."What this tells me is that heat is another one of the tradeoffs that Apple consciously made to deliver the Retina Display. It is remarkable that the new A5X processor can render four times the number of pixels required by its predecessor the A5 without any lag in performance. The tradeoff seems to be that when you push it, the A5X generates a lot of heat.

Cameras

The new iPad brings with it an updated rear-facing camera. It's a combination of the 5 megapixel sensor found in the iPhone 4 and the optics introduced in the iPhone 4S. In my tests I found that it produced still images that are a little bit better than the iPhone 4, but not quite as good as images I've seen from the iPhone 4S. Either way, I find it awkward to use the iPad as a still camera and despite the fact that it can shoot stabilized 1080P HD video, I think it's even more awkward to use it for video. The size and shape of the device just doesn't work for me when I'm shooting handheld. The screen is so large that you have to hold it at arms length to get a sense of what you're shooting and that makes it difficult to operate for longer periods of time. I almost wish that Apple had updated the front-facing camera instead, as that would make a huge difference in video conferencing apps like Skype and FaceTime. Alas, that camera remains a sub-1 megapixel dinosaur.

The New iPad as Personal Computer

With every passing year the gap between what you can do with an iPad and what you can do with a traditional personal computer shrinks. Over the past two years the iPad's operating system has matured to the point where you can do most computing tasks directly on the iPad. And for those special cases where you can't, there are 3rd party apps that fill in the gaps. Indeed, I would argue that most people can get by today with an iPad as their primary PC. With the new iPad, Apple has even included a system-wide dictation feature, which is surprisingly accurate and significantly speeds up the process of text entry(although I'd still recommend purchasing a bluetooth keyboard if you intend to make this your primary computer). There are, of course, still things that the iPad is not great at. For example, due to the immersive, full-screen experience, switching between apps has never been as simple or powerful as it is on a desktop operating system. Moreover, one of the structural elements that makes iOS such a secure platform is that it doesn't allow individual applications to communicate with each other, thereby limiting one's ability to engage in complex cross-application processes. But these are software limitations which will likely be resolved in the next update to the operating system. I ended my 2010 review with the observation that the iPad may be the future of personal computing. Looking at the landscape in 2012, I think it's safe to say that the future has arrived.

Wrap Up

In retrospect, it is clear that Apple had four goals in mind when they set about redesigning the iPad: First, to deliver the the world's greatest mobile display. Second, to keep the battery life near the 10 hour mark. Third, to maintain the same price points as previous generation iPads. And finally, to offer the option of 4G LTE speeds. In order to achieve these goals, Apple compromised in the following three ways: First, the new iPad is slightly thicker and heavier than its predecessor. Second, the A5X chip gets hotter than the A5 when pushed. Third, the storage capacities of the models have not changed, despite the fact that retina-class files take up more space. Did Apple make the right compromises? I think they did. No single element is more important to the tablet experience than the screen and the Retina Display has to be seen in person to be believed. Moreover, by compromising ever so slightly on thickness and weight, they were able to provide a battery that, in my tests, still lasts all day. Will future models be thinner and lighter than the current model? Undoubtedly. But the new iPad represents the best that Apple could achieve today without compromising on the principles that make the iPad experience so compelling.

The vexing LTE situation, on the other hand, is a little like having a Ferrari that you are only allowed to take on the highway for 30 miles every month. I've heard rumors that some of the streaming video services may actually start subsidizing the use of their apps by paying the carriers, so that the data streamed from them would not count against customers' data plans. This sounds great until you realize that it would compromise the neutrality of the internet. Independent producers who cannot afford to pay such subsidies would, under such an arrangement, be at a structural disadvantage. Whether or not this rumor proves true, I remain (irrationally?) optimistic that the carriers will come to their senses and increase data allowances once their networks are built out. The only question left, is whether anyone will have a real answer to the iPad before Apple crosses the inevitable 100,000,000 unit sales mark later this year. 

Note: Special thanks to Aryeh Cohen for the use of his iPad 2 during the composition of this review.

When the Final Cut apocalypse hit, I was an independent filmmaker working in LA. Many friends and colleagues would soon jump ship and go over to Premiere, or Avid, but I was curious about Final Cut Pro X. It’s not that I was any less upset than the rest of the Final Cut Pro community. I too had seen the tools that I used for the better part of a decade killed in one fell swoop. But I was in denial and I ponied up the $300 to start exploring Apple’s latest non-linear editing application. What became immediately apparent to me was that our friends in Cupertino had decided to completely rethink non-linear video editing.

I liked what I saw and I decided to take FCPX out for a spin. For three years now, I’ve been working on a documentary film about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As part of that project, we collected 500 street interviews: 250 in Israel and 250 in the Palestinian territories. During the summer of 2011, I tabulated the data from the Israeli side and wrote a 2200 word report based on the results. What I needed, at the time, was a video to accompany the written report. This seemed like the perfect project with which to test out the new Final Cut. I challenged myself to do everything from editing and sound mixing, to titles and color correction inside of FCPX.

At first, things seemed to be going really well. While I had to unlearn some old muscle memory (no more Shift-Delete!), the logic of the new paradigm made sense to me. Nevertheless, the overall performance of the application left something to be desired. I work on a 2.8 GHZ Quad Core i7 iMac with 8GB of RAM and for some reason, FCPX didn’t feel as snappy as FCP6 on the same system. When it came to subtitles, working in FCPX was actually a breath of fresh air. It was really nice to be able to work inside a unified interface without any round-tripping and it did save me time. But there was a glitch in the application and every time I closed FCPX, the tracking of the subtitles would get screwed up. I ended up finishing the video, but the process of making it was incredibly frustrating. I had moved to anger.