One drawback, according to Mossberg: "One thing Apple hasn't fixed: like all glossy, LCD color displays, this one still does poorly in direct sunlight."

User experience: polished

Nguyen's observation about Apple's high-def app updating is part of the company's obsessive focus on the "user experience," a term that lacks any scientific meaning but something that users know when they experience it.

"User experience is where the new iPad really shines," Nguyen says. "Apple's holistic ecosystem has not only its own native apps but a legion of devoted third-party developers pushing out software that must pass stringent usability testing. It's a recipe for polish and consistency when you first pick the iPad up, as well as longevity as you explore the 200,000+ iPad apps, periodicals, books and multimedia content on offer."

"What is changed — and what is unchanged — in this newest iteration of the iPad reveals Apple's priorities," Gruber comments. "Most important: how things look on screen, how they feel, how smoothly they animate. Not important: a faster CPU. Important: faster graphics. (Those last two priorities emphasize the hole that Intel has dug itself. Their expertise — CPUs — is no longer the most important processing bottleneck for personal computing. Graphics are.)"