Give it up, the actual temperature of the new iPad doesn’t matter

The new iPad heat debate continues to rage on today as journalists compare the temperatures of the new iPad to a number of Android tablets on the market. The folks over at Macworld PC World compared the new iPad’s temperature to the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime and the LTE Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1:

The new iPad was not dramatically warmer than either the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime or the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE, even though its battery has a substantially higher milliampere-per-hour (mAh) rating than theirs do (11666mAh for the new iPad, versus 7000mAh for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 6930mAh for the Transformer Prime).

Here’s the thing. The Apple press has claimed repeatedly that there’s no Android tablet that’s comparable to the iPad. And yet here they are, comparing the new iPad to Android tablets. This is completely asinine. Do not discount competing tablets in one breath, and then roll them out to help make a point when it benefits you. It’s pathetic. The simple fact of the matter is the new iPad runs warmer than the old iPad. Let’s compare Apples to Apple, and leave the Oranges out of the equation altogether. From the iPad 2 to the new iPad (3rd generation), there’s a temperature difference for some. End of story.

Not all new iPads are created equally, with certain parts coming from multiple suppliers. This simple fact would explain why some iPads are running warmer than others in a non-scientific way. Unless someone’s willing to purchase a thousand iPads from a thousand different stores around the globe and then test the temperature differentials, measuring the temperatures of one iPad makes no sense. The results are basically a needle in a haystack. So congratualtions, your one iPad doesn’t exhibit what countless others are exhibiting. That just means you’re not one of the few who are, so stop pretending like this crap is being made up.

Also, environmentally speaking, these numbers that are being reported in different publications all lack one thing in common — location. If you’re measuring the temperature of one iPad at the North Pole, and then another at the Equator, chances are you’re going to get two different readings. That’s because the external temperatures affects how warm the device actually gets. Again, not rocket science. Unless all these journalists get into a room, test all these iPads in the same situation, and remove the varience from one journalist’s house to another, there are too many environmental factors and variables to compare my iPad to someone else’s across the globe.

Relationally speaking, my new iPad (the third generation) runs hotter than my iPad 2. It’s pretty noticable. The actual temperature doesn’t matter. What matters is that in my environment, with my devices, there’s a discernable increase in temperature between the two devices. It could be from 60 degrees to 70 degrees, or 90 degrees to a hundered, but it doesn’t matter becasuse there’s an increase in termperature that’s noticeable. That will be the same for everyone, no matter where you are, because your environment remains constant. This is why I don’t care when a blogger on the east coast of the US says there’s no temperature difference between the devices, or when someone in the middle of Dubai claims that their device is boiling water under the noon sun in the middle of the summer. Is your device running hotter than your last one? That’s all that matters.

Finally, I don’t buy the “it runs hotter because it’s more powerful” argument from the apologist bloggers. Here’s a simple fact. My MacBook Air, which absolutely has more power under the hood than my new iPad, does not get as warm as my new iPad. Again, the fact is simple: for some, the new iPad runs hotter than the iPad 2. The argument really ends there.

That’s all I have to say about this heatgate. The new iPad certainly runs warmer than the iPad 2. The new iPad doesn’t get warm enough for me to get concerned. Heck, my iPhone runs hotter while I’m tethering my connection to my laptop.

Can we please just stop the crying about new iPad temperatures? If your new iPad is running warmer than you would like, take the damn thing back.

Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld and TechHive.