Last year when Apple first announced the iPad I blogged my initial reaction to the product. After a year and having had several opportunities to use the iPad for various lengths of time, some of my options have changed with time.
Last week Apple announced the iPad2 and I have some quick initial thoughts from seeing the keynote and reading up on some of the tech sites.
Multitasking – This has been solved with software, although the new processor will greatly help this. As the owner of of a non multitasking iPhone 3, that have been several occasions where I wanted multi-tasking.
Cameras – A logical addition that should have been on the first iPad. The new unit has front and read facing cameras. I think the front camera is going to be used by far more people using Facetime.
Flash plugin – Still not available and likely not to appear anytime soon as Steve Jobs has said it will not be on the device. More and more sites are going to html5 and if one needs flash there are ways to do it from what I understand.
iPad 2 is thinner and a bit lighter. One of the things I noticed about the original iPad is that it seemed a just a bit too heavy. This may be more of a personal thing but I’m not the only one I’ve heard say that.
One of my original concerns with the iPad was what role in would serve, in particular I wondered if it could replace a netbook. After having a chance to play with some friends iPad’s, I feel now it can be used in place as a netbook or laptop for most general purposes. if you want a laptop to do gaming or heavy coding then the iPad still is not the best choice.
Once the iPads start shipping to people it will be interesting to see what their reactions will be.
The tech community really made this a ho-hum announcement, most sites predicted the features almost exactly.
Are we as consumers expecting too much? A lot of people sounded disappointed when Apple didn’t announce anything shocking.
The new iPad is an improvement over the last model, but not enough to make me feel mine is obsolete. The only surprise from the announcement was the new screen protector. While it looks cool and protects what is most important (the screen), I personally wouldn’t just protect the front.
Thanks for commenting Jason, and excellent points. I think people have to expect something groundbreaking from apple everytime. Based on the chance to play with some iPad’s. If the original came out today I would be more inclined to purchase it. The feature that I like the most is the slightly reduced weight, but that is more a personal choice.