The invitations have been sent, the banners are flying at Yerba Buena and all that remains now is to see what Apple has on deck for us come Wednesday, March 2 at a special media event that will is expected to reveal the first sequel to the company’s market-leading iPad.
Can you feel the buzz in the air? Wednesday, March 2 is now less than 48 hours away, when Apple will again take the stage at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, presumably to take the wraps off the second generation iPad.
On February 23, Cupertino sent invitations to the media touting, “Come see what 2011 will be the year of,” with the March 2 calendar icon peeled back to reveal the upper right-hand corner of the iPad (the same image seen above). In addition to scouring the internet to find the latest scuttlebutt on Wednesday’s event, we’ve got a few ideas of our own -- so read on!
There’s been a great deal of controversy over what exactly Apple will do with the next iPad. After a wave of early reports claiming the iPad 2 would gain a Retina Display-style screen and other goodies such as an SD card slot, others contradicted such lofty dreams by claiming that the iPad being unveiled this week may actually be more like “iPad 1.5” -- more of an evolutionary step forward, rather than revolutionary. (Think iPhone 3G to iPhone 3GS, rather than 3G to iPhone 4.)
While many may be disappointed if Apple doesn’t “shock and awe” with the next iPad, the reality is that the company’s tablet is leading the market by such a wide margin at this point, Cupertino can still afford to coast a little bit -- at least until September, when the rumor mill claims we’ll likely see a more spectacular iPad 2 with the bells and whistles that make us all swoon.
And what of that onslaught of tablet rivals that threatens to usurp Apple’s reign? Both HP and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion have mostly shown their 2011 hand already with their respective TouchPad and PlayBook, neither of which are expected to hit customers’ hands for months (not to mention that RIM has actually announced three versions but has yet to ship a single one of them).
Meanwhile, the Motorola XOOM hit stores last Thursday with the latest tablet-optimized Android 3.0 Honeycomb and has nabbed decent reviews as a worthy iPad rival -- for second place. Even All Things Digital’s Walt Mossberg cautioned prospective buyers to wait and see what Apple unveils this week before buying.
So unicorn dreams of a Retina Display-equipped iPad 2 this week aside, what can we realistically hope to expect? The general consensus is faster, thinner, (maybe) lighter and probably packing at least one front-facing camera to enable FaceTime chat with others on the iPhone 4, iPod touch and Mac.
Most everyone with an opinion on the subject anticipates that the next iPad will go on a diet, meaning not only a thinner frame but also shedding a bit of weight in the process. Many critics seem to feel that the existing iPad is a bit too heavy for holding it with one hand compared to the Amazon Kindle, so we suspect that Apple will find a way to address this without completely bending the laws of physics.
The iPad’s innards will also get an update, presumably with a faster processor (what Engadget and others are calling the “A5”) and most definitely extra RAM, at least a bump to 512MB -- you may have noticed the iPad feels a bit creaky at times after going from iOS 3.1.3 to iOS 4.2.1, and double the RAM on top of a processor speed bump would certainly take care of that problem.
FaceTime is also a very good bet, after images have leaked out showing the familiar app icon running on the iPad and a number of hardware leaks showing at least a front-facing camera -- though we figure Apple may not stop there and the next iPad will also come packing a camera on the back as well, in keeping with the current trends for many Android tablets now.
Most of us are also expecting the second-generation iPad to come in as many as three varieties -- the cheaper Wi-Fi only option, one packing AT&T GSM-based 3G and potentially another with Verizon CDMA-based 3G. One of the more exciting rumors is that Apple will use a Qualcomm chipset in order to offer one unified 3G model capable of using either GSM or CDMA antennas, giving customers their choice of network depending on where they’re located -- perfect for users who live in remote areas where AT&T 3G service is missing in action, but who want to retain the option for Ma Bell’s faster network, when available.
Verizon CEO Dan Mead told The Wall Street Journal late last week that Apple will be making inroads with 4G LTE in the future, creating some speculation that Cupertino may incorporate the technology into the iPad first. "They understand the value proposition of LTE and I feel very confident that they are going to be a part of it,” Mead claims. Our gut feeling is we’d love it, but it smacks of something a true iPad 2 would feature later in the year.
Early Monday, 9to5Mac broke the news that it had acquired a leaked bezel frame from what’s presumably an iPad followup, and to everyone’s surprise, it’s white and not black. That’s right -- even though Apple has yet to make a white iPhone 4 available to the public, it would appear that they may unveil the new iPad this week with your choice of either black or white, at least for the front bezel.
