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It is one of the most bizarre - and for many, infuriating - product releases in recent years. During the October unveiling of the iPad mini, Apple also chose to reveal an upgrade to its existing third-gen tablet, replacing it after just seven months with a newer slate boasting a significant performance bump. While iPad 2 continued to be offered to the public, its successor was quietly discontinued - a swift and embarrassing end to a product that Apple described as its most successful tablet launch ever. And yet the fourth generation tablet didn't receive much of a marketing push from Apple, with almost all of the focus centring on the mini.It's not really surprising. Even internally, the iPad 4 is clearly considered to be nothing more than a revision of the existing third-gen slate. Last year's iPad 2 update - which saw the inclusion of a more power efficient 32nm processor - was internally designated the "iPad 2,4". This new tablet follows in its wake, carrying the name "iPad 3,4" and yet there's clearly much more going on here in addition to a die-shrunk processor: the A5X, proven to be inadequate for cutting-edge 3D games at Retina resolutions, is replaced with the A6X, offering 2x the raw processing ability, according to Apple.
It's the kind of leap in performance that Apple usually reserves for a next-gen update (see the transition from iPhone 4S to iPhone 5) and it puts the company's launch strategy under the microscope - resulting in some not-so-flattering conclusions for a firm that built its reputation on creating products that put the users first.
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