It’s just a matter of course for any new Apple product to be vivisected down to its very bolts and each part catalogued by the Internet’s gadget coroners, but no one does a better job at it than the boys over at iFixIt, who have already torn down the iPad 3G.
So what are the big differences? As Leander mentioned, the biggest immediate difference is a new black plastic RF window on the top of the iPad, which helps the iPad get better reception. Inside the iPad, though, there are now five antennas… with Apple using the whole LCD frame as one huge antenna.
Apple’s 3G baseband processor is the same as in the iPhone 3Gs: the Infineon 337S3754 PMB 8878 X-Gold IC. Additionally, the GPS is supplied by Broadcom: namely, the Broadcom BCM4750UBG Single-Chip AGPS Solution.
As a layman, the biggest news is that Apple’s now using the whole LCD frame as an antenna. Are you guys feeling that substantially improves the iPad 3G’s reception?
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
