Those alleged delays were just rumours after all. Yesterday a gaunt Steve Jobs took to the stage to unveil the iPad 2. It's thinner, more powerful and lighter than its predecessor. By Leila Makki.
Apple has had a huge head-start on the competition as it released the iPad last April. Subsequently, it remains the dominant player in this growing market. And whilst some rivals have begun producing competitive tablets like the Motorola Xoom - many, like the Blackberry Playbook announced back in September, have not yet been released.
Apple has upped the stakes again by launching the iPad 2 a month earlier than its annual product cycle. Steve Jobs said the iPad 2 will begin shipping as early as March 11 in the US and March 25 in other markets including the UK, France, Germany and Japan.
At least some of the rumours were true on the hardware front - the iPad 2 is sleeker, thinner, and lighter. It is a third thinner then it’s predecessor and even thinner then the iPhone 4.
It weights only 1.35 pounds, making it the lightest 10-inch-screen tablet.
The iPad 2 features a Apple A5 dual-core 1GHz processor and 9x more graphics. Other new features included a VGA front facing camera for Facetime and an unspecified megapixel rear facing camera that records 720p HD.
There’s also an HDMI socket and 64GB of on-board memory and comes with a new version of iOS. However, it still has a 9.7 inch display as the original iPad and the same 1024-by-768-pixel resolution.
Whilst the iPhone 4 in ‘white’ has had severe production delays, Steve Jobs promised that the iPad 2 will be available in ‘white’ and ‘black’ from launch and will cost the same as the original iPad starting at $499 for the WiFi model.
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