The presentation in San Francisco is still winding down, but Apple have today taken the wraps off the next generation of their uber-successful tablet. The specs of the iPad 2 line up pretty nicely with all the leaks that have littered the blogosphere in the past couple of weeks, with a couple of noticeable omissions.
The two most radical rumours – those of an SD Card reader, high-speed connectivity through Intel’s new Light Peak (now named Thunderbolt) protocol, and a high-resolution Retina Display, have all been debunked, with the newest model proving to be more of an incremental update than a full-blown redesign.
The updated slate is 33% thinner than the previous model, clocking in at a ridiculously-slim 8.8mm (that’s thinner even than the iPhone 4), and feature’s Apple’s answer to the Tegra platform, the A5 – a dual-core, more powerful successor to the current iPad’s A4 processor. The rumours of front and rear cameras proved true, so now iPad owners will be able to join in the FaceTime party. It comes with either black or white bezels, and the new model is due to hit store shelves on March 11th.
Steve Jobs made a surprise appearance at the event, and was greeted with the kind of reception usually reserved for returning war heroes. The Apple CEO is, of course, on a medical leave of absence, however told the assembled media, “”We’ve been working on this product for awhile, and I didn’t want to miss it.”.
Apple also poked fun at its competitors, claiming over 90% market share in the tablet space, and announcing that the iPad had sold more units than all other previous tablet computers combined, to make 2010 the “Year of the iPad”, and cheekily name-checked Google, HP, Motorola, Blackberry and Samsung on a slide reading “2011 – Yeah of the copycats?” – the irony there of course being that Microsoft has been pushing tablets for nigh on ten years.
Apple also demoed some new Apps designed specifically for the iPad, namely iMovie and GarageBand, which will hit the App Store on the same day the devices is released for $4.99 apiece.
Image via Engadget
