It’s a slow news day so that means I’m going to toss in some filler material. The current filler material is going to be speculation on Apple’s new iPad 2 which is going to be announced today at noon (for those in the central, and therefore only one that matters, time zone). I have a current generation iPad and like it quite a bit so some of this speculation is going to be wish list while other is just stuff I feel is rather no-duh.
First I don’t think we’re going to see a retina display on this thing. We may see a new higher resolution display but not nearly as high resolution as the current iPhone 4 screen. Why? Because it would cost too damned much money. The higher the pixel density that higher the cost when you talk screens.
There will likely be a GSM and CDMA iPad for those people who need the 3Gees on their tablets. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple had a single 3G model which worked on both Verizon and AT&T’s network, in fact that would make a lot of sense. Apple is a company that likes to have the bare minimum number of models available for each device. Having a separate AT&T and Verizon iPad 2 would be slightly confusing and it would make sense that Apple would rid themselves of the hassle.
Currently available cases for the iPad 2 almost guarantee a front and back camera. I’m betting the back mounted camera will be equal or just slightly better than the one found on the iPod Touch but will remain far less capable than the iPhone 4 camera. Likewise currently available cases point to a redesigned speaker grill.
We’re likely to see 512MB of RAM on this new device. Shocked? Didn’t think so. In fact a bump in RAM would sum up what I think the iPad 2 will be; an all around improved iPad with no real revolutionary features. I doubt we’ll see anything super ground breaking with the new iteration of the iPad simply because Apple’s style is to slowly increase the capabilities of their devices over time instead of make large jumps. I would be willing to bet money that we won’t see any 4G capabilities on the new iPad.