My new 3rd generation iPad arrived on Friday the 16th and I immediately restored the backed up information from my iPad 2 to the new iPad (3) through iCloud. It didn’t take long to restore before it became functional but then it took quite a few more hours to restore all my apps, data, pictures, music and videos. This is a 64gb version, as was my iPad 2.There are several things that stand out immediately on this new device. First the screen is incredible to view, everything is crisp and clear, even some of the iPhone apps that I was using in 2X mode, looked great.

The most impressive feature is the new 4G LTE Broadband data service. I’m on AT&T and fortunate for us, we have a cell phone tower on our warehouse property, but I still did not expect to get 22mb download and 8mb upload speeds, incredibly fast. I’ve been testing it around our area and there are some weak spots, just like we had with 3G. Stands to reason, since the LTE service uses the same, but updated cell phone towers. The slowest download speed I got anywhere was 2mb, still not too shabby. I really like the dictation option which is available in quite a number of Apps, like Notes, Pages, Numbers and others. Having Siri on the iPad would have been nice, but for now, since I don’t have a choice, I’ll settle for dictation.

I did notice that the 3rd generation iPad does get warm, not really hot, but pleasantly warm. This is especially noticeable when running videos. Once again I think the media is over playing this part of the iPad.

At the same time that Apple released the 3rd generation iPad, they also release an update to iOS with 5.1 and with it, they released iMovie and iPhoto Apps. These are great Apps for photo and movie editing directly on the iPad. These two Apps complete the iWorks group of products with Pages, Numbers, Keynote and Garageband.  Even though Apple greatly enhanced the cameras in the new iPad, I just don’t see myself taking too many pictures or videos with it. However for those time where you are looking for instant feedback these cameras work great. I recently took a couple of golf lessons and the instructor used his iPad 2 to record my swing in a special App and used that video to show me what I was doing wrong (everything). The cameras do work well in both FaceTime and Skype.

As it was the iPad I received did not properly charge and this past Wednesday evening I made the tip to the Apple store in Cerritos, CA and one of their Geniuses discovered that indeed, my iPad was defective and with no hassle replaced it. Then back to the restore and recovery of everything I had already done a few days before. The point in this is that with the Apple store, I had an immediate remedy with someone experienced to take care of my problem. Off-course as it always is with a trip to the Apple store, I couldn’t resist buying one of the new Apple TV units with 1080P, but that’s another story.