Announced a year after its predecessor, the “iPad 2” promises to be sleeker, faster, and extremely powerful.
For a few weeks now there’s been talks of Apple’s iPad announcement today, and now we can all rest easy because the next generation iPad was announced today in San Francisco. Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was on a leave of absence, took the stage in front of an eager and expectant crowd to reveal what is dubbed as the “iPad 2”.
For the same price as the original iPad, buyers can get a thinner, lighter device that comes loaded with a plethora of features. Good things come in two for this bad boy, with dual cameras and dual processors the “iPad 2” promises to be twice as fast with almost half the weight. Add a personal hotspot option, major functionality upgrades, an HDMI out, the new “Smart Cover” which wake the iPad when opened and turn it off when closed, new apps (GarageBand and iMovie) and you have yourself a very worthy tablet. The “iPad 2” will be launched in its signature black color as well as a new, fancier white model and it will be available on both AT&T and Verizon.
In terms of the technical specifications, the device is 9.5 inches high, 7.3 inches wide, and 0.34 inches deep. And it weighs just 1.33 pounds. The device comes in three storage sizes for both the Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi +3G models: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB. And the rear camera is 720P and the front camera is “VGA-quality” suitable for video and still photography.
The iPad 2 will also get some new features thanks to the latest release of the operating system, iOS 4.3. This upgrade brings a few new features like AirPlay support for apps that will include photo slideshows and porting audio from apps to other devices. Safari performance will be improved. This upgrade also adds the personal hot-spot feature that was introduced for Verizon iPhone owners. Other major tweaks include a software option to adjust whether the switch on the iPad is used to mute the volume, or lock the screen orientation, functionality Apple had changed after the iPad had been released.
The “iPad 2” will go on sale here in the U.S. on March 11 for the starting price of $499 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only version . The 3G version of the 16GB iPad is $629. Apple will begin shipping the iPad 2 internationally to 26 countries starting March 25.
