Noting that Apple has had an exceptional first year, Steve Jobs says that in 2011, Apple wants to build off the iPad’s success. Today they’re announcing the iPad 2.
So what’s new? Apple says, first of all, an all-new design. Not tweaked, brand spanking new and redesigned from the ground up.
First of all, as rumored, it’s faster. The iPad 2 will boast a dual-core A5 CPU running at 1.2GHZ.
Second, Apple has gone all out on the graphics, and are now offering up to 9x faster graphics performance.
At the same time, power efficiency remains the same, so you’ll get the same battery life.
All in all? Apple expects the iPad 2 to be the first dual core tablet to ship in volume.
While talking about the iPad’s success, Steve Jobs was happy to trash talk the competition, specifically those of Android makers.
Quoting Samsung VP Lee Young-hee,Jobs noted that the Galaxy Tab, the iPad’s most notable competition, only sold a small number of actual devices to end users.
As for the App Store, it’s currently got over 65,000 iPad-specific apps up for download. Android Honeycomb? Only 100.
Sure, it’s not a fair comparison: Honeycomb is barely out yet. Still, the message is clear: Apple is dominating.
Steve Jobs has started addressing the crowd about the iPad 2.
“Today we’re here to talk about Apple’s third post-PC blockbuster product. That’s how we think about these things. We started with the iPod, then we added the iPhone, and then the iPad. Every one has been a blockbuster,” he said.”
“When we said the iPad was magical, people laughed at us. But it’s turned out to be magical. And people questioned whether it was an ‘unbelievable’ price — well ask our competitors.”
Noting that the iPad has over 90% market share and has generated $9.5 billion in the nine months of 2010, the iPad is Apple’s biggest product to date, and maybe the most successful consumer product ever launched.
“We’ve just never had a product get off to this fast of a start,” Jobs said.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has just taken the stage at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco to kick off Apple’s March 2nd Event, which is rumored to see the introduction of a faster, lighter iPad 2 with FaceTime, the latest version of iOS, an overhaul of MobileMe and more.
It’s been rumored that Steve Jobs might make an appearance, but given his recent medical leave, the Apple boss’ distinctive presence at the show was far from a certainty. Although the man earned himself a break, his presence — ushered in with The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun” — is a delight.
“We’ve been working on this product for a while and I didn’t want to miss today,” said Steve, garnering a standing ovation from the audience.
I love my iPhone, but absolutely hate the headphones that came with it. To me they sound horrible and always fall out of my ear. I suppose if you had ears like Dr. Spock or a massive cranium with ear caverns to match they’d work fine. But if you a) Love music b) Prefer the feel of a customized fit opposed to a one size fits all approach and c) Demand a functional call/music control button, then the Thinksound TS02 + Mic are a must have accessory.
Even if you don’t have a need for an integrated headphone + mic, the folks at Thinksound have something for you too; you bluetoothed cyborgs, check out the TS02. And Sport-O’s peep out the TS01’s…
Why they’re good: Great sound, four different sized flexible silicon ear inserts for a secure fit and smart eco-friendly packaging.
Why they’re not so good: I was hard pressed to find something constructive… I’ve had my share of earphones over the years and these are by far my favs. A high-end sound at $89.99 MSRP
Check out the tech specs:
Wooden housing with 8mm drivers
Passive noise isolation (This really works, even in my noisy car!)
Lightweight (12g) with PVC free, tangle resistant cable
“Dynamic driver” features 20Hz – 20kHz frequency response
3.5mm gold plated plug
Cord clip and cotton carrying pouch
One (1) year warranty
Before writing this review, I spent about six weeks taking these headphones through the ringer in a variety of situations. They made the San Francisco Bay Area Transit and CALTrain actually enjoyable. On the phone in the car, they were clear and filtered out a lot of the road noise. While exercising on my indoor cycling trainer, the fit was comfortable and the inserts didn’t slide out of my ear once I got a little sweaty. And even while working remote at my home office or in a coffee shop, the mic and passive noise isolation worked perfectly. I also listened to a variety to music genres from Rock, Jazz, Pop (no Justin Beiber) and Classical and was very satisfied with the how well they were balanced across the frequency spectrum.
Recommendation: Check em out! The founders of Thinksound have a lot of experience in this space and will not disappoint. To find out more, check out: https://www.thinksound.com
This is a very tiny rumor, but in the silence before the storm, we have a few minutes to consider it: apparently, one still unpublicized hardware change in the iPad 2 is a new magnetic latch.
Way back in January, a reference to PAD_CASE_LOCK was found in the beta version of iOS 4.3, apparently a function that allows the iPad to automatically lock and unlock when you close the iPad cover. That seems pretty useful, except for the fact that the iPad seemingly doesn’t have any hardware that could make that feature work.
