Technologizer

The Bottom Line on Your New iPad Predictions

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Reuters

Phil Schiller at Apple's iPad event

Once again, as a new Apple product announcement was imminent, I asked you to make collaborative predictions about it by taking a survey. Sixteen-hundred of you took up the challenge. Now that we know what the new iPad is like, it’s time to score your guesses.

Resolution

Reality: 2048-by-1536 (85% of respondents)

Your prediction: 2048-by-1536

Processor

Your prediction: quad-core (68%)

Reality: a dual-core processor, but with “quad-core graphics”

RAM

Your prediction: 1GB (79%)

Reality: Apple didn’t say, but 1GB, according to The Verge’s Bryan Bishop

Storage

Your prediction: 64GB (59%)

Reality: 64GB

Broadband

Your prediction: LTE 4G (58%)

Reality: LTE 4G

U.S. Carriers

Your prediction: AT&T (91%), Verizon Wireless (84%), Sprint (59%)

Reality: AT&T and Verizon, as before, but not Sprint

Home Button

Your prediction: it’ll have one (77%)

Reality: it does

Siri

Your prediction: it’ll have it (86%)

Reality: it doesn’t — but it does have voice dictation

Cameras

Your prediction: at least one them will be higher-res (86%)

Reality: the rear one is

Thickness

Your prediction: it’ll be thicker than the iPad 2 (41%)

Reality: at .37″, up from .34″, it is

Weight

Your prediction: it’ll weigh the same as the iPad 2 (47%)

Reality: it weights 1.44 pounds, up from 1.33 pounds

Battery Life

Your prediction: It’ll run up to 10 hours (49%)

Reality: Apple says it does (for 3G; for 4G, it goes for 9 hours)

Name

Your prediction: iPad 3 (72%)

Reality: “The New iPad” or simply “iPad” (two of you predicted this — maybe Tim Cook and Phil Schiller took the survey?)

Availability

Your prediction: within two weeks (35%)

Reality: on March 16th — which is, indeed, within two weeks

iPad 2 Fate

Your prediction: it’ll stay on the market (88%)

Reality: it will

Apple TV

Your prediction: Apple will announce a new one (62%)

Reality: it did

Presenter

Your prediction: Tim Cook will preside

Reality: he did

By my count, that’s 12 facts you got right, and two you got wrong. And for three — processor, carriers, Siri — I think you deserve partial credit. Not bad!

How did you manage to figure out most of the major points? Seems to me it’s pretty straightforward. Collectively, you read most of the pre-announcement scuttlebutt, knew the key rumors and could tell the difference between the plausible ones and the ones that just didn’t sound right.

Anyhow, thank you and congratulations. Let’s do this again for the next iPhone, shall we?

Rebecca Greenfield of The Atlantic, incidentally, rated the rumormongering of major blogs. By her accounting, The Verge was most accurate and Ars Technica was most off-base.

(MORE: Check out Techland’s coverage of the new iPad)