Live at the iPad 2 event (It looks all white to me)

Attention Apple fans! Dean Putney is liveblogging Apple's press conference in San Francisco, where executives will soon announce the latest iPad. Expected are front and rear-facing cameras; hoped for is an ultra high-res display, technically unlikely as it may be. Watch the liveblog at boingboing.net/live. UPDATE - Highlights of the new iPad: • It's 33% thinner, 8.8mm thick, and has pointy edges instead of the bevel. What's the bet the iPhone 4 will lose it, too? • Dual-core A5 processors are "up to 2x faster." Graphics are "9x faster" ... it can run a 3x3 grid of streaming videos. • It'll weigh 1.3 pounds. Video cameras front and back. • Ships worldwide on March 25. Same prices, starting at just under $500. • It will be available in white. HDMI out, too, with an adapter. • Apple will offer a bizarre minimalist magnetic screen cover thing in polyurethane and leather. It folds off to become a stand. • iOS 4.3. Javascript is twice as fast. Personal hotspot. Still 3G.

• [mrgoldenbrown]

  Wake me when Steve decides I am old enough to decide which fart apps are tasteful enough and which are not. As long as he insists that he has such better taste in apps than me that I shouldn’t even be allowed to install apps he doesn’t like, I am unimpressed.

  • [arikol]

    wake me when absent father google ensures that apps don’t steal my Androidy data and do funky privilege escalation stuff..

    Pros and cons, I guess.
    I’ll be with the other little kids in the prettiest and most functional walled garden.

• [Vidya108]

  Still no stylus and annotating ability in iBooks?
  Capturing-the-academic-market fail.

  • [DrPretto]

    Maybe you need this:
    “HTC Unveils HTC FLYERâ„¢, The First Tablet
    With HTC SENSEâ„¢
    Aluminum unibody design with touch and pen interaction make HTC Flyer unique
    First tablet with HTC Watchâ„¢ video service, HTC Scribeâ„¢ Technology
    and OnLive® cloud gaming”
    http://www.htc.com/www/press.aspx?id=158016&lang=1033

    I know it’s not an iPad as you want, but at least it recognizes stylus:
    Look this video at 10:14 min
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbh2f-cjFhM&feature=player_embedded#at=620

• [Mr. Flibble]

  I don’t understand why everyone gets up in arms about a new apple update. I originally thought the iPad would be a flop, but given my profession as a consultant and my constant travel, I realized I would like to have one of these things too.

  I am typing this on a very high-end laptop. It has all the bells and whistles, therefore, the iPad 2 is on my buy list as it will fill in the gaps that this laptop does not.

  Those arguing about which technology is more fully buzzword compliant are probably missing the point around most of the people who are going to be buying the iPad 2.

  Most of them are not technogeeks (I am an exception). Most just want a device that does a few things, and does those few things really well. The iPad 2 qualifies in this regard. It must be easy to use (I can’t stand with technology getting in my way during my leisure time, I get paid to deal with bottlenecks).

  So, while I am prepared to be labled as a fanboi (I am not) I believe that this will do the same as the previous one, and sell like crazy. I want one myself, and I see no real tangeable advantage to things like the XOOM. (The XOOM may be fully buzzword compliant, but it is not as Fully Buzz word Compliant as the laptop I typing on now.)

  So, in the end, why do I want the iPad over the competition? Ease of use for my core applications.

• [zyodei]

  Doesn’t natively support USB? Doesn’t natively support SD/MiscroSD? That’s all I had to read. Next!

• [DrPretto]

  Very interesting updated comparison chart for tablets here:
  http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/02/ipad-2-vs-motorola-xoom-vs-hp-touchpad-vs-blackberry-playbook/

• [DrPretto]

  Why you should wait for iPad3?
  Look here:
  Apple Staffer: iPad 3 Is The One To “Make A Song & Dance About”
  http://www.cultofmac.com/apple-staffer-ipad-3-is-the-one-to-make-a-song-dance-about/84275

  This iPad2 obviously was intended to compete with the other current tablets with better specs than iPad1 and for new buyers.

  • [OrcOnTheEndOfMyFork]

    Why you should wait for iPad3?
    Look here:
    Apple Staffer: iPad 3 Is The One To “Make A Song & Dance About”
    http://www.cultofmac.com/apple-staffer-ipad-3-is-the-one-to-make-a-song-dance-about/84275

    This iPad2 obviously was intended to compete with the other current tablets with better specs than iPad1 and for new buyers.

    HA!

    I was just about to make a joke about waiting for what I assumed was a fictitious iPad3, too. Guess the joke is on all of us instead.

• [millie fink]

  “Live at the iPad 2 event (It looks all white)”

  Ha! I bet that event does look all white. Or about 99% or so.

  Nothing to see in that, though, right? Move along, folks, move along.

