The iPad 2 looks like it’s going to make a big splash already. Lighter, thinner, and faster than the current iPad, sporting video cameras in the front and back for FaceTime, it’s going to become the new “I want it” gadget of 2011. (The video of Jobs’s presentation is now on-line, if you feel like your life lacks a little of that trademark Steve Jobs reality distortion field.)
Except for the cameras, most of the changes are incremental in nature, as one might expect from a second-generation model. Apple has had plenty of time to work out what does and doesn’t work so they can improve the things that do and fix the things that don’t.
Not everybody’s happy about it, though. At TechCrunch, Matt Burns pointed out a number of features still lacking with this model (some of which it was rumored to have)—higher-definition display, for instance, and an SD card slot. There’s also no wireless sync ability, and Burns would have liked to have Gorilla Glass on it as is on the Galaxy Tab.
Still, this iPad is coming in at exactly the same price as last year’s model, and that model has fallen to $399 (or $349 for a refurb) for the basic 16 gig unit. (If you’re just wanting to use it for basic reading, that’s really all you need.) And even though the new one has twice the speed, it’s still going to have the same 10 hour battery life.
In other news, OS 4.3 is also coming soon, including improved Safari performance, a return of the screen lock switch on the iPad, and a personal wifi hotspot for the iPhone 4 (too bad about those unlimited bandwidth 3G plans, AT&T).
From what I’ve heard about it, I think it would be neat to have, but I’m not exactly going to cry that I don’t have one, nor am I going to start saving up for one (especially given Apple’s newly-revealed adversarial stance toward its e-book-selling competitors). It is, as I said, mostly an incremental improvement, but still head and shoulders above anything Apple’s competitors have yet managed to field.
Pity about the company’s in-app subscription policy, though.
Chris, is it really “head and shoulders above anything Apple’s competitors have yet managed to field”? Motorola’s Xoom looks to me to be head and shoulders above the iPad except for the thinness. If what you mean is that it is “head and shoulders above anything Apple’s competitors have yet managed to field” at $399, then maybe — but I guess it depends on what you want to accomplish with the device.
Is the Xoom even for sale yet? I could swear it was no where near 499 for a base model.
The Galaxy Tab is out but no one wants to talk about that one.
Head and shoulders above anything in the pipeline from any of it’s competitors and calling it incremental just shows how revolutionary the first model was. It’s natural and eBook fanatics will shun it because of the publishing confusion, but I doubt that will slow it’s sales. My iPad 1 will go to my son and I will be ordering asap.
Teddypig,
It’s $600 with a 2-yr data plan at about $20 for 1 gig a month and $30 for 5 (something like that).
This is with 32 Gigs of memory and 3G.
Reactions to this seem to be falling along party lines with the people who believed the more outlandish and unsupported rumors being the most to declare it a dud.
Favorite quote so far from Andy Ihnatko ( admittedly on the pro-iPad 2 side of the fence )