The Apple staff was quick to rattle off 4G, better camera, dictation, and, of course, the Retina display. But the improved camera and dictation was of little interest to the buyers I stood next to. 4G was important to a few but not material for others.
But, ah, that new display. Everybody was obsessing about that. That glorious, pixel-packing, eye-popping screen.
Too bad most of the people--again, this just an infinitesimally small sample of people standing at the same table during the couple of hours I was there--could not see the difference.
They squinted at text, flipped through photos, and scrolled up and down Web sites. And the refrain became predictable: "Hey, I still really can't see any difference." Or bottom-liners would just say something to the effect of: "No diff, man." (The latter group were typically at the store very briefly and seemed to quickly decide that they weren't interested.)
But the clear majority of customers were obviously searching for reasons to buy. And I chimed in on occasion, laying out what I believed was a critical difference. "See, the text is more resolved, less pixelated on the new iPad." And indeed it is (again, see photos). My commentary seemed to have little effect, though.
"Yeah, I kind of see what you mean," was the tone of most responses. (Translation: "OK, the text is a little prettier. So what?")
But wait. They bought the thing anyway! I witnessed one guy whip out $900 in cash (all twenties) after asking a few hasty (and very untechie) questions about the screen. Others were not quite as impulsive but were close.
Almost to a person these people did not seem to be tech savvy. They didn't come into the store with notions dancing in their heads about Retina Displays, pixelation, quad-core graphics, or LTE vs. HSPA+.
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