Apple iPad 2 Released – What Is Next?

Steve Jobs is already convinced that 2011 will be the year of iPad 2, just like, he showed in the slide shows along the way, that 2010 was the year of iPad (and it was, to a great extent, if not completely).

So, after watching iPad 2 release in Apple Event on Wednesday 2^nd March 2011 and learning what it brings us under the hood, many people are convinced about the same. Now… what happens next?

• I am still not sure if Steve Jobs has won the competition for 2011, there is plenty to see.

• iPad 2 lacks 4G like many tablets and pads. The only tablet that is scheduled for a 4G upgrade is Motorola Xoom and that will take quite some time, around June 2011, but nonetheless it is there.

• Other developers, who have not launched their pads and tablets will wait and see how things go along with iPad 2. I agree that iPad is light; I mean seriously, it is just 1.3 pounds, that’s like holding a Wallstreet Magazine with so much power in it. So… is it possible to top that? Well, Apple did top themselves by making iPad 2 even slimmer and faster. So, HP and Blackberry (Toshiba and Sony as well) will have to do something extra.

• HP has announced their WebOS based tablet, but there is still no news on when it will be available for the market. Then there is RIM’s Playbook, which is bound to bring some Business sort of proposal for busy folks. Email tethering is one thing that RIM is agreeing on having inside Playbook. The name is, however, unsuitable because Playbook isn’t going to be like a stretched out version of PSP or something. Even then, they will change it like HTC ChaCha (which became ChaChaCha) and Xoom after somebody files a petition for using a name that doesn’t justifies itself, man there are a lot of these folks.

• iPad 2 has dedicated graphics chip, Quartz, to process graphical data and is claimed to be 9 times stronger than iPad, which was clearly amazing with games and apps (regarding user interface). On the other hand, we have Nvidia to power up graphical processing inside LG Optimus Pad and Toshiba’s rumored pad or tablet, both are under development. So, we have only iPad 2 with dedicated graphics chip and we already know how developers love to create apps for iOS than other operating systems (Android, Windows, etc.).

• From the apps marketplace point, Apple indicated 65,000 apps for iPad 2 (iOS 4.3 compatible), 100 for Android (2.1 and later) and 0 for others. The stats are enough to make a decision when you have a craze to do several things with several apps. These apps (65K) are certified and checked for malware by Apple, so I assume they are safe and I don’t have a problem with that.

• As for third party apps, we might be looking at more than a million this year, so Apple might (and should) run a check on their TOS as well.

• Steve Jobs kept pointing that iPad 2 is well priced in comparison to other “Copycats”, who were way too overpriced for what they offered. We will agree to this statement once we hear the price for preorder with the contract, till then, hard luck Steve, you will have to wait for smiling faces on your iPad 2 sales graph.

What is remaining at this point?

There is just one thing that is still uncertain, who will bring iPad 2 first in the market? Verizon, Sprint, AT&T (highly unlikely), etc., and what would they add as goodies from their sides. So, let’s wait and watch, and earn and grab.