So it came: iPad 2

[amirm]

Nicely done.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-31747_7-20038436-243.html?tag=TOCcarouselMain.0

"Apple also just makes damn fine products. Having had a few minutes with the iPad 2, I can say that it is every bit as stunning as the original. The first thing that struck me was the iPad's weight loss. It's still not Kindle thin, but the lighter design should make the e-book crowd happier and prove to be a distinct advantage over bulkier competitors, including the recent Motorola Xoom....."

 

[The Smokester]

So, in the face of this, I nevertheless got a Xoom on Sunday. I am largely guessing since I don't own an iPod but the Xoom seems to compare to the iPad 2 as follows (+ for Android/Xoom edge):

+ 4G, LTE high speed cellular (promised)
+ Flash animation (promised)
+ Multi tasking
+ Fully customizable home screens
+ Widgets
+ Multi platform sync
+ Cloud based, inter-user synching for productivity apps
+ Removeable memory (micro SD, promised)
+ External storage hosting (promised)
+ 1GB internal RAM (iPod unknown)
+ Standardized USB connectors (but charger is special)
+ Magnetic compass
+ WiFi hotspot
+ Higher Rez screen (1080 x 800 vs 1024 x 768)

- Thicker and heavier
- Color screen not as colorful
- No movies via services such as Netflix (lots of rumors)
- Minimal apps

 

[Steve Williams]

John, next time you are at my house, bring your Xoom and let's go head to head with my iPad (I assume you don't mean ipod)

 

[RBFC]

Surprisingly enough, Apple stock didn't take off with the announcement. Even Steve Jobs' appearance for the event was insufficient to cause the same market jump that several of their previous products launches have produced. Not that it's a bad product, or a weak revision of the Gen 1....

Lee

 

[amirm]

Stock issue may be due to the fact that unlike past releases, this one was fairly anticipated and expected. In other words, the sky high stock price had already included this development.

 

[RBFC]

It's interesting, since every evolution of the iPhone carried a stock jump with it. Perhaps the market is simply "adjusting" to Apple's continual innovation.

Lee

 

[JackD201]

Apple stock still up by close to 4% from the same time last year but market share for tablets expected to drop from 90% to 75% in terms of volume with the entry of Motorola, Samsung and others according to CEA smartbrief.

They are doing a heck of a job at social behavioral engineering through both soft and hard products constantly being the guys establishing early beach heads by dictating usage and not just reacting to trends. Reminds me of Disney in their "Imagineering" heyday. How long they can sustain that kind of drive before they slack off and sit on their laurels and take a defensive mindset is the big question.

 

[rblnr]

Jack --

Apple's up over 50% from this time last year.

This iPad iteration has been figured in to the stock price for awhile I think. And it was expected to be an evolutionary step, nothing major. Point of comparison is less about specs/feature list than functionality/ecosystem, etc. They'll definitely lose marketshare in the coming year, only way is down -- key will be volume vs. competitors. Interestingly, Apple has a price advantage (at their screensize) at the moment because of their economy of scale and massive component buying. This and next year will give the shape of the Android vs. iOS battle in the tablet market.

 

[The Smokester]

John, next time you are at my house, bring your Xoom and let's go head to head with my iPad (I assume you don't mean ipod)

Yes...Edited above to iPad 2. It would be interesting to actually compare them.They seem very even hardware wise. While not a lot is known about the iPad 2 SoC (other than it is "dual core and has nine-times more graphics power") it has been speculated that it is powered by two Cortex 9 CPU's just like the Xoom. (I think the original iPad had a Cortex A8.) The Xoom uses a Tegra-2 (T20/AP20H), 8-core GPU with 1GB DDR2. Not sure what the iPad 2 has yet but I wonder if the iPhone 5 will come out with dual core to match?

The main performance differences probably come from the software (os and apps), I suspect. What apps do you use so that we can see if there are matching apps for the Xoom? I'm using mine mainly for business and have the apps I need for that so far. No games so far.

Who's getting an iPad 2?

 

[Steve Williams]

I usually wIt for the second generation device and will upgrade mine then

 

[amirm]

I suspect Apple is using its own SoC as it did with the original iPad. ARM readily licenses cores to their customers so while 12 months is a very short time to re-spin a VLSI, it is possible that they did and used a dual-core engine that way.

 

[rblnr]

I'll be getting one. Held off on the first waiting for FaceTime, so I'm in now

 

[vinylphilemag]

I'm tempted--but the lack of a Retina display gives me pause...

 

[rblnr]

Heard the local Apple store had a line of a few hundred people last Friday which I was unwilling to wait in. Lucked out in that I figured going to the local Target for one might be under the radar -- showed up at 4:15 (5:00 launch) -- was told they had five, and I was #3 in line. Had exactly what I wanted too -- 32gig wifi.

I only briefly played around with the original iPad, so having the 2 is my intro to the device. It's an amazing piece of hardware: elegant, silly thin. Fun and intuitive to use, and the extra screenspace from the iphone for apps ranging from Mall to iPeng (squeezebox controller) is well used. People were carrying around 'lecterns', slates from which you could pull up all sorts of info, in a scifi novel about the colonization of Mars in the 22nd century I read long ago, this is it in the present. As an aside, I think the iPhone 4 is about the most amazing hardware design I've ever seen -- feels like a solid slab of glass for chrissake -- I'm a huge Apple fan for a number of reasons.

Interesting thing is where Apple's at with touch gestures among their products. An example -- on my Macbook w/a trackpad, a three finger swipe left (or right) will bring up the previous (or next if avail) web page. I expected this to work w/the iPad, but it does not. You have to touch the arrows in the upper left to navigate this way. So, iOS devices don't do this three finger swipe. Not enough real estate on the iPhone screen for that perhaps (though my laptop trackpad is only slightly larger), but highlights a dilemma for Apple on interfaces. I've become so fast and adept on using the trackpad on my Macbook that I bought a trackpad for my desktop to replace a mouse. Apple's usually good about interface consistency, but here you have to learn their choices -- your automatic responses based on their other devices don't necessarily work (although swiping works with the photo programs on all iOS devices). I've heard that they will be adding gestures to the iPad and perhaps phone/touch, we'll see.

 

[Jay_S]

My Macbook Pro's trackpad is perhaps the best thing about the computer. I bought the MBP because I liked other things about the design (not necessarily OS X) but I have to admit that the trackpad and its gestures are the most intuitive interface I've ever worked with. This is the first time I don't feel compelled to use a mouse with a laptop.