Another wonderful cross post from the glorious uTest blog:
There are only two kinds of people who aren’t following the iPad 2 saga with every waking moment – luddites and first gen iPad owners. I fall into the second category.
Before we get into the iPad 2 details, a quick rant if I may. Apple has long been criticized (yes, that’s an Oatmeal link) for having little loyalty to early adopters. Price drops, product launches, and planned obsolescence are often called as being pre-set in a manner in which to capitalize profits at the benefit of the company. Last I checked Apple is a for-profit company. As an advertiser I envy the customer loyalty that Apple has built that is able to create such a premium for early adopters.
The biggest problem with the common conspiracy theory that Apple is intentionally delaying features in products is that Google is making a huge dent in Apple’s smart phone market share. Apple wouldn’t allow that if they had the pipeline – or ability – to crank out products faster. I’d love to continue this debate in the comments section below – but for now, I digress.
There’s a lot of news articles claiming today is the iPad 2 release day. To be perfectly clear, today is the announcement from Apple but iPad 2’s won’t be available for purchase until next week.
So what’s different about the iPad 2?
- Front and rear cameras (I can’t imagine using my iPad as a giant, awkward camera)
- Thinner and lighter (Ok, the weight is a bit of a complaint for me, especially compared with my wife’s Kindle)
- Faster processor (Always nice, but apps like TweetDeck seem to have more stability problems than anything else)
- Expanded MobileMe capability (I don’t use MobileMe but always love cloud computing. Side note, the service is expected to be free.)
Need More Cowbell iPad 2?
- Pictures of Apple setting the stage for the iPad 2 event.
- 100+ news articles in the past 24 hours on Apple’s iPad 2
- We’ve also blogged pretty heavily about everything iPad, including app testing if you’re looking for more detail.
Will I be upgrading? No. Should you run out and buy the iPad 2? Well, unless you’re looking to pickup more uTest projects (and we have a lot in the pipeline), probably not. According to VentureBeat, an Apple insider said that the iPad 3 (yes, three!) is set to launch later in 2011 and the iPad 3 is the model to get excited about.
