As much as I love my MacBook Pro, I love my iPad even more... at least for portability and for travel. If I could only take one device with me on a trip, it would be my iPad. It's got a gorgeous display, a long-lasting battery, WiFI and LTE wireless connectivity options, tight integration with the rest of the "iEcosystem" (apps, multimedia, etc), and many other features that make it nearly a perfect device. There are, however, a few things I would like to see added to the next generation iPad to make it the perfect tablet.
Retina Display
First and foremost, I would happily trade in my full-sized iPad with Retina for an iPad mini if it had a Retina display. I spend a lot of time remotely connecting to various servers and client computers for support, maintenance, etc, and the extra pixel density really makes a difference on my eyes.
Touch ID
Now that the iPhone 5s is out in the wild, we've all had a chance to use Touch ID. To be honest, I was a little (just a little) skeptical that it would work as well as I wanted it to work. After spending the first 5 minutes with it trying to make it fail, I was very impressed. Not only was it solid, but it has a ton of potential (especially in business applications). Currently, it's only good for unlocking the device and purchasing content from Apple's online stores, but given the right circumstances, it could be used for a whole host of other eCommerce and security solutions. I already miss not having it on my iPad. To me, having Touch ID on the next generation iPad is a must.
Larger Capacity
When I purchased my first laptop in 1996, it had a 700 MB hard drive. I remember thinking I could never fill that. Today, my primary MacBook Pro has a 500 GB SSD, and I am constantly bumping against that limit. I also have a 6 TB Drobo for archival storage, and that's filling up too. Given that, it's no surprise that I'm running into similar capacity issues with my 64 GB iPad. 128 GB would be nice, but 256 GB would be awesome! Flash memory, after all, is getting cheaper (thanks in large part to Apple's push in that direction).
Good Vibrations
Most of the time, I have the silent switch enabled on my iPad (to eliminate keyboard taps and the constant barrage of audible new email and message notifications). It's my personal preference. I have the same thing on my iPhone. The difference is that my iPhone has an internal vibration mechanism that activates each time the device would normally make a system sound (new text, email, etc). Because the iPad doesn't have that, and I'm usually not staring at my Mail app, I tend to miss out on new email and messages as they arrive. Having this would be really convenient.
Add these four features to the next iPad and iPad mini, and for me, it would be the perfect tablet (at least for now).
What are your thoughts? What would you like to see on the next iPad? Comment below.