Perhaps the best iPad-related news for this week comes from AppleInsider, who posted late Friday that Apple may surprise everyone with “near immediate availability” of this week’s iPad, possibly accepting orders immediately after the media event at 10am PST for delivery as early as Friday, March 4. That would likely make us forget all about the long wait for the 3G-enabled iPad last year, which was delayed a month after the rollout of the Wi-Fi only model.
Despite the fact that many of Apple’s tablet competitors appear to be going in the opposite direction rather than matching Cupertino on price (for example, the $799 Motorola XOOM), the iPad maker might play a trump card by shaving a few bucks off the next edition, further widening the gap between them and their rivals.
While Apple was universally praised for the iPad’s $499 entry price last year (a bargain compared to many of the company’s higher-ticket items), the reality is that’s still a lot of cash for the average family in today’s economy. Assuming it was feasible to do, a price cut of $50-100 for the base model would go a long way toward further cementing the iPad as “the” tablet to own, while keeping the price high enough to differentiate it from low-cost Android competitors at the bottom rung of the ladder.
Remember those iPad 2 case leaks that showed a slot for an extra hardware port? Everyone rightfully assumed that the next iPad would be gaining either an SD card slot or maybe a direct USB hookup, but with last week’s introduction of Intel’s Thunderbolt (formerly Light Peak) data connection on the new MacBook Pros, those early rumors might be worth revisiting from a new angle.
Old school iPod owners may recall that the original iPod featured a FireWire interface, which was soon replaced by a dock connector with USB 2.0 as part of Apple’s initiative to broaden their market beyond only Mac owners. Flash-forward to today, and even casual iOS device owners are pushing many times more data than ever before, with apps, movies, TV shows, podcasts, photos, books and yes, music all part of the mix.
Thunderbolt to the rescue! Now that Apple has adopted Intel’s dual-channel data port capable of up to 10 gigabits per second transfer rate from each pipe, it may be time for Cupertino to add them to the iPad -- enabling video from the Mini DisplayPort and very, very fast data transfers to and from the computer.
The only question that remains is, will Apple somehow implement Thunderbolt into the dock connector and use a Mini DisplayPort dock cable, or simply add an additional port to the unit? However, given that only a small section of potential users can take advantage of Thunderbolt right now, we’d say this feature might be more likely for a “true” iPad 2 later this year.
Engadget claims that the other big story for Wednesday’s media event will be a preview of the next generation of iOS. Before you get excited, they’re also claiming that iOS 5 won’t land on our devices until the fifth iPhone hits in June -- but Apple is widely expected to tide us over with an official release of iOS 4.3 this week in the meantime.
There’s no real clues as to what Apple may introduce with iOS 5, but given that the company has squashed most of the criticism lobbed at them over the course of the last few versions, there’s one glaring area yet to be resolved -- notifications. Anyone who has used an Android or webOS device knows that Apple is way behind the curve in this area.
One thing you can say about Apple, though -- they know how to catch up and make people forget those dark days when these features were nonexistent or badly implemented. Anybody remember all the complaining about the lack of copy and paste on the iPhone?
iPad speculation aside, Apple has ignited rumors about imminent changes to their $99 per year MobileMe service as well, after announcing to retailers that the current boxed edition of the service has been end of life’ed as of February 24.
What can it mean? On the surface, it only means that Apple finally realizes the huge environmental waste they’ve created by selling a box that essentially contains a slip of paper with a printed code used to unlock the MobileMe service online, which can just as easily be done via e-mail or other methods.
Or, it could mean that longstanding rumors of the MobileMe service going free may finally come to fruition. Developers tearing into the new Mac OS X 10.7 Lion preview have discovered a revamped “Back to My Mac” service which appears to tie to your free Apple ID, rather than a MobileMe account. Given that MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” feature has already gone free for all device owners, it would appear that another exclusive MobileMe feature may soon follow -- leaving many longtime MobileMe customers wondering what exactly they’re paying for.
It’s hard to say if a revamped MobileMe will be part of this week’s offerings, but we’d be lying if we said the timing is just a tad on the coincidental side.
The only thing left now is waiting for Wednesday’s event to kick off at 10am PST -- and deciding if the next iPad will be worth your hard-earned cash (or credit).
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
(Images courtesy of Engadget, 9to5Mac, The Loop, CyberBuzz and iainkilpatrick.wordpress.com)