• [Daemon]

  Still far too limiting. I might get an ipod touch though. I’d already have one if the camera wasn’t so very, very inferior.

• [bobthecitizen]

  Your’e all so unhip.

  I’m saving up for the ipad4 release in several weeks, which will be the ultimate tech shiznit for the 6 days before the ipad5 comes out.

  Steve is pedobearing all of you, ol’ cancer boy has almost run out his body’s warranty and he wants to screw all you macophiles as much as possible before he dies.

• [johnnyaction]

  I couldn’t get the liveblog here to update. I kept getting a blank white screen that when viewed source just showed an iframe pointing to: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/994121/photos/index.html

  If I visit that dropbox page I can see the coverage but not by clicking on the link here. :/ So I went to engaget for their live bloggery

  browser 3.6.13 firefox mac

• [pfh]

  It’s like some hideous corporate mockery, like “we could make a wonderful device, but instead we want you to swallow this drab locked down abomination”. I don’t care about the technology in something you can’t really own. It’s simply uninteresting.

  • [Wally Ballou]

    Yep, I love all the roll your own, Maker Faire, open source supporters who will buy one of these – and then bitch because they have to keep jailbreaking it.

• [Rob Beschizza]

  It had a bug that stopped it working in FF and Chrome. Fixed now.

• [GregS]

  The new iPad looks great, except for one thing. Based on the photo at the top of this post, it appears to be about 15 feet tall, and that’s too awkward to carry around easily.

• [aelfscine]

  Any mention of the Company That Must Not Be Named and their animation-running Software that Doesn’t Exist No Really LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU?

  (Adobe Flash?)

  • [peterbruells]

    “Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped conjure up the stolen data tapes…”

• [Agies]

  Still more excited for the product that comes out two days later.

• [johnnyaction]

  The ipad3 will probably be quadcore this fall if they can keep pace with Nvidia which demo’d quad-core tegras “Kal-El” http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/02/nvidias-quad-core-tegra-kal-el-could-end-up-in-bizarro-world.ars

  The NVidia quad-core is promised in tablets sometime in August.

• [DrPretto]

  Nothing really new, just a minor incremental update, they didn’t even put in a better display (same as the original).
  Better wait for iPad3, I’m sure it will be really great, but not htis one.
  At this moment Motorola Xoom is better.

  • [Griefer]

    The Moto Xoom (is that pronounced exhume?) may have better technical specs, but thats not what sells these devices to the masses.

    It’s Apple’s App store that sets this tablet far, far ahead of the pack, along with the more attractive industrial design.

    • [DrPretto]

      Well, not exactly. Apps are very important, I agree. But why don’t you ask yourself who makes those apps?
      Developers? That’s right developers. The most important thing for any ecosystem are developers (apps don’t make for themselves). And believe me, this market is getting very interesting and competitive with different brands, with their respective OSs trying to bring developers aboard their platform.
      Google Android is making big, and intelligent efforts to that effect:
      GDC 2011 Google gives away free Motorola Xooms and Nexus S handsets
      http://www.knowyourmobile.com/blog/794351/gdc_2011_google_gives_away_free_motorola_xooms_and_nexus_s_handsets.html

      Now, the others (HP, Blackberry, Microsoft, etc…) all of them also want a piece of the cake (market), they know they really need developers.
      We consumers win in this war of technology, if there is a monopoly, there is no progress.

      • [Modano]

        Where are developers making money? Almost exclusively on Apple’s App Store. The others are indeed trying hard but at the end of the day, most developers are going where the customers are paying.

      • [hapa]

        “We consumers win in this war of technology, if there is a monopoly, there is no progress.”

        1. it’s not a war, it’s a race. you can tell this because nobody’s going to die. there’s lots of real wars on tv if you need to research the difference.

        2. it was never going to be a monopoly. the mobile tech sector is too profitable, with too many existing players.

        3. the ipad is now about the size of the larger kindle.

        4. i wish there were a way to boycott these tablets until ebooks were unlocked the way that mysterious librarian talked about.

        5. the dual-core ipad is officially faster at javascript than my 2005 desktop, for 1/10th the electricity.

        • [DrPretto]

          What a pointless comment, you wrote at #24.
          By the way I think Apple for sure looks at the other players as enemies, so obviously is not a bloody war, but a war for the market. Look at this and tell me:
          http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/02/ce-oh-no-he-didnt-steve-jobs-misquotes-samsung-asks-what-you/

        • [hapa]

          you cannot defeat my pointless fu.

• [SteveNZ]

  Will the other tablets please go away now? Apple appears to have this product category pretty well sewn up. It’s a moving target, people.

  • [Anonymous]

    Will the other tablets please go away now?

    I hope not. Competition spurs innovation. Are you really that much a fan of monopolies?