Let's all recap of what's going on here.
So Apple announced what is essentially and iPad 3S with a new Wireless Antenna (remedies the wireless issues shown with the iPad 3), an A6X processor, minor improvements to the camera, and added the new Lightning Connector.
Most of you are mad at Apple for announcing a new iPad so soon after the iPad 3 was announced, as was I for a short time. Let's take a look at why this upgrade in iPad won't really matter.
-Wireless Antenna: Unless you honestly have issues with your iPad's wireless, which I have experienced through lower signal strength, there's no real difference in performance here. Speed increase will be hardly noticable, and it's not going to cause developers to drop support for the iPad 3, the best selling iPad yet.
-A6X: Developers have had some issue changing their games to reach the great resolution of the Retina Display, and some had to remove finer details and background graphics in games to make the gameplay smooth and acceptable. But as the iPad 3 is the best selling iPad of all iPads as of this date, there's no way that developers will drop support of it for at least 2 major updates to iOS, which would be 2 years.
-Camera: The cameras found in tablets are shockingly bad in comparison to the ones found in smartphones, and this won't change with the slightly updated camera in the iPad 4, no worries here.
-Lightning Connector: There's still thousands of 30-pin Connector accessories, and most will be on sale soon. Apple needed to spur accessory makers to hurry up production of Lightning Accessories for the upcoming holiday season, and how else other than to upgrade what will probably be one of the top selling holiday season gifts of 2012?
-Holiday Season: Q4 is a great time for Apple to start announcing new iPhones, iPods, and iPads because of the great holiday season that always shows record breaking sales and profits for many companies. Now, just imagine the millions of people that would have received an iPad 3rd Generation as a gift, only to have it obsolete shortly after? This spurs repeated anger toward Apple, and it's best they take the blow for doing it once rather than once a year.
-Strong Competition: With tablets like the Nexus 7, Kindle Fire, Microsoft Surface, and other Windows 8 Tablets, Apple has to keep it's feature set strong and up to date to keep competing to offer the best product for the consumer.
Now that we've looked at why it'll be ok, let's add a little more reasoning as to why it'll all be fine. The hardware in the iPad 3 is essentially what is found in the iPad 2 and what will be found in the iPad Mini, which are continuing to be sold. This is great news for owners of all those devices, including iPhone 4S owners. Developers see the huge potential in developing for the A5 and A6 platforms, and will continue to do so.
There's no need to worry, your iPad 3 will still perform just as well as the iPad 3S/4 and it'll still run as great as the day you bought it.
If you bought the iPad 3 within 30 days, there's a pretty good chance your local Apple Retail Store will exchange the iPad for the newer version.
-HuskieN