Cameras, Media Apps Among New Features in iPad 2

Apple announced the next generation of their iPad during a highly anticipated event on March 2, bringing features from the iPhone and the Mac, among others, to the company’s tablet.

Front and rear-facing cameras have made it to the iPad 2, which is perhaps the most anticipated feature for the tablet yet, as many felt the cameras should have been included in the original iPad. The cameras have the same resolution as those on the iPhone 4: VGA on the front and 720p on the back. They are designed with Apple’s video calling software FaceTime in mind, which also works on the newest iPod touches, the iPhone 4 and Macs. In future updates of third-party apps, we could see the iPad 2’s cameras used for apps like Skype as it is on Apple’s smaller devices.

As with the iPhone and iPod touch, the camera can also be used for the Camera app, which shoots HD video and images. A feature the iPad 2 brings to iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system, is Photo Booth which is a popular application installed on recent Macs. For those not familiar with Photo Booth, it lets people take pictures with simple filters such as face distortion or discolouring and save them to their device.

Other software announced was iMovie and GarageBand for iPad, both of which come from their Mac incarnations. iMovie has been on iPhone for a while now but has an updated interface for the iPad, particularly on the project selection screen which is designed to look like an old movie theatre. GarageBand is a bigger surprise, coming with many features from the Mac version. Touch Instruments are included so you can play drums or the keyboard with your fingers, a feature similar to what some other apps have brought to iPad in the past, but now included with the music editing software. Two other big features are Smart Instruments, which puts together chords you select to make bad musicians sound good, and the ability to record sound either through an electric instrument or the iPad microphone. Both should be released with the iPad for $4.99 on the App Store.

On the hardware front, Apple modified the hardware to be thinner and lighter, as they usually do. This should quell complaints about the weight of the iPad, although from my admittedly limited experience with the original, I never found it that heavy to begin with. The battery life has managed to be the same, but slightly dips if using the 3G on the cell-enabled iPad 2. The processor is a 1GHz dual-core Apple A5 for those interested in the power of the newer tablet, which runs twice as fast as the single-core Apple A4 in the previous iPad and has nine times the graphics power.

Apple didn’t just redesign the case but also the first-party accessories that can be bought with it. Instead of a case covering the whole tablet as was sold with the original iPad, the iPad 2 now has Smart Covers, which are covers that shield the front of the tablet and can be magnetically attached to its left side. It’s designed not only to function as a cover but as a compact stand of sorts. When the cover is folded back it forms a triangular prism, which can function as a stand for the iPad in landscape at a low angle for typing and interacting to a high angle for viewing. The Smart Covers are being released in pink, orange, green, blue and grey polyurethane as well as beige, tan, black, blue and red leather.

The other major Apple accessory for sale is their Digital AV Adapter, which connects to HDMI devices such as projectors and TVs. Since the output is up to 1080p (although it’s rumored to be upscaled 720p), the picture will be a lot clearer than it would be if you connected most other devices to your big screens. It also comes with another 30-pin connector slot on the adapter so you can charge it while having it connected to a display. The adapters currently on the Apple Store will still work in case the device you connect to has no HDMI port.

It appears Apple has brought the most wanted features to the iPad 2, which may make it more appealing to those who found the original lacking. The rumours of a Retina Display for the iPad and a Thunderbolt connection like that on the new MacBook Pros may not have come true, but there’s always a chance they will come in the next iterations. The Retina Display in particular is almost inevitable at some point. It would be nice to see it in either the next update or the one afterward, since it would have been expensive for the current iteration but seems expected. When comparing the screen to the iPhone 4, it looks pretty bad, so it would be nice to see some more comparable clarity. A 30-pin to Thunderbolt connection would be a nice feature since Intel and Apple are pushing Thunderbolt pretty heavily, and it would cut down on the awfully long transfer rates between computers and iOS devices.

Despite the new features, I still feel iffy about buying one, and that’s a bad sign. I can’t quite place what other things would make it more desirable, but except for the screen, there’s nothing really groundbreaking about it. Every time a major Apple product comes out there’s something really cool that gets me and many others all excited about it, and keeps people excited for their products, but it feels like the iPad 2 was a simple hardware upgrade, with an iPad 3 coming soon.

If you’re looking forward to getting the iPad 2, it should be released on March 25 in Canada for $549 (March 11 for $499 in the US if you want to import one that badly) for the base model and more for higher-end models, which are the same prices the original iPad released at. The Canadian prices may change by the time the tablet is released, as these are based on statistical estimates in comparison to the confirmed US pricing. If you want to grab an original iPad for some reason, they’ve dropped the prices across the board by $130, so you can grab a 16 GB WiFi original iPad for $419. Full pricing options are available on Apple’s online store, with iPad 2 pricing and preorders going up in the weeks before. With the upgrades in the new model, perhaps 2011 will be, as Apple says, the “Year of the iPad 2”.