As usual, Apple has seemingly created a juggernaut as tablet competitors are already going back to the drawing board after the March 2nd announcement. But is all the media attention and strategic marketing enough to crown Apple the king of the tablets?
Maybe. Although they might have done enough to please the fanboys, I'm going to play devil's advocate and give you 6 good reasons why the iPad 2 sucks.
Screen Resolution
Rumors were flying left and right about the iPad 2 housing a Retina display, same as the iPhone. The iPad 2 will actually retain the same screen resolution from the iPad, so no upgrade there. With HD video recording capabilities and an iMovie.app, why wouldn't you want a nice, sharp screen to view your content?
Weak Cameras
Where's FaceTime HD? Apple's latest MacBook update added FacetimeHD, a High Def version of their popular video chat app. The rear camera on the new iPad says HD, but doesn't give megapixel count. There is also no LED flash. Apple mentions advanced backside illumination anyways for better low light shots, but I would prefer an LED flash.
Aging 3G Technology
We saw it with the iPhone. Apple tends to not jump on new wireless network technology. iPhone 3G came about a year after areas were seeing 3G speeds. The optimistic were hoping to see 4G LTE in the new iPad. But with battery life and reliability still questionable on the new technology, they decided to stick with the aging 3G technology. You could have at least built the hardware in and give users the option to upgrade at a later time, when 4G was in more markets, like the Motorola Xoom tablet
Still No Expandable Memory?
Some of the earlier iPad 2 rumors suggested it might have a Micro SD card slot for expandable, removable memory. Well we haven't seen it on a mobile Apple product yet. iPods, iPhones, and the iPad have all had SSD drives with no option to upgrade. Many, in fact all, of Apple's major smartphone and tablet competition house MicroSD card slots so it'll be interesting to see if they ever cave.
Still No I/O option?
We were hoping to see USB or even Thunderbolt (Apple's new lightning fast I/O) come to the iPad 2 but all we got was an HDMI chord. Which is nice, don't get me wrong, it just would have been nice to get an actual USB port to read jump drives, and attach cameras and other peripherals without the need for adapters and OS tweaks.
Still No Flash
Now there was nobody expecting this to change. Apple has made its beef with Adobe's dominant web platform, Flash, very public. In fact none of Apple's iDevices run Flash. But 80% of the 100 most visited websites use Flash. Although it hasn't seemed to affect sales at all, all of Apple's major competition in the tablet industry are Flash capable.
Now all that being said, I think Apple's new iPad will be very successful. In fact, I'll probably sell my original iPad on eBay and go and get the iPad 2. But I will only be paying $100 difference or so. If I had to shell out another $500 for the iPad 2, I wouldn't do it. This model doesn't have enough new features to justify spending that kind of money, again.
Do you think the iPad 2 sucks? If so, or if not, raise your voice by leaving a comment below.
