Behold, it is the Apple iPad 2!
I’m not sure, was the Apple iPad 2 announced yesterday? Jokes – I was up at 5am Sydney time to catch Engadget’s liveblog, and then had to wade through the squillions of subsequent tweets and stories about it. Okayyy, there’s a new iPad, we get it!
I agree with most of the other commentators that it’s really more of an iPad 1.5 than a 2 – refining what’s already there rather than offering anything radically new. Faster dual-processor, better graphics, thinner, lighter, and now with front and back cameras and available in black or white. I’m not too fussed about the new cameras, as I’ve never used FaceTime on my iPhone 4, hardly ever use the rear camera for photos or video (I prefer to use dedicated cameras for that). Nor are the performance improvements all that interesting. I guess the main thing I like about it is that it’s lighter. Enough to warrant me buying one when they’re released in Australia on March 25? Nah. I’m sure I’ll want to, but with my finances the way they are at the moment, I really can’t justify it.
The iPad 2 is a nice evolutionary update, but it doesn’t have the things that I wanted, which was a memory card slot, more internal storage, and a USB OTG port for connecting accessories and flash drives. I would’ve loved to have seen iOS 5 as well, with an overhaul to the homescreen to make better use of all that space – I think the iPad looks mega dorky using the same icon-based interface that the iPhone uses. Where are my widgets and custom shortcuts? Especially now that the iPad 2 would be able to easily support it with its enhanced processor and graphics engine. I think I’ll save my money for one of the upcoming Honeycomb Android tablets – probably the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
