
Apple to Unveil IPad 2 on March 2 in San Francisco - ssclafani
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20110222/exclusive-apple-ipad-2-event-set-for-march-2/
======
mjfern
What I find stunning is that Apple is about to launch the iPad 2 and we are
still waiting for the first credible Android-based tablet, aside from the
Samsung Galaxy Tab. Note that the first iPad launched almost a year ago in
April of 2010.

Apple’s time-to-market in tablets has generated at least five key advantages
for the company:

1\. Apple has locked up the market for critical components, including 60% of
the global supply of 10” touch capacitive screens.

2\. The company is much further along the learning curve in tablets, with
refined hardware and software as well as more efficient production through its
partnership with Foxconn.

3\. Apple has achieved significant economies of scale to drive down per unit
costs, having already shipped and sold 15m+ iPads.

4\. The company has developed a sizable collection of complements in the form
of apps and content (via iTunes) and physical accessories.

5\. Apple has generated strong brand awareness around the iPad, given the
limited competition for consumer mind share in this market.

These aforementioned advantages build upon Apple’s already significant,
corporate advantages in the areas of technology, distribution (e.g., retail
stores), customer service, and overall brand recognition.

Credible Android-based tablets will arrive soon. For instance, the Motorola
Xoom is due to hit stores this Thursday. However, it may take some time
(measured in years) for competitors to catch up to Apple in this market.

~~~
guelo
If you are just counting announcements there are tons of android tablet
announcements, iPad 2's release could still be months away.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
The first gen iPad was announced on January 27, 2010. It was available on
April 3, 2010. That's 2 months between announcement and launch.

Apple could afford to release information that far in advance, because it
didn't replace an existing Apple product and there was no competition from
other vendors. This year, the situation is different. I'm willing to bet that
the second gen iPad will be available within 5 weeks of its announcement. (If
I'd have to guess, I'd say Saturday, April 2.)

~~~
cletus
I heard today that the first iPad required FCC approval so keeping it under
wraps was never going to happen. But that doesn't apply to the iPad 2.

I expect the iPad 2, if announced on March 2, to ship before the end of March.

~~~
masklinn
I expect the iPad 2, if announced on March 2, to ship on March 2.

Because that's the way Apple usually rolls.

~~~
smokey_the_bear
I doubt it will ship March 2. They haven't given a new beta OS to developers,
and they don't want all apps to be broken on launch day.

~~~
masklinn
What new beta OS? The iPad 2 would ship with iOS 4.3, iOS 5 will be released
this summer.

------
mortenjorck
Somewhere in Cupertino yesterday...

"Tim? Hey, problem. Bloomberg just put some nonsense out about slipping dates.
Getting traction."

"Ok. Get Mossberg on the phone."

~~~
brisance
While that was probably tongue-in-cheek and meant to be humorous, Walt
Mossberg is one of the more respected tech reviewers and is pretty clear on
his ethics policy, which you can read here.

<http://allthingsd.com/about/walt-mossberg/>

~~~
masklinn
Mossberg and a few others are pretty well known as "controlled leak" sources
for Apple: they're respected, they tend to not go for the crap/shock value,
and they're usually quite appreciated by Cupertino.

An Apple exec can pick up a phone and give Mossberg a few actual facts (a bit
hidden in the subtext of inquiring about his health, let's not be too overt),
I don't think there's anything in _that_ which would go against his ethics
policy. Though I may have missed that section.

------
scottkrager
So....who else held out on the first generation and is planning on buying? I'm
in.

~~~
ghc
I held out. As much as I like dead tree CS books, lugging relevant ones around
has become too much of a pain. Add to that the awesome offer from O'Reilly for
$5 ebook versions of books you already own, and the ipad becomes irresistible
to me.

I've just been holding out for a lighter version. I think the original ipad is
just a bit too heavy.

~~~
kylec
Do you have a link? I have a shelf of O'Reilly books that I'd love to get in
PDF form, but I'm having trouble finding that offer on the website.

~~~
AdamGibbins
<https://members.oreilly.com/account/register/index>

If you create an account, then go to that URL and enter the ISBN of your book
you're then given the option to upgrade it to an eBook for $4.99.

------
Synaesthesia
I'm curious to see how right the rumours are about the new design. From the
case designs which have leaked, the iPad 2 is significantly thinner, with two
cameras. I'm also expecting a dual core CPU and 1gb RAM, dual cameras, but no
"retina display".

If it really is as thin as rumoured I'm impressed.

~~~
pmjordan
I wonder how many apps in the app store that use multithreading will suddenly
break a lot more frequently because of the second core.[1] Rare, freak crashes
and glitches could suddenly become unusably frequent. Maybe all apps submitted
with SDK < 4.4 (or whatever) will be pinned to one CPU?

[1] most race conditions will only trigger on a uniprocessor system if
preempted, which is fairly unlikely if the racy data accesses are close
together.

~~~
Synaesthesia
I don't know that much about programming, but OS X has always supported SMP
and multi-core CPU's, and Cocoa also supports it fine.

~~~
jrockway
Right, but it's extremely difficult to get concurrency right at the
application level. Anything that works usually works by chance, and changing
the hardware that a multithreaded program runs on is a great way to find out
how you fucked up the implementation.

Right now, it's likely that a lot of bugs are not showing themselves
regularly, so nobody has bothered running any diagnostic tools (Helgrind,
etc.)