Now iLounge is reporting that the new iPad will be able of magnetically gripping the front flaps of folio-style cases. Not only will that make iPad cases more elegant, but iOS would know that when a lid was secured in the right position, the iPad would lock itself up tight.
Staggering genius? Not really, but it is one of those nice little touches that Apple is just so good at.
Excited for the iPad 2 today? Don’t be too excited, says iLounge: a well-informed source says not to expect the next iPad to ship for a minimum of two weeks, and more likely four.
The issue? Inventory: Apple just doesn’t have enough iPads to go around yet. A four week delay in delivering the iPad would put the launch date of the second-gen tablet at the very beginning of April… almost a year to the date of the original iPad.
In other words, a delay in releasing the iPad 2 will conform to Apple’s historic iOS upgrade cycle. At the very least, though, we should all be able to pre-order an iPad 2 today. I know I’ll certainly be. Who’ll be there pre-ordering with me?
You’re sitting there waiting for the iPad 2 to be announced. After waiting for months you’re chomping at the bit and know that you’re going to buy one even if you’re not totally sure what all of it’s features are gonna be. One thing to consider is how you’re going to pay for the upgrade. While you can certainly deal with the hassle of selling your old iPad on Craigslist or Ebay, you might want to consider using NextWorth.com to trade in your iPad for cash.
NextWorth, is offering high trade-in values for the first generation iPad to help subsidize the cost of an upgrade. Apple products tend to retain value more than other brands, and the iPad is no exception. Current trade-in values on NextWorth for iPads with Light Wear (as of 2/23/11) are:
iPad 16G Wifi: $255
iPad 32GB Wifi: $285
iPad 64GB Wifi: $310
iPad 16G Wifi + 3G: $298
iPad 32G wifi + 3G: $350
iPad 64GB Wifi + 3G: $390
One of the nice things about NextWorth is that they’re partnered with Target to offer an in-store trade-in option. With over 900 participating Target stores (and 500 being added in the next three months), consumers receive either credit toward a purchase, or a prepaid Target card for the value of the trade-in that can be used for any item sold at Target. Via the NextWorth.com website customers are given the options of cash or a giftcard when they trade-in. NextWorth also provides free, fully-insured UPS shipping service to all online customers.
If you’re looking for a quick way to come up with the cash for an iPad 2 their service is definitely worth a look. It’s a lot quicker than coordinating a sell yourself online, and in some cases they’re offering about 65% of the original value for the iPad during trade-in.
Ever wonder how blogs and websites decide whether to publish a juicy Apple rumor? Have you ever published a piece of gossip yourself? To help understand this delicate decision making process, Joy of Tech has published some helpful Apple Rumor Publishing Guidelines in the form of a easy-to-follow flowchart.
Gave me a good laugh – classic wisdom finely honed among rumorologists for decades! :)
Just ahead of Apple’s upcoming iPad 2 announcement, Random House has begun populating the iBooks Store with such titles as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. The news comes just after the larger publisher announced it had agreed to the Cupertino, Calif. company’s “agency model” for pricing e-books sold to iPad and iPhone owners.
Earlier this week, Random House said it had adopted Apple’s pricing method for e-books partially at the request of book stores hoping to sell more electronic books to support lagging sales of physical titles. The tech giant has required publishers to adopt the “agency model,” where booksellers receive a 30 percent cut. Some publishers had objected, instead preferring Amazon’s tactic of selling e-books at a loss, hoping the increased demand for electronic reading material would boost its Kindle e-reader.
As everyone awaits Apple’s announcement about the next-generation iPad, the Cupertino, Calif. company reportedly is gearing up to sell 6.5 million of both the new tablet and the initial product during the first quarter of 2011. The tech giant could ship 40 million of the popular devices during the full calendar year, the Wednesday report adds.
Possibly preparing for heavy demand and hoping to not repeat shortages seen for the first iPad, Apple has between 300,000 to 400,000 iPad 2 units for the initial San Francisco, Calif. launch, slated for today at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern. The company has reportedly already ordered between 1.7 million and 2 million iPads during the first two months of the year. Apple in March is expected to order more than 2 million of the iPad 2 devices.
The Griffin Survivor case for iPhone 4, which retails for $49.99 and works on all iPhone 4 models, is the latest rugged case leaping out of the gate running neck and neck for top dog with the likes of the Ballistic HC and many others. I was surprised to see another new case this late after the release of the iPhone 4 with the iPhone 5 just around the corner. However, it may be that the vendors know something we don’t. Perhaps the iPhone 5 will share the same dimensions as the iPhone 4 just like the iPhone 3G and 3GS.
Griffin labels the Survivor as “Armored Ready for Anything. ” I don’t think so and I’d like to explain why I say that.
This chunky silvery thing is an iKn2, a sturdy and secure case for iPad, built for those times when you might want to use one as a public kiosk device.
