“Eleven months ago, Apple released the first iPad, a touchscreen handheld computer that redefined tablets, disrupting the laptop/desktop market just as the iPod did to music players and the iPhone did to smartphones. On Friday, 15 million iPads later, Apple released its successor, the iPad 2. Many people — myself included — predicted long lines and sell-outs, just like last year,” Michael deAgonia writes for Computerworld.
“So did Apple deliver?” deAgonia asks. “In a word, yes; more accurately: hell yes.”
“The first iPad wasn’t slow, even though competing devices (most announced without release dates) seemed to offer faster hardware. It has always been responsive, with minimal interface lag, if any. The iPad 2 takes this a step further,” deAgonia reports. “Featuring a new dual-core A5 chipset and double the memory (512MB instead of 256MB), everything feels faster, whether it’s app launching, data loading, switching between apps, rendering photo effects, or outputting projects in Garage Band. The speed boost affects everything. (While Apple hates dishing out specs, benchmarks indicate that not only is iPad 2 much faster than the first generation model, but it smokes the Motorola Xoom, as well.)”
“After a year of using that device, and speaking to other iPad owners… I have to say that the iPad may really be the closest thing to a perfect computer. I don’t say that lightly, either,” deAgonia writes. “If we were to define the Holy Grail of computing… it would be a device that can be pretty much anything to anyone — at home or at work — turn on instantly and operate day in and day out, without maintenance, fear of malware, or the need to troubleshoot. And it has to be portable, preferably held in a single hand. That, to me, is the Holy Grail of computing: a device not based around a checklist of hardware specs, but one that actually gets out of the way of doing stuff. Until the iPad arrived last year, such a device existed only in science fiction. The updated iPad 2, in concert with the App Store and a growing ecosystem of peripherals, completes the evolution. Compared to other tablets, it remains without rival.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Jai G.” for the heads up.]
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