
iPad 2 wasn't Apple's big March 2nd announcement - rkudeshi
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/iPad-2-wasnt-Apples-big-March-2nd-announcement/1299175274
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flyosity
Great article with a unique viewpoint. Tech blogs, geeks like us and pundits
are obsessing over RAM and minute details of the spec sheet while consumers
will be playing with the new software, trying on Smart Covers and imagining an
iPad 2 as a fashion accessory.

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rkudeshi
His 3rd point, regarding color, is to me one of the most compelling reasons
Apple maintains such a large market share of portable products over time. No
one likes to own the exact same thing everyone else has and so by using color
to differentiate, consumers can still feel unique when purchasing mass-
produced items.

Has any other company used color in such a way? (the only example that comes
to my mind is the original Pokemon games)

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jonknee
> Has any other company used color in such a way? (the only example that comes
> to my mind is the original Pokemon games)

Nintendo seems to, I have seen their DS units in a lot of colors. Related to
Apple and the iPod, SanDisk offers the Sansa in a range of colors. It can be a
challenge though, as Apple showed with the mythical white iPhone 4.

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hnhg
The Gamecube was also released in a range of colours.
[http://www.gamecubeconsole.info/wp-
content/uploads/2010/07/G...](http://www.gamecubeconsole.info/wp-
content/uploads/2010/07/GameCube-Console-colors.jpg)

~~~
mambodog
Nintendo has been doing this kind of individualisation-through-colours for a
long while in both their hand-helds[1] and consoles[2].

[1] [http://www.dijitalfix.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2009/04/ga...](http://www.dijitalfix.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2009/04/gameboy02.jpeg)

[2]
[http://www.oldskool.tv/images/OLDSKOOL/november/nintendo_64_...](http://www.oldskool.tv/images/OLDSKOOL/november/nintendo_64_image.jpg)

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aufreak3
Absolutely spot on! Around the time the iPad1 launched, I told one of my close
friends "imagine GarageBand on this!" and it is absolutely thrilling to see
such a lovely implementation come to the iPad2. Using the accelerometer to
detect the force with which you hit the piano keys is really clever!

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krig
I just watched the video from the event, and as someone who likes to record
music once in a while, Garageband looks completely amazing. As it is, most of
the time when I have spare time to spend on making songs I'm not around all
the equipment that I need to do that. If it holds up to the promise of the
video, it looks like I can go on vacation and just bring the ipad and a
guitar, and I can record full song ideas with basic drumming, chords and
singing parts, arrange different parts etc.

This looks like it'll be huge for song writers, really. Sure, an acoustic
guitar and a simple four-track recorder does the same basic thing, but this is
like a mini pro tools. Can't wait to play with it.

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ranebo
I agree it looks stellar. But as a developer of songwriting applications ( I
believe the "Smart Instruments" are a basic implementation of our ideas ) my
heart dropped when I saw the price. $4.99 for this amount of content is
amazing, but also impossible for smaller devs to compete with head on.

With that in mind I hope shortly after release Apple publishes some sort of
easy way to export directly to Garage Band so that more niche products can
ride the coat tails.

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jodrellblank
Speaking of Apple polish, why is the cover choice between "leather" (luxury
car seats, fashionable gloves, sexy clothing) and "polyurethane" (chemical
plant, medical inspection, man made, dystopia).

Why haven't they given it a pleasing, desirable, luxury name?

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mambodog
People who want a COLOURFUL!!! case don't really care what the material is
called. It's colourful! People who want the leather case care very much that
it is leather.

Similarly people buying the white Macbook don't care what 'polycarbonate'
means, but to the Macbook Pro buyer, 'precision aluminium unibody', 'edge-to-
edge glass' and previously 'titanium' are/were selling points.

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AngeloAnolin
No offense intended, but my first impression on the headline was that it was
probably announcing that Steve Jobs health concerns are concerns no more,
after he presided over the launch. That to me is a big announcement
considering that a lot of investors and apple product loyalists have a sense
of urgency when it comes the apple chief's health.

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brudgers
> _"One measure of the suite's success is journalism school."_

Journalism and other departments within US universities push Apple products
because of the high profits those schools earn on Macs and iPods sold through
on campus bookstores to incoming freshman using their student (and parental)
loans.

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YooLi
Yes, it has to be that. It can't be that they are the best tool for the job.

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mirkules
Not sure why the gp got down voted, I think his point is valid, albeit wrong.
Student bookstores sell computers, hardware and software at a student discount
- my uni sold macbooks at a $100 discount from retail price. This stuff is
sold (or sometimes even given away) for the purpose of locking students into a
platform.

For example, my uni gave away ms software, like visual studio, to try to
encourage adoption, train the students to use ms tools (so when they graduate,
they are more likely to find a job using ms tools), and to thereby lock us
into their platform. It used to be Sun, then MS. Apple is now doing it, and
whoever comes after Apple will do it...

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ugh
I think pretty much every company on the planet has student discounts. It’s
nothing special, it’s nothing specific about Apple. (And it makes,
economically speaking, a lot of sense:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination>)

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mayukh
The biggest takeaway for me from the event was Steve Jobs

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jhen095
You got to take away Steve Jobs?!? :O :D

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brudgers
The new thinner lighter version.

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js4all
Great article. I never thought about the colors. I always chose black and
wondered about the other colors. Suddenly it all makes sense.