That was quick. Google appears to have already upgraded CultofMac.com in its search results, just a few days after downgrading us.
As we noted yesterday, Cult of Mac was collateral damage in Google’s war on crappy content farms. For some inexplicable reason, we got downgraded when Google tweaked its algorithms last Thursday.
But today we’re back in. We’re on Google News (a very important source of daily traffic) as well as Google’s general search results. However, we still get outranked by some of the scraper sites that steal our content, so not everything’s perfect.
Why we’ve been upgraded, I have no idea. Google’s head of spam, Matt Cutts, tweeted me yesterday, saying Google had likely seen my post and would get it resolved. And Wired.com published a story about us today after speaking to a Google Fellow Amit Singhal. But the changes were already in place early this morning, which makes me think Google is slowly tweaking its algorithm to get better results. I’ve asked Cutts for an explanation, and will post up if/when I get a reply.
I’d like to thank readers for your awesome support. We got some very nice notes in the comments to the last post. Made my day. Thanks guys.
If you’ve ever returned to your car to find that you’ve earned yourself a whopping great fine for running over on the meter, or parking too long in the same spot, Honkis here to help! Simply swipe the virtual parking meter to record how much time you’ve got to park and Honk will ensure you’re reminded when it’s nearly time to move your car. The app icon on your home screen will even display how much time you’ve got left minute-by-minute, so it’s easy to see at a quick glance. You can even use to Honk to remind yourself of where you parked by making handwritten notes, taking photos, and using your GPS location.
This one looks a bit fishy, but we’re throwing it out for fun. Amazon.de may have accidentally posted the specs and release date of the iPad 2.
According to the screenshot above, snapped YourAppleDaily.net, the iPad 2 available will have Thunderbolt, a camera and 1.2GHz CPU. And it will be released released on March 17.
Here’s the specs:
9.7-inch screen (same as the current iPad)
1.2GHz CPU
Wi-Fi
Thunderbolt
Camera
Bluetooth
Available 17 March
However, the link to Amazon.de provided by YourAppleDaily.net isn’t working (here’s the link), and a search of Amazon.de pulls up zip.
Reader Lovell just sent this very puzzling email regarding something new from Apple tomorrow regarding phones. He writes:
I had a friend go to apple today to purchase an iPhone 4. The salesmen talked her out of buying it and told her to come back tomorrow. Would not say what was coming out tomorrow but said she would be verry happy. I ask what it could be phone wise because she said I don’t want a white iPhone but yet the salesmen still wouldn’t say.
Lovell is in Lexington, Ky. I’m stumped. Anyone thinking it could be the rumored cheapo iPhone?
The Apple universe is all a twitter on the day before the Cupertino company tells media what “2011 will be the year of.”
The folks at bookmaker.com are wagering that we’ll see three versions of the iPad 2 (96%), a front and rear-facing camera and a non-smudge screen & gyroscope (96%).
Less likely, they speculate, are a USB port (83%), flat back (61.7%) and a 7-inch version (160%) . (Yep, that’s over 100%. For once, the fuzzy math isn’t mine, that’s how betting odds work).
Take our poll and let us know what you think. Or what you hope for.
As the fervor surrounding tomorrow’s big announcement builds, fanboys and fangirls are eagerly sitting around their computers gulping down all the latest iPad 2 rumors that the Internet has to offer. One of the popular rumors out there is that tomorrows iPad 2 unveiling will be a disappointing spec bump and that the real grand daddy of tablet computers, the iPad 3, will be unveiled later in the year (possibly in September if Gruber and others are correct).
Cult of Mac has published a number of articles supporting the idea that Apple will be releasing two iPads in 2011. While there have been a significant amount of doubters to this theory of two iPads being launched, one must take into account that such a move wouldn’t be completely unprecedented. I’m referring to the iPod Mini 2G vs. the iPod Nano in 2005.
This is the icon for a new section of the Finder in Lion (Apple’s latest update to OS X) called “All My Files.” It helps users find recently-used files, listing them by type, date and so on.
Look carefully. The file cards contain some of Steve Jobs’ best-known quotes, including the words to the famous “Think Different” commercial.
In replacing the Mini DisplayPort in the latest revision of the venerable MacBook Pro line, you can bet that Apple’s going to start rolling out Thunderbolt to all Macs with each new iteration of the line-up… starting, it seems, with the venerable white unibody MacBook.
We start March with two iPhone app deals and a MacBook bargain. First up is a new crop of free iPhone applications, including “3D Pool Master.” We then move onto “Slingo Supreme,” a free casino bingo game for the iPhone. We wrapup the spotlight deals with a 2.1GHz 13-inch Macbook for just $570.
Along the way, we also check out iPad cases and warranties, along with a $849 27-inch LED Cinema Display. As always, details on these and many other Mac items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
