With Valentine’s Day just around and corner, finding that right gift that says “I love you” is not always so easy. For those looking to break with the traditional flowers and chocolate routine in favor of something a little savvier and more high-tech, Apple might just have the right gift — the new highly anticipated iPad 2.
Apple’s new iPad tablet is much more than just a fancy digital picture frame or oversized iTouch; it is by most accounts the latest in state-of-the-art computer tablets, capable of performing the functions of a laptop computer with much more style, ease, and comfort.
“The new iPad will be thinner and lighter than the first model,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Apple plans to sell and distribute its new iPad through AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest 3G cellphone networks.
The Journal explained the iPad’s potential to revolutionize the cellular market:
For mobile carriers, tablets like the iPad present a new revenue source. “Tablets are an important growth opportunity for wireless operators who are looking for new ways to drive data revenue,” said Dan Hays, a partner with the consulting firm PRTM, adding that Sprint and T-Mobile could be significantly hurt again by being shut out from the market leading device.
According to ITWire, the new iPad “will come in 3 versions — one with Wi-Fi only, the next with Wi-Fi, GPS and a 3G/UMTS chip, and the third new version is expected to be one that offers Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G/UMTS and CDMA, thus delivering Verizon compatibility in the iPad without external CDMA/Wi-Fi modems being required.”
In addition to features for viewing and snapping photos, watching movies, playing videogames and reading eBooks, the new iPad, according to Apple, includes the following features:
- YouTube HD
- GPS road map
- half an inch thin, weighing at one and half pounds
- a 9.7-inch wide IPS display, which provides for increased high definition viewing angles
- a full capacitive multi-touch system
- 1 GHz Apple A4 processor chip
- a flash storage device ranging from either 16 GB to 64 GB
- a built-in WiFi 802.11n for high-speed wireless Internet
- a built-in Bluetooth 2.1 that includes EDR for faster data transfer
- an accelerometer and compass
- a high-quality speaker and microphone with 30-pin connector
- a batter life of up to 10 hours
Some featured applications will include:
- all of the apps already available on the iPhone and iTouch
- the App Store, allowing users to purchase and download additional apps and services
- an eBook app called iBooks, which will essentially double the iPad as an eBook reader like the Kindle or Nook
- iWork, which will give users the convenience to do their work from the tables such as creating spread sheets, word documents, slide presentations as well as e-mail to import/export files
With an application such as the iWork, individuals in the academic, business, corporate, legal, and/or other parts of the professional world will able to use the new iPad to do assignments for their jobs.
This all sounds great — but one might ask, “What of those in the medical world?” Fortunately, there’s an app for that too.
Katherine Hobson of the Wall Street Journal reports that the “FDA recently cleared a radiology app for the iPhone and iPad that will let physicians view medical images including MRI, CT and PET scans.”
Although this is meant to serve only as a backup to lack of access to a full medical workstation, it could prove beneficial to various doctors and dentists across the country, streamlining their work much more effectively — to both their benefit and that of their patients.
Overall, if the new iPad lives up to its stated full potential, then it may just come to replace the Swiss army knife as the multi-task gadget that can do almost anything. But don’t throw away that knife just yet, as Apple has still to develop a screwdriver and switchblade app.
At least in the realm of mobile digital computer technology, the iPad would seem to blow its competition away.
After explaining a list of four possible scenarios that other companies could pursue, the Mac Observer, an independent online publication, concluded: “Apple’s iPad competitors are s****ed.”
For now Apple has the market cornered with the iPad.
At the moment there is no other company with the recognition, skill, and time-tested quality of Apple that could possibly come close to developing a smart tablet just as good or better. The cost and risks of undertaking such a feat are just too high, and in this day and age of recession, most companies are less likely to spend their money for research and development —– after all, it’s never a wise business decision to fix something if it is not broken.
