GeekSLP “iPad 3” adventure and thoughts for speech therapy

Yet again it is almost Christmas Day for me. March 16^th, 2012 is the day I will grab a nice chair, my iPad 2 and wait for the delivery of my new iPad model (or call it the 3^rd generation of iPads). This time instead of waiting in line like I did last year, I will receive my iPad at home. Still I have to confess that if Santa’s

delivery truck arrives at my house early enough, I may still go to the Apple store line just to have some fun. I had quite an experience last year.

Now, here is a visual description for you:

Imagine a person walks into a Best Buy to buy speakers and realizes that the new iPad is on a “pre-order now” status. She sits on the floors in the middle of the

store, turns on the iPad 2 in order to buy the new iPad while the sales people walk by asking “mam, do you need anything?”, while she answers “Yes! An iPad 3, ordering now thanks!”. That was ME yesterday! I really wish I had added “ can you take a photo of me purchasing my new iPad?”. Too bad I did not, so no photos this time.

In case you are wondering which model I ordered, I ordered the 64G white At&t model. I am such an “appoholic” that I was afraid that the rumors of no 64G iPad was true.

I am currently attending the Texas Speech and Hearing convention and I have had several people ask me if it was worth grabbing the new iPad or if they should stick with what they have. In order to answer that answer in a more concise manner I would need to already have the new model on my hands, since I do not, I will try to put out some thoughts here.

First thing you may want to know is that the iPad 2 is now cheaper so if you are looking for a more economical way to integrate the iPad on to your therapy sessions, this may be a good way to start. Now, to the new iPad: Physically nothing much has changed from the iPad 2. What is new? It has a superlative Retina Display, which puts your HD set up at home to the test, it has an A5X processor that improves speed and a much needed camera improvement. While to me the changes from the 1^st generation of iPads to the 2^nd were quite important for therapy, especially with the added front camera, I am not yet convinced this model makes quite that kind of a difference if you are not a “geekslp”.

The feature I am most excited about is the “speech to text” capability, a feature that I already enjoy A LOT, on my iPhone 4S and I am sure it does open the doors for great app development for individuals with a disability. That said, to quote my grandfather-in-law “the proof of the pudding is in the tasting” and you will have to wait for March 16, to find out; not to worry though, you can bet this blog post will have a GeekSLP sequel.