iPad 2 thinner than iPhone 4, has multiple cameras, on sale March 11
Will Brinson
Welp, the iPad 2 is here — Steve Jobs just dropped the news at Apple’s event, which, considering his health, was a surprise in and of itself.
Let’s get right to it though — the iPad 2 is going to be slimmer, sleeker, chock-ful of cool little things that will make you go “Oooooooh!”
Oh, and it’s shipping THIS MONTH.
That’s kind of unheard of for a newly released Apple product, but, hey, we’ll take it.
In terms of what you’ll be getting, well, it’s going to be thinner than the iPhone 4, which is kind of astounding — it’s a 33 percent decrease from the previous iPad. For those of you with really tiny measuring sticks, that’s 8.8 mm.
Yes, it’s absurdly thin.
As a result, the iPad 2 is also lighter — it’s going from 1.5 pounds to 1.3 pounds. And
It’s also going to work on both Verizon and AT&T, so that’s a nice bonus for the folks out there who are willing to spend the money for 3G service.
Price-wise, nothing’s going to change from the current structure that you see in Apple stores — the standard Wi-Fi-only model is either $499, $599, and $699 depending on many gigabytes (16, 32 or 64, respectively) you want to pay for, and the 3G will cost $629, $729, and $829 with the obvious caveat that you have to pay for data monthly.
Now here’s something really dope: the iPad 2 will come with its own cover. And it’s one that uses MAGNETS.
Basically, the cover auto-aligns (so sayeth Steve Jobs), tells the iPad 2 to auto-sleep and cleans the freaking screen. Yes, they are hoping that the iPad 3 will offer a fully functioning robotic vagina.
But here’s the best part: the screen cover also rolls back and turns into a stand for the iPad. Sa-woon.
Tech-wise, this thing is going to be faster (duh) while still maintaining the original iPad’s unholy battery life. There’s a way to plug in an HDMI cable, which is fan-freaking-tastic, even though it’ll cost $39 extra. With this cord, yes, you can plug your iPad into a television and operate it. While it charges.
App-wise, there’s some pretty sweet f’ing stuff attached to this. iMovie is just $4.99 (!) and, based on what Engadget posted from Jobs’ demonstration, it appears you can do some quite nice stuff with it, particularly when it comes to sharing. YouTube, Vimeo, et al are all available and all available quickly.
Of course, it probably won’t hurt that it comes with TWO CAMERAS. One’s for FaceTime chatting, which sounds like the best thing on the planet when you consider that you could call into a conference call from your iPad and/or have a Skype conversation with someone in another country (one would assume) without having to take up valuable desktop computer space.
Garageband will come with “touch” instruments, which sounds more like a “4-year-old slapping a set of piano keys” thing, but based on some of the photo action at the various instruments getting worked on, it’s actually pretty spectacular.
So, to make an already fairly brief iPad 2 post even more succinct: you want this. It’s awesome, and it’s got — just like the iPhone — WAY more functionality than it’s earlier rendition. Yeah, it’s expensive, and yeah, you should probably hesitate on buying one if a) you just purchased a regular iPad or b) aren’t flush with cash right now or c) have a birthday/etc coming up.
But there’s no question that it’s a cool little toy and, quite possibly in the second iteration, an even more functional piece of gadget-y equipment.
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