Technologizer

The Last Word on iPad Predictions (Yours!)

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Harry McCracken / TIME.com

Less than 12 hours from now, this post will be obsolete. Apple’s iPad event will be well underway, and all speculation about the company’s news–the speculation that began the moment the iPad 2 was announced last year–will abruptly end. (I’ll be in the audience liveblogging the news at time.com/ipad3.)

Which means that time’s a wastin’ to report on the results of our predict-a-survey, in which I asked you to tell me the details of what Apple will be announcing at its event.

Exactly 1,600 of you took the survey, and as always, the rules here are simple and completely unscientific:

  • For questions for which I only let you pick one answer (such as “What will the new iPad be called?”), the answer that received a plurality of the responses is our official prediction.
  • For questions for which I let you pick multiple answers (such as “what other new features will it have?”), any answer that received votes from at least 50% of you is an official prediction.

So here’s what we think we know about the next iPad:

  • It’ll have a 2048-by-1536 (“retina”) display. (85% of you think so.)
  • It’ll have a quad-core processor (68%)
  • It’ll have 1GB of RAM, double that in the iPad 2 (79%)
  • It’ll have a maximum of 64GB of storage, like the iPad 2 (59%)
  • It’ll be available with LTE 4G broadband (58%)
  • In the U.S., it’ll be available on AT&T (91%), Verizon Wireless (84%) and Sprint (59%)
  • It”ll have a home button (77%)
  • It’ll have Siri (86%)
  • It’ll have higher-resolution cameras (86%)
  • It’ll be thicker than the iPad 2 (41%)
  • It’ll weigh 1.33 pounds, the same as the iPad 2 (47%)
  • It’ll have a quoted battery life of 10 hours, like the iPad 2 (49%)
  • It’ll be called the iPad 3 (72% of you say so–21% of you say it will be called the iPad HD, which is the last-minute conventional wisdom)
  • It’ll be available within two weeks (35%)
  • The iPad 2 will stay on the market (88%)
  • Apple will also announce a new Apple TV (62%)
  • Tim Cook will be the principal presenter (75%)

Other (seemingly serious) predictions made by at least one of you:

  • Microsoft Office for the iPad will be announced
  • Woz will be a special guest at the event
  • iOS 5.1 will be announced and there will be a developer preview of iOS 6
  • The dock connector will move to the side
  • iTunes, the iTunes Store and the App Store will be completely revamped
  • The iPad 2 price will be cut by $50
  • An 8GB version of the iPad 2 will cost $259

I only have two predictions of my own:

  • Overall, your predictions will look pretty good. (Remember, you’re competing with pros whose prognostications have included stuff like the new iPad being announced last January at Macworld.)
  • At least one bit of news will be at least slightly surprising.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this. After Apple’s event ends, I’ll report back one more time, and will repair the facts we learn with the guesses you made.