~~~
ecuzzillo
I agree with you that people are really bad at concurrency, but I disagree
that it's that hard once you get used to it.

Once you deal with one large deep difficult highly concurrent project, you get
used to the idea that when there are threads and mutexes involved you have to
think REALLY HARD about how it should work, and you can't rely on just trying
something and testing it like you can with normal code. And if you do that,
you can get threads to work pretty reliably, not just by chance.

~~~
jrockway
My thoughts on threads boil down to: they're a tool for library authors. Using
them in applications is ... misguided. Use an event loop instead.

------
daimyoyo
I have an iPad. I love my iPad. That said, it's too heavy. 1.5lbs is really
light when you have a laptop that you set down to use, but when you actually
hold the device whenever you're using it, that weight adds up. It needs a
better display. Please don't misunderstand me, the iPad has an amazing display
compared to what was available when it launched. When you hold an iPhone 3GS
up to an iPad the phone looks like it's using 16 bit EGA. But the galaxy tab
and the iPhone 4 have raised the bar for what consumers expect. Finally, it
needs at least a front facing and would benefit from two cameras. The new iPad
also needs FaceTime. Also, if apple were smart they'd add the same camera the
iPhone 4 uses to the rear. That would further lock up production capacity so
that competitors can't use the backlit camera technology in their stuff. I'll
be watching the keynote live if at all possible and I'll be following by
liveblog if not. Should be a great event.

~~~
ugh
What do you mean by a better display? Merely a higher resolution? The iPad’s
IPS panel is great and I personally hope that they don’t go with other
technologies. An increased resolution would be nice but unlikely.

~~~
zmmmmm
I'm always amazed that people think the iPad display is good. The text always
looks blurry and poorly antialiased to me which I attribute to the fact that
it has quite low DPI. Further to that the minute I walk out the door I can
barely see anything on the screen - it's just not bright enough. I love the
iPad in a few ways but the display is one of the things I dislike.

~~~
ugh
The iPad has the ppi of a 15" screen with a 1680x1050 resolution. No low ppi
count by any means. It uses the same non-subpixel antialiasing as OS X and
tests showed that it can get pretty bright and pretty black. Certainly no
worse than a laptop screen.

------
harold
The new iPad will probably be awesome. I have the original, but don't use it
as much after getting an 11" Macbook Air. I'll probably sit this one out.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Probably gonna make the first one look like ass ha ha

------
fierarul
It seems the iPad was released not too long ago so it's 'fun' that the current
iPads will have such a dive in value with the new iPad2 hitting the streets.

I know it's been released in April, but that's just in the US. It arrived in
the rest of the EU at the end of July (and I bought mine in September).

Of all things Apple could release more often, they pick the iPad...

As an iPad 1st gen owner I hope at least they would release some attachable
iSight camera for the iPad. Because video calling is about the only thing I
would want it to do in order to be a decent Skype station.

Personally I've found little value in the iPad. A pocketable iPod Touch is
perfect for light email reading, quick browsing, and Skype calls while a
Kindle is much nicer for book reading. Furthermore, these two added weigh less
than the iPad!

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aufreak3
On a side note, I wish articles would just say " _guessers_ expect the iPad 2
to be thinner ... blah blah" instead of _analysts_. I'm getting tired of
"analysts" who "predict" but play no role in the creation.

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kmfrk
_dcurtis_ has a link to what may be the iPad 2:
<http://blog.dustincurtis.com/photos-of-ipad-2>.

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kayoone
i am much more interested in the new Macbook Pro that are rumored to be
announced on Thursday. With an event a week later that now seems unlikely
though.

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DrHankPym
Of course this happens when I buy my parents an iPad for Christmas.

~~~
oscardelben
Don't worry, your first gen iPad will be perfectly fine and you'll continue to
do all the fascinating things that you're already doing with it. Do you change
your iPhone/macbook (if you have them) every time a new one comes out? I hope
not, and that's the same with the ipads.

------
p90x
The first iPad was a big iPhone 3, so this one will be a big iPhone 4. iPad 3
will be a big iPhone 5. Why mess with a successful model?

~~~
CoachRufus87
b/c the market demands it.

~~~
p90x
how do you know what the market demands? you know through sales. The market
liked a big iPhone 3, so it is reasonable to predict that they will like a big
iPhone 4.

Feature list:

\- front facing camera \- "retinal" display \- iPhone 4 style designing

~~~
epistasis
In the past couple years Apple has shown a much better ability at predicting
what the market demands than random internet commentators. I don't think their
thought process for the iPad was "big iPhone 3," as they changed many
applications. The iPad 2 may share many features with the iPhone 4 because
Apple now has the knowledge to execute those features and the technology is
now mature, but the reasoning wouldn't be to "make a bigger version of the
iPhone 4."

~~~
daimyoyo
Interestingly enough Steve has mentioned before that the iPad came first.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6--_Z4unLQ0>

