iPad 2 announced on apple.com

Double the power, two thirds the thickness, same price is not much of an upgrade?

 

What'd you expect?

Edited by marvin - 3/2/11 at 2:12pm

Decent upgrades. Thinner, lighter, proper zippy dual-core processor, nine times the graphics performance, 1080p HDMI video output... all with the SAME battery life and price tag as the first iPad (with the battery probably making up most of the weight of the thing), FaceTime cameras... and probably a serious software upgrade in iOS 5 come June. Nothing spectacular but then it didn't have to be, they have a product that is selling VERY well and will probably now sell even more, especially given the poor competition so far. Those smart-covers are kinda cool, although the non-leather ones look a bit cheap.

 

The lack of a higher res screen is a slight bummer, but it's not like your average consumer will notice/care. It's an acceptable res for it's size and the LED IPS display is still higher quality than say, the Xoom's screen.

Edited by Somnambulist - 3/2/11 at 4:32pm

I wouldn't put much stock in those rumors, just like I wouldn't put much stock in Engadget's claim that the retina display and SD card were removed because of "last minute engineering issues". Major design changes like that don't happen a month out from product launch. Plus it reeks of CYA given that Engadget was the major driver behind the retina display rumors in the first place.

I lol'd at their promo video.  The whole "you don't even have to be a musician, you just start tapping away and you're playing music" line really got me.  I mean, I can sit at a piano and start tapping away and I'm playing random notes, but put an ipad 2 in my hands and now I'm playing music!  Truly revolutionary bit of technology.  

 

I really don't mean to sound like an Apple hater, I'm not, but geez, could you turn down the rhetoric a bit?  People will still queue up weeks in advance to buy your latest gadget without all the hyperbole. Thanks. 

 

On a different note, I'm totally an idiot for not having already purchased Florence + The Machine's album.  Thank you, Apple, for reminding me of this fact.  

The real story here is that you can get a refurb iPad1 for $350 now. My guess is that a steady stream of those will be available for several months.

Utter death to competing tablets. The Galaxy Tab is $500 without a contract and the Xoom is $800.

Where's the "Apple is too expensive!" chorus?

Like the iPod, Apple is competing hard on price and might corner this market before serious alternatives emerge.

As for the iPad2, it's a nice piece of hardware. But I'm on the fence about upgrading. The original iPad meets my needs and I think it's plenty fast. I might buy the iPad2 since I'd love to pass mine along to relatives. Though I'm thinking about buying a 64GB 3G refurb instead (I have a 32GB model) and the extra memory would be more useful to me.

I think a Retina Display will come in the next generation. From what I've read, no one is able to make millions of screens yet. But it'll come, sooner or later and I will absolutely buy one. The iPhone4's screen has me spoiled.

Well, the camera is one of the two feature I really want. The other is 128 gb memory. I guess I'll wait for ver. 3 or 4 for the 128 gb ver. For now, my 3rd gen iPod touch still fulfill my need. I hope they release the 128 gb iPod touch next fall. I love the white iPad. I hope they implement it across the board, especially to MBP line up. I hate current unibody MBP color scheme which make me delaying my macbook upgrade.

Edited by RYCeT - 3/2/11 at 9:38pm

I'll step up and buy one if it will make a decent streaming music server.

Something on par with flac, not MP3 or whatever the low end stuff is for apple.

They got an app for that, right? iTunes? With an accessory dongle maybe?

Something tells me nope, not yet....

Airtunes always streamed ALAC lossless from what I remember.  I just hope the iPad 2 can send out better than 24/48 over USB this time.

 

I've waited patiently for the update now, so one of these will replace (with any luck): My music player, email client, half my education tools for class, car navigation, XBox 360 and wife's computer. To do that with separate components would cost in the order of 4x its price.

I've heard of Airtunes, but how do I get the lossless into my DAC?

I'm using USB or optical at the moment from a PC.

Airtunes is used with, say, an Airport Express which has optical digital output.

Thanks, I've read about the express, but it wasnt made clear as to it's output.

Yeah, people have been using AirPort expresses as part of a digital server for ages. I'm only doing Mac (w/Drobo or some such connected) > toslink optical to DAC > active monitors, but if I get a decent home theater set up, I'd add an Airport Express and then if I wanted less of a nearfield experience I could just sent it from the Mac to that, into the DAC, receiver and floorstanders in stereo mode. One of the cool things about Macs as well is your lossless is output bit-perfect unless you add EQ effects in iTunes. So even with an iPad, when your ALAC files are sent to the AE, it doesn't tamper with them and just outputs them to your DAC bit-for-bit.